Dive Brief:
- Serve Robotics launched its delivery bots in Chicago with Uber Eats on Tuesday, according to a press release. The deployment is Serve’s market entry to the Midwest.
- Serve said it was offering delivery from more than 100 restaurants across at least 14 Chicago neighborhoods, including Austin, Belmont Cragin, Dunning, East Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Little Italy, Logan Square, Near North Side, Near West Side, Uptown, West Garfield Park and West Town.
- The deployment will involve “dozens of robots,” by the end of the month, Serve said in an email to Restaurant Dive. The company said it is on track to deploy 2,000 robots by year’s end, in keeping with the robotics company’s 2023 partnership with Uber Eats.
Dive Insight:
Chicago’s weather could prove testing for the robotics company. Serve has a presence in four other metro areas — Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles and Miami — all markets in fairly temperate climates with no or very limited snowfall. Average lows in Atlanta, the company’s second-coldest market after Chicago, do not fall below freezing, according to data from Weatherspark, which aggregates meteorological observations. Chicago’s average lows bottom out at 22 degrees, and its average highs in January are colder than Atlanta’s average lows.
This variation in climate, snowfall and operating conditions could pose a problem for Serve’s expansion. But the company said it has factored that in.
“We've designed our latest Gen3 robot to handle all weather and terrain. We welcome the challenges of snow and ice, extreme temperatures and uneven surfaces because that's what it will take to scale our service,” Serve said in an email.
Weather aside, Chicago’s extensive pedestrian infrastructure and dynamic dining scene make it a prime market for delivery robots, according to the press release.
Serve’s fleet is still small. As of the quarter ending June 30, 2025, it had 160 daily active robots, but that was more than double the 73 it had operating on average in the first quarter, according to its Q2 earnings release. Serve has grown its operations significantly too, entering Atlanta in June and expanding its Los Angeles network to include Little Caesars.
2025 has seen significant investment in robotic delivery by major aggregators. Uber recently announced an investment in Flytrex. DoorDash and Coco announced the start of robotic delivery in Los Angeles and Chicago earlier this year. DoorDash also introduced its own delivery robot this week that can reach speeds of 20 miles per hour and traverse along bike lanes.White Castle partnered with Coco and Uber Eats to add the option to some of its Chicago locations. Coco raised $80 million in funding earlier this year.
