I raced Uber Eats to KFC and back — the winner took less than half the time

MyBroadband recently raced Uber Eats to a restaurant and took less than half the time to get our order to its destination than the popular on-demand food delivery service.

This is the third time we have done this type of comparison, and the worst performance yet for Uber Eats.

In our previous tests in 2018 and 2022, we raced Uber Eats to Rocomamas and McDonald’s.

In the first test, Uber Eats won by about three minutes. In the second, it lost by a few seconds.

For our most recent test, we ordered food from the KFC Castle Gate outlet in Pretoria, located 4.4km from a residential delivery address.

We placed an order for an Oreo Krusher Burger Combo and Dunked Pops on Uber Eats at around 18:14 on a Thursday night and were given an estimate of 15–30 minutes for delivery.

The initial estimated arrival time was 18:35, but that was extended to 18:45 barely three minutes after ordering.

After the order was confirmed, we immediately left the house and drove (abiding by speed limits) to the same KFC outlet where we placed our Uber Eats order.

Like many other fast food outlets, the KFC branch at the Castle Gate shopping centre in Pretoria has a dedicated window for delivery service pickups

About five minutes after we had left the house, the order status on Uber Eats changed from “Preparing your order” to “Picking up your order”, and we could start tracking the courier’s location.

At that point, he was further away from the KFC than we were.

We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the KFC branch at about 18:22 and saw just one customer waiting for an order in-store, while the drive-through queue was empty.

Interestingly, there were about four or five Uber Eats and Mr D Food delivery drivers waiting at their dedicated delivery pick-up window.

By this point, the Uber app still showed the courier very close to his original location, as shown in the last screenshot below.

We opted for the drive-through option to give ourselves the best odds of winning.

Unfortunately, we could not order the same items as in our Uber Eats order, as these were exclusively available online.

We opted for a Dunked Wings meal as an alternative and made payment at around 18:23.

We had our food in hand less than a minute after payment, spending less than 20 seconds at the collection window.

It was an uncharacteristically fast experience, even for KFC, which is usually quick.

Driving back to the residential address took about six or seven minutes.

We were confident of a comfortable victory, as the Uber Eats courier had only just arrived at the KFC branch when we returned home.

About nine minutes passed from the “Preparing your order” notification to the courier arriving at the KFC branch at around 18:32, despite the courier’s original location being closer to the KFC branch than we were.

Regardless, he had to wait 17 minutes for the order to be “wrapped up”, possibly because he had to wait for other food delivery drivers whose customers had placed their orders earlier.

The order status changed to “Heading your way” at 18:46, and by 18:53, the courier was at our gate.

The order arrived about 19 minutes after the original estimated time but still long before the latest arrival time of 19:20.

While we were glad to get our food relatively quickly, we were stunned by the time difference.

The table below summarises the test.

Several elements likely played a role in our victory on the day.

Firstly, we had little to no traffic while driving to and from the restaurant. If there were traffic, the scooter our delivery driver used would likely have been able to travel faster than a regular car.

Secondly, no other customers were in the drive-thru when we placed and collected our order, while a bottleneck of orders had formed for the delivery drivers.

This might have been due to the colder time of the year when people are more likely to order for delivery from home. Both our previous comparisons were in warmer months — February and October.

Lastly, the food ordered during the drive-thru was already available and just needed to be packed.

The items ordered with Uber Eats might have taken longer to put together.

Overall, however, the Uber Eats experience was fuss-free, the delivery driver was friendly and professional, and the person who stayed at home just in case the driver arrived before me could watch nearly an entire episode of Friends while we were out.

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