DoorDash reservations are here!
The company’s sharing *a lot* of announcements today, but this is the one I care about most. Reservations debut soon in Miami and New York, with more cities coming later this year.
It’s a big day! Reservations on DoorDash have arrived. The delivery giant officially wants its customers to get off the couch and go outside — while still using its app, of course.
In-app reservations are part of a larger feature, a revamped “going out” tab that launches today. They’re powered by SevenRooms, the restaurant tech platform DoorDash acquired last spring for $1.2 billion; restaurants must be SevenRooms customers to offer bookings DoorDash.
The company has been testing a version of Going Out for over a year, tempting DoorDash users in some cities with deals and specials when they visit in-store. Today’s launch is a realization of a true industry dream, tying digital delivery orders to in-store behavior in a way that restaurants should find valuable — and competing reservations companies will likely find harrowing.
“DoorDash is really about building lasting relationships with restaurant partners, and we want to enable them to build even more lasting relationships with their diners,” Parisa Sadrzadeh told me in an interview late last week. “Getting into the reservation space allows us to offer a new capability to the many, many restaurants on the platform today who offer reservations, and could use another demand channel to do so.”
DoorDash, clearly, did not come to play, even though it already knows the game. Some top restaurants agree, including The Corner Store, a true NYC hotspot that was introduced on Eater New York last October with the headline, “Taylor Swift has already been twice.” It’ll use DoorDash for reservations when they launch in the city, which feels like a real get for a brand once exclusively focused on food delivery.
Also, in a slightly coded nod to anyone who’s paid as much attention to reservations as I have over the last decade-plus (there are at least 20 of us, I’m sure), legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer is onboard, too. Meyer, once an OpenTable board member and later an early Resy partner, has already moved reservations at Union Square Hospitality Group restaurants including Union Square Cafe and Manhatta to SevenRooms. (Meyer’s investment firm, Enlightened Hospitality Investments, invested in SevenRooms a few years ago.)
“The platform gives us actionable insights that enable us to deliver personalized, memorable hospitality at every interaction,” Meyer said as part of a larger statement. “Partnering with DoorDash allows us to pair this gold standard in guest relationship management with unparalleled reach.”
Going Out is more than reservations
The company says the new tab on the increasingly crowded DoorDash app encourages its users to explore local restaurants.