Bend restaurants ready for Uber Eats to deliver

Uber Eats has officially launched in Bend. Restaurants participating at Thursday’s launch include Pancho’s of Bend, Barrio, Boxwood Kitchen, Pastini Pastaria, Esta Bien, Longboard Louie’s, Wild Oregon Foods and Hola!

James Fink, owner and chef at Wild Oregon Foods, said he’s excited for the extra exposure the food delivery app will create.

“I thought it was a good way to get our food out there and be accessible to the people who are coming to town or who don’t necessarily know the area,” Fink said. “And the locals that maybe drank too much or don’t want to go anywhere or are just being lazy like me when I get a day off.”

Pancho’s of Bend is a new online progressive Mexican restaurant that plans on serving customers only on Uber Eats, at least for now, owner Matt Sullivan said.

“We’re one of the first. We’re exclusive to Uber, which is cool,” he said. “It’s different from a brick and mortar. You download the app, you click on what you want and it arrives at your door. I have this little tablet here, and once somebody places an order, I get notified, make it and the driver comes and brings it to you.”.

Deliveries will be available in downtown Bend and the Orchard District, Old Farm District, River West, Larkspur, Century West, Mountain View, Aubrey Butte, Old Bend and more, the company said in a news release Wednesday, which continues below:

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with some great area restaurants,” said Pat Winter, Uber Eats general manager for the Northwest. “Via Uber Eats, customers can get the food they love quickly and conveniently. It’s for anyone who wants an easy and reliable way to get their favorite food, no matter what they’re doing or where they are.”

The free, standalone Uber Eats app is available for both iOS and Android. Notable Bend-area restaurants partnering with Uber Eats include Barrio, Boxwood Kitchen, Pastini Pastaria and Hola!, the latter of which has three locations that will be serviced by Uber Eats. Menu prices are set by the restaurants themselves and Uber adds a booking fee of $4.99.

The Uber Eats app is now available in more than 220 cities in 32 countries, and the number of customers using the app is growing rapidly. Last month, analytics platform Second Measure showed that Uber Eats is the fastest-growing meal delivery application in the U.S.

Many restaurants have indicated that partnering with Uber Eats has led to an uptick in revenue by giving them access to new customers and letting existing customers access them in a new way.

“Uber Eats has allowed Sassy Onion to expand and significantly grow off-site sales over the last year,” said Kevin Boyles, president of Sassy Onion in Salem. “I would recommend their service to any business looking to expand.”

Uber Eats facilitates food delivery through an app separate from Uber’s rideshare app because requesting a ride and ordering a meal are two different experiences. The similarity, however, is that Uber makes both easy and reliable. The same technology company that brought people access to rides at the touch of a button is now doing the same for food delivery. A video released by Uber Eats last year provides an overview of how easy the app is to use.

For more information about how the Uber Eats app works, visit about.ubereats.com. Uber Eats also offers new economic opportunities for prospective delivery partners in and around Bend. Those interested in delivering food using the Uber Eats app can visit www.uber.com/deliver for more information.

For restaurants interesting in partnering with Uber Eats, you can find more information at https://www.ubereats.com/restaurant/signup.

But the new kid in town also has some long-standing competition from Take Out Today, which operates Bend and Redmond Take Out , which owner Phil Geiger said has about 30 restaurants in its stable.

“I kind of look at it as an opportunity for me to grow,” Geiger said, adding that he was seeing “average business” Thursday evening, despite the new competition.

Geiger said he bought the Bend Take Out business for $1 about 15 years ago, after he got laid off from a job and started driving for the previous owners.

“They were going to close, declare bankruptcy,” he recalled. “I went around to all the restaurants” and kept them on board, not taking a day off for a couple years or more to pay off the bills.

“We charge restaurants less than Uber does,” he said. “The delivery charge goes directly to the driver. We get a discount on the food we deliver,” and he said Uber requires a bigger discount than he does.

And he said Bend and Redmond Take-Out has doubled its business in the last year. It also has its own apps, of course, years after starting the business with walkie-talkies.

“We’ll see what happens,” Geiger said.