Food delivery Apps are constantly evolving to make the customer experience better. To earn money on just food orders without even physically delivering them GrubHub, Postmates, and Uber Eats are adding pick-up options to their apps. In this process, Uber Eats is testing its new Dine-In feature in few cities like Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, and San Diego. This feature will be very handy for those who do not want to miss the ambiance of a restaurant or do not like to stand in queues for long hours waiting for their food to come. As a result, they can pre-order their food before they go to the restaurant and have it there as a normal customer or takeout.
Dine-In appears next to the Delivery and Pick-Up options at the top of the Uber Eats app. You just have to place the order from the menu and choose the time you want to eat. The app displays the time required to prepare the food and according to that, you can schedule your time to arrive and have your food. The app notifies you as your order is prepared and advances towards readiness. Besides time, the app also displays the distance to the restaurant, total bill amount, and restaurants rating. This feature does not include delivery drivers, hence, Uber Eats is not going to levy any sort of delivery or service charges. Diners will pay through Uber Eats app and also can tip the restaurant streamlining the experience for both.
According to Uber, this feature is an effort to bridge the gap between customers and restaurants. Uber Eats wants restaurants to focus on what they do the best such as making delicious food and providing excellent services. Restaurants who focus more on food presentation, don’t do delivery and avoid paying the delivery drivers from their hard-earned revenue, Dine-In feature will help them to attract customers. As most customers get to know about the new restaurants while ordering through the app, the Dine-In feature will let customers experience their meal in person.
Restaurants participating in the Dine-In option will be charged by Uber Eats. The charges will be less than that of delivery services. For Uber Eats, it seems to be an easy way to earn profit from restaurants that partner with this platform without investing money into delivery drivers. For restaurants, this feature will bring customers filling the vacant tables. Restaurants have a benefit of getting 100% of the tip left by the customer.
Other Dine-In apps like Allset and restaurant reservation apps such as OpenTable and Resy who are in business from years could face tough competition from this new feature of Uber Eats. International expansion of this feature is under planning but as of now, Uber Eats has no official announcement about it.