Now Uber does takeaways
Taxi firm revs up plan to dominate the food delivery industry with UberEATS app
American company will deliver freshly cooked grub to central London addresses in just half an hour
The drivers of London's iconic black cabs curse the day that Uber arrived on these shores.
Could the staff of food delivery startups like Hungry House, Deliveroo or Just Eat end up doing the same?
Uber users can now hail a takeaway as well as a taxi after the company introduced an app called UberEATS to the UK.
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The taxi app firm is launching its new service in central London, allowing users to have food delivered from nearby restaurants within 30 minutes via a dedicated app and website.
The capital is the second city in Europe to have access to UberEATS, which uses the same tracking features and cashless technology as the original Uber, to choose from the menus of an initial 150 restaurants in central London for delivery by bicycle and scooter messengers between 11am and 11pm.
The app shows an average of around 20 participating restaurants in the immediate area, their menus and photos of meals, and users can enter any special instructions or allergy notes.
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Restaurants include The Good Life Eatery, Hotbox, Chilango, Pho, Comptoir Libanais and the frozen yoghurt cafe Snog.
Uber has promised deliveries will be with customers within 30 minutes of placing the order or the next delivery is free up to a cost of £20 - although it is only committing to the guarantee for the first month.
The delivery fee will be between £2 and £2.50 after an initial month-long free period, and there is no minimum price of an order.
Uber said it would be expanding the delivery area and choice of restaurants over the coming weeks.
Alex Czarnecki, the general manager of UberEATS in London, said the service's point of difference was the choice of "very high quality" restaurants on offer and the lack of a minimum spend - particularly attractive to those eating alone.
He said: "We're really excited to be launching in London, one of the food capitals of the world.
"The UberEATS app has been a huge success in every city we've launched in and we think Londoners will love it too."
Eric Partaker, the co-founder of Mexican restaurant Chilango, said: "We're thrilled to be partnering with UberEATS.
"The really exciting thing is to be able to break free from the constraints of our restaurants, so we can reach new people."
Libby Andrews, head of marketing for the Pho Vietnamese restaurant, said: "Uber has nearly two million users in London alone so we're excited to be partnering with them for UberEATS.
"We're excited to see the impact UberEATS will have on our business."
UberEATS already operates across the US and in Paris, and its London launch will see it competing with Deliveroo, which has grown rapidly with its model of paying drivers to collect food from restaurants that do not run a home delivery service.
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