It was October of 2017 when DoorDash first announced plans to open DoorDash-branded delivery-only ghost kitchens, and two years later its first example has opened in Redwood City, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The facility’s first restaurant tenants include The Halal Guys, Rooster & Rice, Nation’s Giant Hamburgers and Humphry Slocombe.
“With DoorDash Kitchens, the restaurants have a turnkey solution to quickly establish a foothold in a new market and generate revenue,” the company said in a blog post announcing the news. “They are not beholden to 10+ year-long leases and most importantly, DoorDash is an invested partner by their side.”
Compared to a traditional restaurant, DoorDash covers the infrastructure build-out, permitting and tailoring each space to its merchants. On the business front, DoorDash helps its Kitchen merchants refine their menus to match local takeout preferences and co-developed marketing materials to get the word out to area residents.
“I’m very eager to see the great things we’re able to achieve by pairing DoorDash’s industry-leading software and IT expertise with Nation’s 65-plus year history of serving delicious food in the greater Bay Area,” said Patrick Marasco, vice president of business development at Nation’s Foodservice.
From a consumer perspective, DoorDash Kitchens gives customers access to new, popular local restaurants not previously available in their immediate area. Although Halal Guys, Rooster & Rice, Nation’s Giant Hamburgers, and Humphry Slocombe have all been in the broader Bay Area from two to 60 years, none have storefronts, let alone delivery access, in Atherton, Belmont, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Carlos and Woodside. Customers living in these neighborhoods can order individual or group orders or self-pickup, exclusively through the DoorDash app.
This new location is likely to be one of many new restaurant formats from delivery brands, as Grubhub and others have also begun an aggressive rollout of multi-tenant ghost kitchens and co-branded virtual restaurants.
