Third-party food delivery apps give small restaurants online presence

Mike Bzowey ’s Family Pizza will be one of the first local restaurants to partner with Uber Eats when the food-delivery app launches soon in Saskatoon.

“The younger generation, (it) seems to be them who are utilizing these third-party delivery systems more so, not exclusively, but more so. They ’re comfortable just sitting on their phone, scrolling through menus and deciding what they want to eat,” Bzowey said.

Four local restaurants have already signed on to partner with Uber Eats, including Spicy Time Fine Indian Cuisine, Family Pizza, Mexihco by La Bamba and Angeethi Flame Fine Indian Bistro. Some national chain restaurants, including Cara Corporation brands — names like Kelsey ’s, Fionn Maccool’s and Montana’s — will also be on the app.

For smaller local businesses, maintaining an online presence — especially on a mobile app — takes time and money, Bzowey noted.

“The third-party system allows … restaurants that aren’t the big, big chains to have that online presence in the form of an app that they maybe wouldn’t have been able to

do otherwise,” he said.

Family Pizza still has its own delivery drivers, but times are changing, Bzowey said.

“With some of these bigger companies offering kind of a one-stop shop, it kind of makes you have to jump aboard.”

Uber is one of the largest companies specializing in transporting food and people, and it’s an innovator in terms of its technology, so it seems like it would be a good fit, Bzowey said.

Dan Park of Uber Eats Canada said it’s safe to say the app will launch in the city in the coming weeks.

“We’re very focused on food quality and ensuring that we are delivering really high-quality food in a very timely manner, super important, which actually determines how we deliver food. But the goal is to provide our consumers with the most selection possible,” Park said.

Uber Eats is the latest fooddelivery service to operate in Saskatoon; it was preceded by Canadian-founded Skip the Dishes and Just Eat, which was launched in Europe nearly 20 years ago.

So far, they have “drivers in the funnel” — some may work for Uber Eats alone and others for both the food-delivery app and the passenger app, but food and passengers won’t be in vehicles at the same time, Park said. Drivers will also go through the same background check process.

Park said Uber Eats has Regina on its road map, and plans to be operating in 100 cities by the end of the year.