at Uber scale, they can get VC funding for $500-800 million, to hire the thousands of chefs that were laid off during the covid shutdowns. You can also imagine going international, so Uber Chef is actually thousands of chefs around the world. (hiring chefs without the overhead of restaurants - that's the play)
The scenario proposed by the grandparent poster adds so much waste and slack and overhead in the system that the family-owned-and-operated Thai kitchen on Main St. will eat Uber's lunch, and the Dominos franchise two doors down from it will pick through its bones.
Uber Chef ignores all of that and bypasses all overhead - you don't need a restaurant or even the physical location of a building to employ chefs to cook food. No need for health inspections or expensive fire suppression equipment. (you use people who want to rent their home kitchens out for cooking)
That's Uber's raison-d'etre - to bypass all legal restrictions and externalize all overhead in the way of getting the items to you.
This isn't a joke, this is what Uber did with their taxi service at the beginning as MVP so why not do it to food services as well?
They allowed individuals to sell food / operate as a pop-up restaurant.
IIRC, it got closed down because of health and food-safety related regulations.
A more sustainable version of this business model is basically a food truck / cart.
It’s also a high liability business, especially when dealing with animal products.
Not to mention prepared food is barely affordable for the vast majority even with the tiny margins that exist today, so the only people who would be able to afford such an on demand personalized chef service surely could just afford their own chef?
