Uber says it's showing commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement by waiving delivery fees on its Uber Eats app for Black-owned businesses for the remainder of 2020.
With the app's delivery fees typically running $3-5, that could be a game-changer for Tampa Bay's Black-owned restaurants as the city slips into a second wave of the COVID-19 infections and some of us curtail our ventures out to eat.
"Uber stands in solidarity with the Black community and with peaceful protests against the injustice and racism that have plagued our nation for too long," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an emailed statement. "My hope is that if each of us recommits to doing all we can to counter bigotry wherever we see it, change will follow."
The app is even making it easier to locate black-owned businesses in users' delivery areas by offering a prompt when it's opened.
What's more, Uber is donating $1 million to the Center for Policing Equity, which works to measure bias in policing, and the Equal Justice Initiative, which aims to end mass incarceration and racial inequality.
"We know this isn’t enough. It won’t be enough until we see true racial justice. But we plan to work day in and day out to improve, learn and grow as a company," Khosrowshahi said in the email.
"Lastly, let me speak clearly and unequivocally: Black Lives Matter."
In an email to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay a rep for Uber said that the promotion is happening in major cities in U.S. and Canada. The campaign is a "grassroots effort in response to requests from Eats users, and done in partnership with the Black @ Uber leadership team," according to Javier Correoso, who works in the public affairs department at Uber.
"This is a customer-facing fee, no changes have been made to our existing agreements with any restaurant on the app as a result of this project," Correoso told CL. "Marketplace fees fund the services that restaurants have come to expect from Uber Eats. Reducing them puts the safety and reliability of the marketplace at risk for everyone. This project is focused on helping Uber Eats users to easily support the Black-owned restaurants in their communities."
Correoso also called the lists a starting point.
"We expect them to grow with more input from the community and restaurants themselves," he wrote, adding this list of most of the local restaurants available on the app.
- 7th + Grove
- BJ's Alabama BBQ
- COPA
- Flavaz Jamaican Grille
- Jazzy's BBQ (Town N Country)
- Queen of Sheba Ethiopian restaurant
- The Hall on Franklin
- Thee Burger Spot
UPDATED: 06/12/20 3:15 p.m. Updated to include comments from an Uber public affairs rep.
This post originally appeared on our sibling publication San Antonio Current.
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This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2020.