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My 2 cts on the long term play of Doordash: The long term trend is that (primarily take-out) restaurants will decline and be replaced by ghost kitchens. The un

• hardwaregeek 6y ago
  A good middle ground between a ghost kitchen and a full on restaurant is the food court model. Restaurants get to pay a little less for rent, keep some in person dining but mostly focus on takeout.
  • nmfisher 6y ago
    I relocated to Singapore earlier in the year, and I have to say that the hawker centres here are amazing. I know the economics require a bit of government intervention (and it only really works in a dense urban environment), but I would love to see more governments embrace this model. That being said, I also expect that implementing this somewhere like Australia would also require a lot more security to deal with drunks, thieves and generic shitheads. So a lot of it is cultural.
    • freddie_mercury 6y ago
      There are food courts in Australia. MLC Centre, Australia Square, Eating World, Central, the Galeries and more. None of them have any security guards or have any issues with drinks, thieves, or generic shit heads. Not sure why you think they don't exist in Australia.
      • nmfisher 6y ago
        I'm assuming you haven't been to Singapore hawker centres, because they're nothing like the crappy corporate foodcourts in Australian office towers. First, the food quality is much, much better and considerably cheaper. Second (and I assume related to the first), the stalls are much smaller, meaning they can be properly independently run. Third, they're regulated (after a fashion), so ma and pa stalls aren't competing with Subway. Fourth, the majority of people here don't cook, so eating hawker food twice or three times a day isn't just normal, it's probably common. Fifth, they're generally stand-alone buildings and smoking/drinking is permitted. Sixth, they're usually open from 6am until 9pm (some are even 24 hours). Seventh, they're a staple of literally every neighbourhood, not just CBD office towers.
    • CaptainZapp 6y ago
      > and it only really works in a dense urban environment I wouldn't consider Georgetown (Penang, Malaysia) as a dense urban environment. Despite this food courts there are numerous, immensely popular and fantastic to get a cheap, ultra-delicious meal.
      • nmfisher 6y ago
        > I wouldn't consider Georgetown (Penang, Malaysia) as a dense urban environment. I can't say I'm familiar with Georgetown (unfortunately due to COVID, I haven't been able to travel through Malaysia just yet). Interesting that they also manage to work in the less-populated areas though. Look forward to seeing it first-hand (hopefully 2021).
    • simonebrunozzi 6y ago
      > the hawker centres here are amazing. I lived in Singapore 2010-2012. 100% agree with you. Quality and taste of food, especially price-wise, is so good!
• thrawa567 6y ago
  It is not just about eating but about being at a place.
• nine_zeros 6y ago
  +1 The market for cheap delivered food is much larger than sit down restaurants. Covid just make more of the population comfortable with apps.
  • afterwalk 6y ago
    I've experienced cheap delivered food done well when in Bejing, and it's definitely a real thing. However if you tag a $10+ service/delivery/tip onto the bill, it kind of negates the "cheap" part of the experience.
  • sparrc 6y ago
    doordash is cheap?
  • eyelidlessness 6y ago
    The prices are higher (the same plus delivery plus tip) and the food comes cold and unless you’re ordering for a cold outdoor social visit you’re eating it alone/with the same company you see everyday. That’s a market that serves homebodies (I’m one half the time) and absolutely will fail for people who go out to eat and drink socially (me the other half of the time) when that becomes available again.
• bsder 6y ago
  > You can run a ghost kitchen from a warehouse. This trend was already underway before covid And it was already failing before Covid. Delivery requires proximity--every minute in delivery is a minute your food is shittier. And warehouses aren't proximate to residential in most places. Why do you think food trucks became a thing (and even they were declining)? They changed "proximate" to "immediate".
  • tempest_ 6y ago
    Yeah, I dont order from food apps too often because a lot food doesn't travel well. Most fried things are soggy by the time they reach you. Many people don't seem to care though.
    • standardUser 6y ago
      This depends where you live. In NYC, I can get fried food delivered fresh almost every time. When I lived in SF, I wouldn't even dare order fried food because nothing was going to show up for at least an hour.
    • CamperBob2 6y ago
      Is it better than anything I'm going to cook myself? "Yes." That's the only relevant question, at least for me, and the answer is pretty much always the same.
  • jasondigitized 6y ago
    That's why you open food trucks that serve as ghost kitchens and serve food that travels well. All variables completely in your control as a food entrepreneur.
  • throw_m239339 6y ago
    what the parent really meant is "from some dirty basement near you" /s as it is already the case for some of these 'ghost kitchens'. And of course when something bad happens like food poising, ecoli or whatever, these illegal kitchens were never there...
  • 6y ago
• localhost 6y ago
  Another take on this is that restaurants are in the entertainment business, not the food business. Post COVID people are going to have a lot of pent up demand for entertainment that isn't in their homes. So perhaps this is more of a complement to restaurants rather than a replacement. But is DASH valued as a complement? But then again price is king right now, not value :)
  • gravity13 6y ago
    Exactly. This is why cocktails you order from the restaurant don't taste nearly as good as they do in store (unless you know what you're doing with them). I can't wait to get drunk in a bar with people again.
    • sdenton4 6y ago
      Also, decent fries... Some things just don't survive delivery.
• icedchai 6y ago
  I'm a bit skeptical. I've never ordered takeout from a restaurant I haven't been to first.
  • fuzzythinker 6y ago
    That's because it isn't the norm currently, just like online shopping/mail orders wasn't the norm.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • steveklabnik 6y ago
    In the Before Times, I’d have the experience of walking down the street, seeing a sign, and being like, “oh, that’s where The Clay Pit is.” There’s tons of places whose food I really love that I’ve never actually been to physically.
