Yelp Expands Into Food Delivery

Yelp today announced the launch of a new platform that will allow users to order food directly from within Yelp.

CEO Jeremy Stoppelman framed Yelp Platform as "a new way to transact on Yelp." It begins today with food delivery and pickup, but will eventually expand to allow users to make appointments with hair salons or spas, for example.

"Starting now, people can order food directly from a select number of restaurants supported by delivery.com and Eat24, like NYC's Harry's Italian Pizza Bar and Layaly Mediterranean Grill in SF," Stoppelman wrote in a blog post. "Eventually, consumers will be able to order whatever meal they're craving for delivery or pickup at thousands of local restaurants across the US, directly from those businesses' Yelp listings."

The option is available now on iOS, the mobile Web, and the desktop, and is coming soon to Android, he said.

Yelp will be working with Booker, Intuit's Demandforce, and MindBody to integrate things like spas, yoga studios, salons, and dentist appointments. Those interested in working with Yelp on the project can check out its developer page.

The move puts Yelp in competition with services like Seamless and GrubHub, which recently merged. Now, users can stay within the confines of Yelp rather than looking up a review on Yelp and then jumping to Seamless to place an order.

Until now, Yelp focused primarily on reviews of local businesses, from trendy clubs to neighborhood dry cleaners. Last month, however, it ventured into Foursquare territory with an iOS app update that boosted the Nearby tab with suggestions geared specifically toward the individual user's mood. More recently it unveiled Wordmap, a heatmap showing density of keywords used in reviews - helping you pinpoint (or avoid) a certain location.