DoorDash opens a shared kitchen in Redwood City

DoorDash is opening its first shared commissary kitchen in Redwood City, Calif., bringing new delivery and pickup options to customers in Peninsula towns including Atherton, Menlo Park and Palo Alto.

This is part of a broader trend of companies like Deliveroo opening shared kitchens that allow restaurant partners to expand their delivery footprint without dealing with all the expenses of opening a new location.

DoorDash says this first kitchen will be used by restaurants including Nation’s Giant Hamburgers, Rooster & Rice, Humphry Slocombe and the Halal Guys.

The company also says it designs the kitchen spaces in collaboration with its partners, and it argues that by putting all these restaurants together in one location, it can offer unique menu items and pairings — at launch, if you order from Rooster & Rice, you can add Humphry Slocombe ice cream pints to your order.

“Given our founders’ Bay Area roots, we are always interested in how technology can change the way food is delivered and shared,” said Rooster & Rice CFO Min Park in a statement. “We were impressed by the overall partnership and scale DoorDash could reach with this concept, and we found the notion of a delivery-only kitchen in Redwood City very appealing as it helps us test out demand in new markets, reaching new customers and areas quickly.”

As part of the launch, the company says it will offer 0% delivery fees to its DoorDash Kitchens partners through the end of the year.