Uber adds lunch to its list of services in D.C. (from The Washington Post)
An Uber representative registers people on his smartphone during a citywide jobs tour in New York last month. (Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)
UberEats, Uber's on-demand food delivery service, launched in Washington on Tuesday. Lunchtime, according to Uber, is between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays; the D.C. delivery area stretches from Dupont Circle and Downtown to Capitol Hill. The food should arrive in 10 minutes or less, according to the UberEats Web site.
You can't be that choosy with UberEats, although there's enough there to satisfy most palettes. UberEats customers must choose from a set menu that Uber has worked out with a number of excellent restaurants. Tuesday's menu offered up three options: an Italian hoagie from Bub and Pop's, a Beatrix roll from Buredo or a plate of chicken tikka masala from Rasika.
If those options don't tickle your fancy, don't worry. Just try again later. This week, Uber is also offering options from Bread Furst, Taylor Gourmet, DGS Delicatessen, Sprinkles Cupcakes and more. You can sign up for daily or weekly e-mails from Uber to keep track of when a dish you may want slides into the rotation.
Dishes should generally cost between $8 and $12, according to Uber's Web site, though some cost as much as $15.
Sure, getting lunch from Uber means you don't get the same variety as you might from any of the other numerous food-delivery services. After all, you don't even get to see a menu. But that may be worth it to many people, if it means they can get a good meal for very little effort.
UberEats also offers service in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Austin, Barcelona, Toronto and Chicago. The company has said that it's seeing high demand for the service, though a report from the Wall Street Journal in June outlined some problems. That includes the fact that drivers often waste time looking for their customers — sometimes parked illegally at the curb. At least in some cases, the report said, drivers have to throw food away at the end of the day.
UberEats does offer some ordering features that would be nice to see elsewhere. Customers can even order multiple meals and split the bill using Uber's fare-splitting feature in the app.
