Our mission is to help local restaurants grow. We’re doing that — in just one year, the company generated $50 billion in sales for local merchants. Approximately 1 in 5 DoorDash merchants say that DoorDash helped them stay in business. 70% of merchants surveyed say that DoorDash has helped them ‌increase profits. But for some merchants, we’re still proving our value as a partner. So we created Secret Menu, our love letter to local merchants: a celebration of their hard work, passion, and skill. We believe that once they realize how much we see and understand them, they’ll be more likely to give us a shot at helping them grow, expand, and thrive.

Reimagine the way restaurants connect with and are inspired by each other by creating a platform that hinges on rich, immersive, and relevant storytelling.

Secret Menu is an original digital and print magazine that explores a specific restaurant culture in one U.S. city. More than simple profiles about restaurants and owners, these stories delve into the layered experience of running a restaurant, from day-to-day operations to preserving tradition to creating community. This imagery-rich publication uses real, authentic stories to give restaurants, resources, inspiration, and connection, regardless of their relationship with DoorDash. The platform also includes hyper-local industry dinners (“Secret Dinner”) and curated collateral like customized wine labels.

In order to create a magazine that moved the needle for restaurant owners, we took a three-pronged approach. First, we met directly with business owners on the DoorDash Restaurant Advisory Council to better understand the stories they were interested in and get feedback on articles. These robust conversations helped define the magazine’s content and made it clear that material focused on (and distributed in) a highly specific market would ultimately be most impactful. Second, we deliberately commissioned local writers who were deeply immersed in the city’s food culture. We did this to uncover authentic insights and pain points worth exploring, as well as leverage insider knowledge to feature prominent local chefs. Finally, we enlisted designers, artists, and illustrators to create unique designs for each article as a way to show merchants, rather than tell them, that we understand and appreciate the individuality of their brands and business needs.

Over three years, we published three issues of Secret Menu, available in print and digitally.

We knew from our conversations with merchants that material focused on specific markets would be more impactful than more general content. As a result, each issue was locally oriented and distributed via a thoughtful, targeted approach. Issue #1 dove deep into Los Angeles’s diverse Asian restaurant communities, while issue #2 explored Miami’s hustle and glam. Issue #3 celebrated Philly, a city known for taking risks and breaking rules.

The 20-25 articles in each issue were written by local writers about local chefs and restaurateurs. More than simple profiles, every story delves into the layered experience of running a restaurant, from day-to-day operations to preserving tradition to creating community.

We celebrated the launch of each magazine with curated, hyper-local industry dinners, a website with a dedicated landing page for each article, and locally targeted email outreach.

Our first issue generated more than 1.2 million impressions, 1,200 subscriptions to the digital magazine’s digital version, and 35,000 site visits. Our second issue garnered 4.9 million impressions, with an engagement of over 301,000. Our third issue was released in April 2024. We’re waiting for full results, but early feedback suggests it’s been very well received.

Our effort to introduce more merchants to another side of DoorDash – a side that is genuinely invested in the art, success, and culture of restaurants and small businesses — was highly successful, with nearly 85% of readers reporting a ‘much more’ or ‘more’ positive perception of DoorDash.

Importantly, Secret Menu also successfully convinced multiple long-term holdouts to become DoorDash partners.