Following its announcement that it would go virtual this year, the annual Bite of Seattle has called upon a lone Uber Eats driver to frantically deliver a festival’s worth of crab cakes to satisfy the city’s sample-sized cravings at home.
“With our Uber Eats delivery team of one running late all over town, we’re effectively simulating the long lines that are an integral part of the Bite of Seattle experience,” said Lane Lancaster, organizer for this year’s virtual food festival. “Rest assured our driver is frantically delivering crab cakes, street corn, deep fried PB&J and funnel cakes in 45-minute increments so that it’s identical to the normal event’s wait times. For an added bit of fun, we’ve asked our drivers to pump mediocre local music out of their car at full volume when they arrive. We know nothing can replace the live experience of Ezekiel Hochstetler and the Amish Family Reggae Band, but we’re hoping this will be a close approximation.”
Uber Eats driver Malcolm Johnson said he’s doing his best to haul ass around town not only to deliver food quickly as possible, but to get his hourly wage as close to minimum wage as possible.
“I’ve also got my Waze app on Back to the Future mode, which has been a lifesaver. You hear Doc Brown’s voice say ‘Where we’re going, we don’t need roads’ and then he directs you to take shortcuts through backyards and cemeteries to save time,” Malcolm said while racing to make his next round of deliveries. “It looks like if I cut through this family reunion in Magnuson Park, I’ll only be late for the next 10 to 15 deliveries so I should be good – it’s not like these people were going to tip, anyways.”
By late afternoon, more than half of Virtual Bite of Seattle participants said they were reliably hearing horrible local band music roll by about every 45 minutes followed shortly by a knock that sounds a lot like something being hurled at their front door.
