[HN Gopher] Uber Eats Nationwide Shipping
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Uber Eats Nationwide Shipping
Author : kirubakaran
Score : 37 points
Date : 2022-06-08 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.uber.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.uber.com)
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I wouldn't mind getting some Voodoo Donuts from Portland, even if
| it did take a few days....
| shtopointo wrote:
| This must be a marketing thing, right? (I had to check the date
| to make sure it wasn't April 1st)
|
| The use case is bagels or pizza across the country? If you don't
| eat those within the hour they're not good anymore. Other than
| that, I really can't think of a situation where I would be
| willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money for cold food.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Doordash has had similar. Such an incredible waste of
| resources.
| throw03172019 wrote:
| I thought April Fools day was a few months ago.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I suppose someone needed to take it up after Diablo Immortal
| launched...
| bocytron wrote:
| I first thought it was some kind of april fool's joke. Many
| people who care about climate change are taking their bike to go
| to work, or avoiding taking a plane for their holidays, and then
| there's this. I am genuinely shocked.
| manarth wrote:
| 1. Announce a ridiculous product.
|
| 2. Spark discussion / controversy.
|
| 3. Increase brand-awareness.
|
| 4. Profit!!
| bee_rider wrote:
| This seems like it will require coordinating with the local
| entity (I mean they aren't going to ship the whole meal all made
| up, right? It'll have to be a microwave-dinner-ized version I
| guess?). Is this really a core competency of Uber? I thought
| their main business model is ramming through services by ignoring
| local entities.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| As if they aren't bleeding money fast enough...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| Doesn't really make sense generally. But it can make sense to
| ship frozen or smoked food in moderate quantities. There are a
| few companies I periodically order from--usually around the
| holidays. Not cheap but if it isn't something you can get locally
| and it can survive shipping reasonably, it's reasonable to order
| as an occasional thing. But it's usually a fairly big order. I
| can't imagine having a pizza shipped.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| You are basically eating microwave food when it gets there.
|
| For $200, you might as well go to a restaurant in-person.
| wildmanx wrote:
| Read the room, Uber. We are in a climate crisis.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Reminds me of Ezell's Chicken in Seattle. Apparently Oprah loved
| the place (they had a big photo of her on the wall that she'd
| written a fairly lengthy note on) and supposedly she would
| regularly have their chicken delivered to her by plane from
| Seattle to her home in Chicago.
| celim307 wrote:
| Which is wild cause I lived in both and while ezelles is good,
| there's tons of just as good places in Chicago
| whywhywhydude wrote:
| I thought it was a April 1 joke. Are they planning to freeze the
| food first before shipping through Fedex?
| enlyth wrote:
| Me too, what kind of nonsense is someone paying 200 dollars for
| some reheatable pasta and having it delivered thousands of
| miles? It sounds like an exercise on how to create the most
| wasteful and ridiculous business ever.
| [deleted]
| ok_dad wrote:
| I got a 100 dollar gift cert for a company that did just
| that, I ordered FIVE burritos for that amount to be
| delivered, and they were the smallest, shittiest garbage
| burritos I have ever had, and there was no good way to reheat
| them since they were in a paper/foil wrapper that had frozen
| onto the burrito, so I had to first try and defrost them with
| water in a bag and then remove the wrapper and microwave
| them. It was absolute trash and now other companies are
| expanding into this biz?
|
| VC's are fucking insane to support this nonsense.
| kube-system wrote:
| Omaha Steaks has been mailing frozen meat around for 70 years
|
| Meal kit companies are also pretty booming at the moment
| agentdrtran wrote:
| Goldbelly does this, it's very much a luxury/gift thing but
| yeah I don't get it
| telecuda wrote:
| Typically these things will ship deconstructed and require
| minimal cooking/assembly, like a weekly meal delivery kit. For
| example, you might receive a roll in one type of packaging and
| the sandwich contents in another, boxed with a few freezer
| packs.
| telecuda wrote:
| I've used GoldBelly to ship Philadelphia tomato pie to Florida
| for an inflated price. Same idea. It's great for special
| occasions and gifts.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Yeah it just looks like a goldbelly competitor.
| Ekaros wrote:
| What if they get the order wrong?
