Dive Brief:
- Shake Shack has partnered with Serve Robotics to deliver meals via Uber Eats from select Los Angeles restaurants, per a press release emailed to Restaurant Dive.
- Select customers ordering Shake Shack on Uber Eats will receive a notification that their delivery may be brought to them via robot. Customers can then track the robot and use the Uber Eats app to retrieve their orders when the bot arrives.
- As of last year, the robotics company said it worked with about 200 Los Angeles restaurants to complete deliveries, and that its order volumes in the city were increasing.
Dive Insight:
Serve Robotics has offered autonomous deliveries in Los Angeles since 2022 and plans further expansion in the U.S. It is working toward deploying 2,000 robots across the U.S. in 2025, Touraj Parang, president and COO of Serve Robotics said. The tech company has been updating its technology and working on scaling its manufacturing process.
Serve went public in a reverse merger last year and officially began trading in March, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As of the first quarter, Serve averaged 300 daily supply hours, a 97% increase from the year-ago quarter. Its daily active robots grew from 23 to 39 quarter-over-quarter.
Uber Eats bought Serve in 2020 as part of its over $2 billion acquisition of Postmates, then spun it off in 2021.
For Shake Shack, this partnership aligns with management’s drive to use technology to improve operations and the customer experience, said Steph So, senior vice president of digital experience at Shake Shack. For example, the chain has been adding kiosks to its restaurants, and the largest share of its orders now comes through that channel.
