Square Serves Up “Fastbite” Delivery In NYC

In 2014, when Square acquired Caviar — the San Francisco-based food delivery startup — there wasn’t much news as to what Square’s plans were for the service. Plans got a bit more clear when Square also acquired Fastbite this past April.

Now, Fastbite is on the move and expanding from San Francisco to NYC.

Square announced yesterday (June 17) via its blog that Caviar has launched Fastbite — its newest delivery feature — which will be hitting the streets in Manhattan. Caviar Fastbite comes with the promise that New Yorkers can get a meal delivered in 15 minutes or less for under $15.

Caviar is also taking on companies like Uber, which deliver meals from local restaurants in Chicago, Los Angeles, Barcelona and New York in a similar time span. Amazon has also recently expanded its presence in the food delivery space.

Square’s Caviar is leveraging its restaurant partnerships in NYC, which include more than 100 restaurants that deliver to individual consumers, groups and corporate customers. But with Fastbite, that delivery option is about to become, well, a bit faster.

“With Fastbite anyone can now get an amazing meal delivered during peak hours without waiting in line, paying surge delivery fees, or succumbing to the vending machine at the end of the hall,” said Avlok Kohli, head of Fastbite. “From Frankie’s house-made cavatelli pasta, to Ivan Ramen’s popular Hiyashi Chuka ramen bowl, no busy New Yorker will miss a meal again.”

Fastbite is focused on lower cost meals — launching in San Francisco for $10 under 10 minutes  — as a way to deliver food quickly. To make that possible, Fastbite did what competitors Sprig and SpoonRocket did: kept their menu options limited to three or four and made sure those three or four things could be cooked in bulk and sent off to customers quickly.

Unlike its competitors, however, Fastbite doesn’t cook the meals and instead relies on restaurant partners, much the way its new parent, Caviar, does. To use the service, customers log onto Caviar, where a Fastbite button will now appear.

For customers wanting to use Fastbite, they can do so online via the Caviar app, which is available both on Android and iOS. That customer can then browse through the Fastbite tab during lunch hours to see what’s on the menu. Those customers can also track their meal delivery with GPS.

Although the service expansion is only headed to Manhattan, Square says there are plans to expand Fastbite to more NYC neighborhoods soon.

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