Uber may be having a rough go-around as a ridesharing service, but it just might find its stride in the food-delivery business. Uber Eats, the arm of the company that focuses on getting meals to customers who don’t feel like venturing outside, has just acquired Ando, a concept from Momofuku chef and culinary superstar David Chang. Though branded as a “restaurant,” Ando only ever provided food for delivery. The company has always partnered with Uber to bring its offerings to hungry patrons, and now, Ando is joining the Uber Eats family in an official capacity.
As per an announcement on the company’s website, “Starting January 22, 2018, we will no longer be serving customers in New York — online or via our Union Square location — as we will be immediately starting to integrate with Uber Eats.”
In the last several months, Uber Eats has been expanding its suite of features, adding useful tools like in-app restaurant reviews to help customers better decide what they’d like to eat. Back in November, when this functionality was announced, UberEATS Product Manager Ambika Krishnamachar told TechCrunch, “We had heard from our consumers for a long time that they were interested in more information in general to help them make a decision of which restaurant to eat at. In particular, users are looking for a vote of confidence, given what other people in their community think. We saw it was effective on the rides side, so we wanted to bring it over to EATS as well.”
Features such as this one are meant to make Uber Eats a serious force to be reckoned with, and indeed, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has grand plans for the service. “We’ll be the largest food delivery company in the world this year,” he said at Digital Life Design in Munich. And acquiring a service like Ando could help with that promise.
