Uber agreed on Tuesday to buy ezCater, the Boston company that lets offices, factories and hospitals order food for a crowd, in an all-cash deal valued at $2.3 billion.
The figures the two companies published explain the attraction. ezCater handled more than $2.5 billion of gross bookings over the past 12 months, growing in the high teens year on year, according to the joint announcement. Its average order is more than $400. It works with more than 140,000 restaurants, and Uber says it is profitable on a non-GAAP operating income basis and is expected to lift Uber's margins.
Gross bookings are the value of the food ordered through the platform, not ezCater's revenue, most of which goes to the restaurants. Even so, the price is a little less than one year of those orders, by this publication's calculation.
Why a big order matters
A delivery app earns on each order, and ezCater's average order is many times the size of a typical takeaway. "Catering is a big business, and can be a huge revenue stream for restaurants," said Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber's chief executive. "With Uber's reach, we can bring that experience to millions more customers and help restaurants win more of these valuable orders."
The companies say the deal will join ezCater's catering business with the restaurant network of Uber Eats and the corporate accounts of Uber for Business, and give couriers new work.
The business that nearly disappeared
ezCater was founded in 2007 and built its business on office lunches. When offices closed in 2020, its sales fell 85 per cent and it laid off 420 workers, the Boston Globe reported. It recovered by selling to customers whose staff still had to turn up in person, such as factories and hospitals.
The sale came a day after another Boston company, PTC, agreed to be bought by Schneider Electric, the Globe noted. ezCater had been valued at more than $1.6 billion and was expected at one point to go public, according to the Globe. Its founder, Stefania Mallett, stepped down in 2023. Her successor, Ashwin Raj, left 18 months later, and Nihad Rahman, who joined from JPMorgan Chase as chief financial officer in 2022, now runs it. The company has about 900 employees, 300 of them in Boston.
Not everyone in the city is reassured. Uber bought Drizly, the Boston alcohol delivery service, for $1 billion in 2021 and shut the brand three years later, the Globe noted. Peter Cohan, a professor at Babson College, told the paper that efficiency under Uber could mean moving the headquarters to San Francisco and cutting finance and human resources staff. "The pressure is really on the people in Boston now to prove that they can handle the workload of scaling this business with the help of Uber," he said.
The restaurants' question
For the restaurants that fill the orders, the issue is the fee. Several operators interviewed by Pizza Marketplace asked what the combination would mean for commissions.
Brittany Mercer, director of off-premises sales at Cowboy Chicken, said Uber had raised commission rates for small brands, including hers, to 28 per cent in the second quarter. "What is it going to look like for my brand, especially since Uber just raised commissions to 28%," she said.
Gracie Prasanson, vice president of sales at Jason's Deli, was surprised the buyer was Uber. "I'm hoping it will shake things up and bring more customers back to first-party (direct) ordering," she said. Mike Dolinger, vice president of operations at California Tortilla, put the operators' question in one line: "Simply put: What gets better for the operator as a result of this partnership?"
Uber has not said how it will set ezCater's fees or whether it will keep the platform's rewards programme for the people who place the orders. The deal is expected to close in the coming months, subject to regulatory approvals.
The price, ezCater's gross bookings, growth, profitability, average order value, restaurant count, the expected timing and the remarks by Dara Khosrowshahi and Nihad Rahman are from the companies' joint press release of 6 October 2026, distributed by Business Wire. ezCater's history, headcount, previous valuation, pandemic losses and leadership changes, Uber's purchase of Drizly and Peter Cohan's remarks are as reported by the Boston Globe on 6 October. The restaurant operators' remarks are as reported by Pizza Marketplace on 6 October. The comparison of price with bookings is this publication's calculation. Accurate to 10am ET on 7 October 2026.
Topics businessmergers and acquisitionsrestaurants
