Uber and Zomato tie-up to simplify booking taxis to restaurants, even during load shedding

South Africans are lucky enough to be some of the first experiencing a new partnership between Zomato and Uber. The partnership benefits both the restaurant finder and car-hailing app making it easier to find a ride to your favourite restaurant and simplifying the process of having to clumsily type where you want to go.

Zomato helps you find a restaurant in and around your city based on reviews from other users. To get to one of these restaurants you would have to follow the Google Maps directions provided, walk or get in your car and of course find parking (without any app assistance). But starting this week, a new option is available to users in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and London: Uber it. Right next to the restaurant’s address, a Uber pop-up now provides you with an estimate of how long you’d have to wait for a Uber driver to take you there. Click on the Uber logo and you’ll be given the three uberX, uberXL and uberBLACK options (depending on your location). The Uber app will open in which your chosen restaurant’s address will already be set. That eliminates the search for the address of that obscure new restaurant you friend wants to drag you to (provided that you’ve found the new grub spot in Zomato).

An additional Zomato feature (that might come in handy over the next few months) is searching for restaurants in the ‘load shedding’ category — an option available both in Jozi and the Mother City. These are all restaurants with generators which would make the desperate search for candles, and that last can of tuna, a thing of the past. Just hail a Uber and eat something proper in the dark.