• standardUser 6y ago
  I had several bad experiences with ghost kitchens (low quality food) and now I look up ay restaurant before I order from them to make sure it has a storefront. Though usually you can tell by the absurd names most ghost kitchen places use.
  • stefanmichael 6y ago
    interestingly there's a local startup here in Boise that is trying to pre-empt your experience. They are a ghost kitchen that also owns the logistics (delivery) the ordering software, and have hired chefs to build menus specifically targeted at being delivered and still being good. https://www.cravedelivery.com/ https://www.cravedelivery.com/ I'm actually going to order dinner from them now as a first time user (i've been signed up for a while but now after reading this thread i'm curious what the quality is like) will report back.
    • viztor 6y ago
      There have always been a lot of those, cooking group meals, lunches for cooperation/events. It's always there, just DoorDash enabled those kitchens to take individual customers, which would have only been possible with a storefront, before the time of digital delivery service.
    • ponker 6y ago
      There was a company that did this called Munchery.
    • stefanmichael 6y ago
      Reporting back: It was fine, no better or worse than ordering from anywhere downtown but probably 20% more expensive.
  • the_economist 6y ago
    I was extremely excited about ghost kitchens and have had been disappointed by similar experiences with them all providing low quality food. I'm still optimistic that the supply will shape itself over time and eventually a market for high quality food ghost kitchens will emerge.
• viztor 6y ago
  People just looking for food will get them at a lower price. People go to the restaurant for the restaurant and everything with it will still go to the restaurant. It's an entirely different market, the segmentation of which DoorDash enabled.
• tibiahurried 6y ago
  Many underestimate that great food must be served as soon as ready. Try to deliver a filet mignon, pasta, steak, burgers, really .. anything, by the time you get it, you will be chewing a shoe sole. So far, the only thing that I can order and enjoy is : sushi. Any other food just sucks! It is cold, not as juice as it should be, not enjoyable at all. Often, you will have to put it back in the oven and end up overcooking it. Perhaps it is me, I am used to high standard/quality food. I simple can't see DoorDash replacing restaurants.
• Melting_Harps 6y ago
  As a person that spent time in the Industry as well as did/does logistics and supply chain management I agree with your assessment. After the short-lived breather the PPP program allowed the Industry to have, few restaurants really saw the writing on the wall: after the summer season the shutdowns were inevitable either way due to the lack of dine in option or a forced 50% capacity. This was not sustainable in a business with razor thing margins and large overhead. The only ones that are going to survive are the ones with large outside investment, where they're attached to a Corp with other forms of revenue--this is exactly the model of where I last worked, and only the flagship(s) and 2 other bistros remain after most had to shutdown. Everything else got the axe. On the other side of the spectrum, cheap(er) eats, its a race to the bottom and a re-structuring of how to deliver. I have friends with restaurants and they offer curbside pick up, but are now also thinking about how to deploy a meal-prep type solution. A sort of interactive blue apron model with videos online to walk them through the process. Perhaps creating a community facebook page/social media presence to spread the word, I proposed it as a 'chowhound meets flickr' idea. It's a sad situation, and the Industry needed a much needed overhaul given the amount of waste and abuse within it. But even I agree this was too high of a cost to pay. I'm just glad that I hit a high water mark that I can leave with my head held up high and can be satisfied with what I did as a chef in several countries on two continents. DD is not a sustainable without tons of VC money to burn, their app is utter garbage, their fee policy on merchants exploitative, and the drivers are treated and paid well below even Industry standards who had their tips stolen while assuming no liability--VERY limited protection if an accident occurs while on delivery. Softbank created a poorly structured logistics solution that took a lot of marketshare without caring it was a money-pit with little to no potential ROI unless its IPO is a homerun, which Softbank will probably use to exit from its investment. We are living through yet another absurd financial era, like 2008, where the Market is so filled with cheap money that it is flooding into any ponzi scheme that shows even a glimmer of short-lived profitability gets flooded with funding and investment, all while 1/4 of the US population is out of work and unemployment continues to rise everyday.
• poordash 6y ago
  When Doordash can deliver food from restaurants around the world straight to my door, they can be the "app store" of virtual (kitchen) brands. Right now DoorDash can't even offer 90% of local restaurants and zero of my favorites - it's just Groupon 2.0.
• sjg007 6y ago
  Maybe.. I see a lot of take out store fronts with food trucks and door dash. I still see restaurants post covid, just at smaller capacities. A lot of restaurants in the suburbs have plenty of space. Also bars are a major component of restaurants too.
• bamboozled 6y ago
  Do you actually know of any good "take out" only restaurants that don't have people eating there? I don't. I live in a city so maybe that's the difference, but one things for sure, if people could be in there, sitting at a table enjoying food with their friends, they would be.
  • skc 6y ago
    I think there is a very obvious opportunity here that people seem to be missing. The first "high end ghost kicthen" to stick a camera in their kitchen and stream their food prep will probably make a killing. You can probably build an entire social network for foodies around this stuff.
    • rchaud 6y ago
      I can see them streaming food preparation in a highly curated setting. But they would never show the actual line cooks at work, with all the yelling, swearing and less-than-perfect hygiene and sanitation. That would just be asking to be reported to the health and sanitation authorities.
• randomsearch 6y ago
  > The long term trend is that (primarily take-out) restaurants will decline and be replaced by ghost kitchens. If you mean takeaways will stop having so many storefronts, sure. But for sure restaurant brands are not going virtual - you'll have your Dominos but most restaurants are going to mainly be in person eateries. There's this tendency to over-estimate the impact of major events as you're in the centre of them... once COVID is "over" we're going to see a boom in eating out, as people rush back to normal life. It ain't going change so much. The reason it's so hard to make money out of a restaurant is not because rents are high (people will travel to good restaurants) it's because the competition is so damn fierce.