McDonald’s expanded its partnership with the food-delivery arm of Uber last month, and now we know exactly which cities are coming onboard for mobile McGriddle deliveries. Starting today, UberEats will support McDonald’s in more than 1,000 locations across the US, which now includes 300 in Los Angeles, California; 144 in Phoenix, Arizona; 270 in Chicago, Illinois; and 59 in Columbus, Ohio, according to the Chicago Tribune.
McDelivery goes live in LA, Chicago, and Columbus
Uber and McDonald’s originally launched a pilot program in more than 200 Florida locations back in January, and the pair announced the expansion of the successful partnership last month when the burger chain held a quarterly earnings call with investors. We didn’t know at the time which cities would be included in the expansion. In a statement today, McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said, "We are bringing a new level of convenience to more of our customers as we continue to transform the McDonald's experience.”
Of course, McDonald’s delivery exists in one form or another through a number of different services like Postmates. In big markets like New York City, delivery through smaller third-party options has existed for years, and the high density of McDonald’s there makes it easy to get food to customers’ doors. But by partnering with Uber — which already has logistics networks built up in small, medium, and large-sized cities — McDonald’s is able to bring delivery to markets like Florida and Ohio that typically don’t have a lot of food-delivery options beyond your standard pizza or Chinese food order. It’s also a way to try and get young, mobile app-using millennials to stop spending money at fast casual competitors, and to maybe think about ordering a Big Mac online instead.