Uber Eats now available as another food delivery service option in Quincy

QUINCY — Another online food delivery service is now available in Quincy.

Uber Eats, which services 465 other cities in Illinois, now has drivers in Quincy. Debbie Houston is one of the new drivers. She said she received a card in the mail about two weeks ago that said Uber Eats was coming to Quincy.

Now she’s a driver for the California-based company.

“It’s new, and the community needs to know there is a different option than DoorDash,” Houston said.

Uber Eats and DoorDash are at the top of the food delivery service market nationwide. Insider Monkey says DoorDash has 56 percent of the national market share, while Uber has 23 percent. Caviar, GrubHub and Postmates round out the top five, but all have less than 10 percent of the national market share.

According to Ridester.com, Uber Eats is available in more than 6,000 cities in 45 nations, with more than 600,000 restaurants on its platform, as of 2021. DoorDash is available in more than 7,000 cities across the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia, with more than 390,000 restaurants on its platform, as of 2023.

Uber Eats offers delivery of food from several national restaurants in Quincy, such as Sonic, Buffalo Wild Wings, Subway, Papa John’s, McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Panera Bread. It also offers delivery of grocery items from HyVee, and it delivers health and wellness, beauty and personal care, household essentials and over-the-counter medications from Walgreens and CVS.

DoorDash also offers delivery of food from several national restaurants in Quincy, such as Hardee’s, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Dairy Queen, Panda Express, Pizza Hut, Applebee’s, Village Inn, Qdoba and Fazoli’s. (Both DoorDash and Uber Eats service several restaurants.)

However, DoorDash also offers delivery from locally owned restaurants — Down Home Pub and Eatery, Lonchera Arandas, Taqueria Arandas, The Scoreboard, Mi Jalapeno, Krazy Cakes, LaGondola Spaghetti House, Lucky Dogs and Thyme Square. It also offers delivery from Walgreens, CVS, HyVee, Dollar General, Big Lots, Jiffi Stop and Casey’s.

Houston also is a driver for InstaCart, which provides grocery delivery in Quincy from Niemann’s, Sam’s Club, HyVee, Walgreens and CVS, and for Spark, which provides delivery from Walmart.

She says Uber Eats pays better, but she hasn’t been getting many requests for delivery because it’s so new in Quincy.

“The local (restaurants) probably don’t realize that Uber Eats is in town,” Houston said. “They won’t be able to until they go on their site and say, ‘I want my company on Uber Eats.’”

Houston says she knows of only one other Uber Eats driver in Quincy. 

“There are tons of DoorDash drivers,” she said.

Houston says she typically delivers food for about 25 hours a week while her children are in school. Most of her earnings, she says, come from customer tips.

“I like it because you can have your own schedule,” she said. “You don’t have a clock saying you have to clock in at eight (in the morning) and leave at five (at night). You can work as much as you want to or as little as you want. If my kid is sick, I stay home.

“It’s kind of fun. You don’t have someone behind you saying, ‘Do this or do that.’ You work for yourself pretty much. It’s pretty much a very easygoing job. You pick up food and take it there. That’s it.”