Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

DoorDash brings new delivery options to Tufts, Somerville

2015-01-24-DoorDash-1205
– Kristin Wright, a DoorDash "dasher," picks up an order at Regina Pizzeria on Jan. 24.

The Palo Alto-based food delivery startup DoorDash brought its services to Somerville residents and Tufts students this week. The website and accompanying app, founded in Jan. 2013 by three students at Stanford University, acts as a medium between customers and small restaurants without sufficient delivery systems of their own.

“This isn’t a revolutionary idea but I think it is powered differently, and that makes us special,” DoorDash General Manager Jessica Lachs said. 

“The dashers that we have, [including] drivers, bikers and commuters, are out on the road with the app in their hands," she said. "Our company is just trying to make something people are familiar with much more efficient."

According to Lachs, the company's emphasis since its inception has been on supporting small business owners and revitalizing the relationship between restaurants and customers. She explained that DoorDash’s co-founders came up with the idea for the business after talking to the owner of a macaron store in Palo Alto, who often struggled to fulfill delivery orders.

"They realized that there were a lot of small businesses … that weren’t able to offer delivery but if they could, would be able to improve their bottom line," she said.

Lachs emphasized that the app adds a unique synergy to the restaurant-deliverer-customer dynamic, explaining how everyone involved in the transaction benefits. The merchants increase their business and their accessibility to clientele, the "dashers" who deliver the food are able to work on their own terms, and consumers gain access to local restaurants from which they might have otherwise found too inconvenient for take-out. 

Lachs is confident that the app will be useful and relevant for Tufts students, noting that they can conveniently order meals from Davis Square favorites or new Cambridge vendors including Anna's Taqueria, Yoshi's and Chipotle

DoorDash has been expanding its presence in metropolitan areas across the country. While the company began in Palo Alto and the Silicon Valley area, it later expanded to the Los Angeles area and then into Chicago.

Although the company has just now begun to deliver in the Somerville area, it came to Boston in September. Lachs and her team were hopeful about the new market Boston promised, but as the first East Coast city to see the app, the launch was accompanied by some trepidation.

“We knew it would be a challenge, but I think it has been really interesting to see what the impact of weather has been on demand. It was difficult to predict what would happen when we had inclement weather,” Lachs said, adding that time zone differences and Boston's bad traffic posed further challenges.

General Manager of Boston Burger Company Jason Carter explained that while he recognizes the potential benefits of working with DoorDash, he sees the service as potentially superfluous.

“It’s good for the people that don’t want to leave their houses or dorms and it gives a restaurant revenue, but I find that most people would just come in and pick up food anyway,” Carter said.

For first-year Kinsey Drake, who is both a seasoned DoorDash customer as well as a former employee for a restaurant that uses DoorDash, the startup’s expansion to Somerville is an exciting prospect that promises a variety of made-to-order meals at her doorstep.

“I really like it because a lot of restaurants in our area don’t deliver and … it’s really fast,” Drake noted. “As someone who worked with [DoorDash], it was really nice because we didn’t have to coordinate delivery, and it’s a more secure way of delivery I think. There is more of a guarantee that your food will arrive hot."

Lachs emphasized the startup's strong sense of customer service that does not end with the take-out container; she said DoorDash’s desired goal is to broaden the product base available to customers in order to optimize time and efficiency.

“The ultimate goal is to build an on-demand delivery platform that can deliver anything … food, pharmaceuticals, dry cleaning," Lachs said. "Right now, we are delivering food to build up the network."