|
| Also, is there anyway they have logistics to handle something
| like this?
| bergenty wrote:
| naveen99 wrote:
| Too bad they don't have Daw Kun Thai yet from new hampshire.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I was in New York last Christmas, as for most Christmases since
| my wife's family all live there, and my wife insisted we stay on
| the lower east side because she went to school there and had some
| nostalgia. The end of the block our hotel was on had a place
| called Katz's Deli with a line that was around the corner and a
| several hour wait pretty much starting at 7 AM or earlier every
| morning.
|
| We never went because I didn't want to stand in line for that
| long, but I noticed the side of the building said they'll ship
| nationwide. That seemed crazy to me, like no matter how good the
| meal is, it can't possibly be as good once it's been in transit
| for a day. What sorts of meals don't degrade in texture and taste
| within a few hours of being cooked? I would love to send my
| friends and family in other parts of the country some great Texas
| BBQ that has no equivalent anywhere else I've ever been, but even
| that isn't nearly as good once it has gone cold and been
| reheated. Unless you ship it in a humidor, I don't see how you
| avoid losing moisture. Is that what they do?
| bergenty wrote:
| BryanBeshore wrote:
| Sounds like a story I heard about people sending task
| rabbit'ers to stand in line at 6am for a "Cronut" at some shop
| in SOHO.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| This post amuses me because of the classic Katz Deli slogan of
| WWII: "Send a salami to your boy in the army!"
| blakesterz wrote:
| I can answer this! Last Christmas someone sent us a big box of
| stuff from Katz's. The meats (there were 3 or 4) were vacuum
| packed, and there was some condiments and some bread and I
| forget what else. It was all packed in a big box with ice
| packs. I think it was shipped over night from Katz's.
|
| I assume that most deli meats don't lose much being packed up
| like this? I can't say for sure, but this kind of stuff is
| probably already served in a similar state, not right out of
| the oven. So I can only assume it tasted more or less like it
| would if we have gone to Katz's. The bread no doubt would be
| better fresh.
|
| It all tasted... ok. I expected it to be awesome, but it was
| just ok.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I've mail-ordered Katz's corned beef and pastrami and it holds
| up pretty well. It's not cheap but then it's not cheap in the
| restaurant either. If you love their stuff I recommend their
| mail order service.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I had Goldbelly ship me a brisket from a BBQ place in Texas and
| I felt like it traveled well. It shipped frozen, and they
| provided instructions on thawing and reheating, and it really
| turned out to be delicious. Not quite as good as fresh from the
| smoker in Texas, but better than brisket I can get in my area.
| servercobra wrote:
| If we can't get the fabled SF -> NYC burrito tunnel [0] I guess
| this will have to do.
|
| [0]
| https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Ah, they're going after Goldbelly. Checks out.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| This seems strange especially when the target market seems small
| as I don't see many people would have such cravings to get NYC
| food delivered to LA. But I am not sure. On the other hand, I
| would really love to get some Neapolitan pizza from Napoli. :)
| [deleted]
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| :O I attended college in upstate New York, and I practically
| _lived_ on the pizza from one particular pizza place there. I 've
| been back home for 7 years, and I still crave it and miss it. If
| they expand from NYC to the larger New York area and include that
| one pizza place... I will pay any premium for it.
|
| To anyone saying "but the pizza will be cold": I used to order an
| extra large chicken-bacon-ranch pizza just for me, and have
| refrigerated -- and not reheated -- leftovers all week. Still
| delicious. I've tried to recreate that pizza myself many times,
| and it never comes out quite the same.
|
| ...now I want pizza, dammit.
| king-geedorah wrote:
| Which spot?
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| Pizza da Vinci! (Not to be confused with the many restaurants
| around the country named DaVinci's Pizza.)
| efrank02 wrote:
| Mister Shoes?
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| Nope, Pizza da Vinci! (Not to be confused with the many
| restaurants around the country named DaVinci's Pizza.)
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I live near one of those pizza places! We also have a Da
| Vinci Donuts that is not affiliated with the pizza place.
| craftkiller wrote:
| Bruh, I Loves on 4th was so much better than that poor
| imitation of pizza bella.
