DoorDash has launched a new location of its ghost kitchen operation, the company announced today via a press release sent to The Spoon. DoorDash Kitchens San Jose will house six different restaurant concepts from both nationally known restaurants and those from the San Francisco Bay Area.
This is the second DoorDash Kitchens location. DoorDash launched the first almost two years ago in Redwood City, California, and has served the Peninsula area of the state ever since. The new location will offer delivery and pickup orders for customers in San Jose proper as well as Saratoga and Campbell.
Restaurants in the new location include Aria Korean Street Food, Canter’s Deli, Curry Up Now, Milk Bar, The Melt Express, and YiFang Taiwan Fruit Tea. Canter’s, in particular, is notable on this list because it illustrates how ghost kitchens can potentially improve a restaurant’s geographical reach. Canter’s is so famous in Los Angeles it’s practically an institution. It also only has one brick-and-mortar location, in Los Angeles, though in the last couple years it has expanded its reach in Southern California via a partnership with Kitchen United. Teaming up with DoorDash gives Canter’s a presence in Northern California without requiring the buildout of a full restaurant.
As part of the new facility, DoorDash has launched DoorDash Kitchens Full Service, where the delivery service assumes day-to-day operations like cooking and boxing up orders instead of requiring the restaurant to do so. That requires less work from the restaurants themselves, but it does place even more control over the brand in the hands of DoorDash. DoorDash has partnered with culinary operator A La Couch to hire cooking staff and prepare meals. The last mile, of course, will be handled exclusively by DoorDash and its own couriers.
DoorDash said part of the motivation behind Full Service is to offer restaurants even less labor-intensive ways to run a delivery-only kitchen. And nowadays, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, as many restaurants continue to struggle with high margins, a dearth of labor, and uncertain times in general.
Full Service handles the hiring, training, and day-to-day tasks in the kitchen such as procurement and inventory management. Restaurants receive a portion of the revenue in return. A specific percentage was not given.
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