Uber Eats Working on New Dine-In Functionality

Uber is working on expanding its offerings. The company already allows users to get food delivered to their doorstep, and even pick-up food from restaurants. And soon, it will allow users to dine-in at restaurants.

TechCrunch reports that Uber is working on a new Dine-In option in Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, and San Diego in the United States. The new feature will allow users to order food at a restaurant, and then go eat at the restaurant at their preferred time. This will reduce the amount of time they have to wait for the food to be ready, which could be useful when they are in a rush.

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“We’re always thinking about new ways to enhance the Eats experience,” a Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch. The new feature doesn’t include any service fee or delivery fees, and restaurants get 100% of the tips left by users in-app. They can, of course, give the tips in real-life, too.

Uber Eats Dine-In also lets you schedule when you want to arrive at a restaurant, so the restaurant can prepare your food accordingly. You’ll even be notified when your order is prepared and is almost ready to be served which is pretty neat.

Uber has been aggressively testing new ways of reaching more customers with Uber Eats in recent times, and this is just a step towards that. Uber will probably even expand Eats into restaurant reservations from the looks of things, to be honest.

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Conversation 4 comments

  • stmorr82zw5zml

    Premium Member
    03 July, 2019 - 5:19 am

    <p>Bloody terrible idea. Heaven forbid you have to go somewhere and talk to a real human. All of these “time saver” app features aren’t going to get you familiar with your supposedly favourite cafe/ restaurant/ etc, or the staff there. I bet you the owner is never going to look and think, “oh, user 12345 is coming in/ getting food delivered. I’ll leave them the bottle of tequila on the table for them to help themselves to”, which is what I enjoyed on occasion at my old favourite Mexican restaurant. </p>

    • jgraebner

      Premium Member
      03 July, 2019 - 2:28 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#439401">In reply to stmorr82zw5zml:</a></em></blockquote><p>I expect this is mainly aimed at fast food (counter service) restaurants rather than restaurants with traditional table service. This makes more sense as a time-saver/convenience feature and would be likely to shorten lines. I would expect this is most likely a mobile-phone alternative to the touch-screen self-service ordering kiosks that have started to show up at most McDonald's and other similar restaurants.</p><p><br></p><p>Disney actually introduced a mobile ordering feature like this in their theme parks last year and it works extremely well. Basically, you use your phone to select what you want to order and pay via credit card. When you get to the restaurant, you click an "I'm here now" button to let them know to start preparing their order and then it sends a notification to the phone when it's ready for pick up from a designated "mobile order" window. </p><p><br></p><p>At the theme parks, you avoid the often long lines at the order counters and cashiers and can instead take care of ordering your lunch while waiting in line for a ride or other periods that would normally just be down time. I could see this working just as well for many other types of fast-food situations. It would probably be especially useful for grabbing food during a lunch break from work. One could order food from your desk before leaving the office or while riding over to the restaurant in a bus/cab/Uber. For some people, I could see a system like this make eating out during limited-length breaks much more feasible.</p>

  • Ron Wright

    03 July, 2019 - 8:44 pm

    <p>The obvious next step is to add an uber ride to ensure you make it to the restaurant on time and another to ensure you make it home safe after an evening of inebriation. </p>

  • Jorge Garcia

    05 July, 2019 - 10:41 pm

    <p>Humans have become so pathetic. Just go to the damn restaurant and order your food and wait. Don't make the poor people working in the hot kitchen now have to perform extra steps just to notify your snobby a** that you're food is "nearing completion". We really deserve to wiped off the face of the earth and replaced by reptiles.</p>

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