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New delivery service UberEATS arrives in Chapel Hill

UberEATS, a delivery service platform powered by Uber, became available for Chapel Hill and the Triangle area Wednesday. 

UNC student Jade Danford-Klein said she would be interested in UberEATS if it becomes a cheaper option since she tends to choose not to deliver her food to save money. 

“I’m excited to have UberEATS on campus and I think it’ll be good for a lot of people who don’t have cars but are sick of eating on Franklin Street,” she said.

She has used delivery service before however, she has not yet used a service like Takeout Central or UberEATS.

Co-founder of Takeout Central Wes Garrison said he acknowledges that UberEATS holds potential to be tough competition for Takeout Central. Unlike other new businesses that have previously tried and failed to tap into the delivery service market in Chapel Hill, Uber holds enough resources and expertise to not dwindle out as quickly, he said.

However, Garrison said he remains confident that Takeout Central’s strong local presence and history in Chapel Hill will make them the preferable service. Garrison said he and his partner are both UNC graduates and at least half of the people in the call center are UNC graduates.

“I want you to order from us because we’re local, we care about the people we are serving, we know our customer’s names,” Garrison said. “You can call us on the telephone and somebody here in Chapel Hill is going to answer the phone and talk to you.”

Garrison said Takeout Central is working on a mobile app in order to keep up with the competition.

Although Takeout Central will continue competing on promotions and services, customers shouldn’t expect prices to drop long term, he said.

“We don’t want to join a race to the bottom” Garrison said.

Katherine Ozturk, general manager at Kipos Greek Taverna said it is one of the many restaurants UberEATS contacted to work with.

While Kipos has worked with Grubhub and Postmates for delivery in the past, Ozturk said she was excited about unique services Uber offered to increase freshness. 

She said past services Kipos has worked with usually called for a driver once the food was already prepared. With UberEATS a driver is sent during the preparation time so the food is more fresh.

Only select items the chef feels travel well will be available for delivery to ensure the food quality.

Overall, Ozturk said she hopes Uber’s brand will help them connect with a younger market.

“The brand (Uber) has developed is more readily known,” Ozturk said. "(Uber) has a lot of social statues really and I think a lot of younger social status as well which is kind of the market we're looking to get into.”

@MattiasMiller

city@dailytarheel.com

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