Detroit’s a geographically spread out region. So running to your favorite restaurant to pick something up might be a bit of a chore — or time you just don’t have between shifts or when you know you’re going to have to stay late.
Now, food might just be a tap of an app away if you’re in the city of Detroit some of the more inner ring suburbs.
Today ride sharing company Uber announced that they’re launching their food delivery service UberEATS in Detroit. This is the 100th city that they have launched the service across the globe.
We grabbed a screenshot of the map that shows the service area goes as north as about Birmingham, west to Inkster Road, south to Allen Park, includes all of the Grosse Pointes, and parts of Warren.
There will be an event this morning at Dilla’s Donuts in downtown Detroit.
Some of the launch partner restaurants, from checking out the site ahead of time, include but are not limited to:
- Dilla’s Delights
- Olga’s (Multiple Locations)
- Andiamo (Multiple Locations)
- Hot Taco
- Kerby’s Koney Island (Multiple Locations)
- Joebar (Hazel Park)
- Pop’s For Italian (Ferndale)
- Rosie O’Grady’s (Ferndale)
- Park’s BBQ
- New Center Eatery
- Detroit Shrimp and Fish
- Good Cakes And Bakes
- Lily’s Seafood (Royal Oak)
They’re looking to expand the number of restaurant partners they have, as well as build up the number of drivers who get paid per delivery.
On average, UberEATS charges in other cities $5 an order to the customer as well as takes as much as 30% of the ticket price from the restaurant.
It’s all through the UberEATS app. Here’s what to do to try it.
- Download the free standalone UberEATS app for iOS or Android or head to ubereats.com
- Login with your Uber account
- Find a restaurant you know and love, and pick what you want from their menu
- Pay with your card on file
- Watch as the order is picked up and delivered to you
They’re offering a code to try it with free delivery on your first two orders with the promo code DETROITEATS in the app now through December 14.
Our Two Cents: Delivery services at scale are really tough to make work in Metro Detroit. There have been a lot of local startups that have failed to gain traction, whether it’s food delivery or dry cleaning or anything like that.
What often happens, from talking to and covering when apps from other cities come here, is that they find that Metro Detroit doesn’t have too many truly dense population areas that allow for a lot of deliveries in a small area. So the numbers end up having a hard time working like they would say in Chicago or Toronto.
There are local startups that serve very focused areas, and although there is GrubHub in town, it often just doesn’t have a depth of choices.
Uber has almost infinite money to throw at problems like this, so they might be able to make it work here.