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| If I remember right, I Loves was okay, but not even close
| to Pizza da Vinci, in my opinion.
| stuntkite wrote:
| My god. In my opinion this is downright offensive. Even if for no
| other reason that in city delivery french fries are an
| abomination.... but also all the other disgusting carbon and
| workforce issues that this is going to encourage.
|
| MMMMMM. $5000 Nobu from 10 hours ago! THIS SHIT IS DELICIOUS!
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Forget this. I just want to be able to buy something from the
| other side of the _city_. There are such small delivery areas for
| large cities (London).
|
| I desperately want to order from a favorite place in the city but
| I'm out of the area. I would be happy to pay extra and wait a bit
| longer for this perk.
| [deleted]
| jthirkle wrote:
| What a fantastic waste of carbon emissions to fly some donuts
| across the country, rather than buying something locally
| donthellbanme wrote:
| barbazoo wrote:
| I thought this was hyperbole but it's almost verbatim their 2nd
| sentence. What a waste of all kinds of resources.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Having worked in logistics and fulfillment for eCommerce, I
| am fairly certain this service will stop as soon as someone
| starts to look at actual profitability. Problem just might be
| that nobody does for quite some time.
| kube-system wrote:
| You underestimate what Americans are willing to pay for
| convenience. People already pay nearly double to order from
| local restaurants now on these platforms.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Steep carbon pricing is the only way to fix this... Only
| when a good chunk of your salary is going into carbon
| taxes will you choose to do things that don't have hidden
| carbon costs.
| lumost wrote:
| This has been a business for a long time. Selling flash frozen
| NYC pizza on the west coast, overnight shipping of unpreserved
| caviar etc. If a restaraunt can prep a dish that lasts 24-48
| hours, there isn't any hard reason they can't
|
| Presumably they are traveling via standard freight routes and
| not paying someone to hold a single meal on a passenger
| flight...
| el-salvador wrote:
| There is a market for long distance food deliveries. Even
| more international. When a friend hears I'll be travelling
| nearby, its not uncommon for me to get special requests for
| food not available locally.
|
| Bringing Central American fried chicken into the U.S in
| family trips was so common, that the fried chicken restaurant
| had to make special packaging so the smell wouldn't escape
| from the box to the airplane cabin.
|
| They even ran an ad about that:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFd3a4g8dNc
| twalichiewicz wrote:
| I think the increase in these services (GoldBelly, DoorDash
| National Favorites, etc...) also coincides with the COVID-
| driven increase of home food deliveries along with the
| modern restaurant/food social media lifecycle (think:
| Eater, Food Insider, Munchies, etc).
|
| So, right after someone in SF watches a video describing in
| great detail how amazing a new NYC chicken sandwich pop-up
| is, they're almost certainly willing to pay a premium to
| try it.
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| VCs seem to love supporting luxury services they themselves
| want to consume. Which is understandable, but in bad taste
| given how many of their portfolio companies are doing layoffs
| and hiring freezes. Rescinding offers. Etc.
| Ekaros wrote:
| This level of insane decadence being offered by a capitalistic
| company just might tell us how close we are to crash of current
| civilization.
|
| I somehow understand factory made food, or even transporting
| items that last good while, but individual orders?
| heartbreak wrote:
| You could use "insane decadence" to describe a lot of modern
| services like commercial air travel and cordless phones.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I would love to hear Dara or Uber PR squeam trying to explain how
| this isn't flagrantly hypocritical to any climate change "green"
| talk they do. If I was an employee who cared about those things,
| I'd be feeling pretty betrayed.
|
| https://www.uber.com/us/en/about/sustainability/
| donsupreme wrote:
| now you can buy an In-&-Out burger + fries from the east coast
| for $100
| bombcar wrote:
| Is this an extremely delayed April fools joke?
|
| I also wanted to parse it as "Uber devours, consumes,
| masticates Nationwide Shipping" and that they had bought DHL or
| something.
| bergenty wrote:
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| I had to read it thrice before I realised "Uber Eats" was a
| thing. Very confusing title
| rilindo wrote:
| I look forward to ordering my favorite Thai delivery[1] from LA
|
| [1] http://www.tgexpress.net/
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Wonder how In-n-Out burgers would taste if they were frozen
| like White Castle sliders.
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