Uber is now not just delivering passengers, but also pizza.
One of Melbourne’s newest pizza places, MELT Pizza, is using UberX to offer free pizza delivery within three kilometres of its Chapel Street store for orders over $35.
The restaurant is owned by husband and wife team Dan and Elise Gold, who initially planned to just focus on the dine-in and carry-out trade but were inundated with delivery requests.
When they opened two weeks ago and weren’t able to deliver because they didn’t have drivers, the Golds had a great idea.
Order a driver using UberX to deliver the pizza to their customers.
“I’d never really thought of using it for a commercial purpose, but with all the demand for delivery, we just ended up connecting the dots and thought we could use it to help our customers,’’ Dan Gold says.
“All the customer has to do is order the delivery via the telephone as they normally would, then we use the UberX app to get a driver down to the restaurant and they’re here within a few minutes.”
Uber recently made headlines after the New South Wales government clarified the law and declared UberX illegal because the Passenger Transport Act requires drivers to be appropriately accredited.
The speed of the service suits MELT Pizza well, it serves pizza Napoli-style; cooked for under two minutes in a 400 degree oven.
“We prefer our customer eating the pizza while it’s piping hot and that’s why we thought it could work so perfectly, because we can get it out of here fast,’’ Dan Gold says.
“As opposed to having our own suite of drivers that might be caught up, we’ve got a bigger pool of drivers to draw from.
“You often visit a pizza place and see the delivery guy just sitting around waiting for the next order. Someone is paying for that. This won’t happen at Melt Pizza, and by using Uber the savings and better taste are being passed on to our customers.”
Kye began his career at a Fairfax daily on the North-West Coast of Tasmania. He has since taken his belongings, and keen interest in technology, to Melbourne. He has a bachelor of Arts majoring in Political Science from the University of Tasmania and a Graduate Diploma in Journalism from RMIT University.
