About &pizza
Based in Washington DC, &pizza is a mission-driven community dedicated to better flavor, quality ingredients, and community betterment. Proud to differentiate themselves, &pizza is doing more for their workers by providing a livable wage, a socially conscious vision, and real action to help advance real social progress.
Over eight years, &pizza has expanded to 40 locations along the East Coast-nearly all of which are DoorDash partners—to offer their 17x6 inch, skateboard-shaped customizable pies to customers. &pizza’s business model emphasized in-store experience, but when COVID-19 stay-at-home orders hit in mid-March, the company quickly pivoted—leveraging their DoorDash platform to transfer 100% of their business off-premise and tripling their native delivery business overnight.
The Challenge
"The key to competing with other pizza chains is scale," says Andy Hooper, President and COO of &pizza. "As we looked around for unique ways to reduce our footprint and become more lean for expansion, it became clear that moving our model towards delivery—and moving our kitchens closer to our delivery locations—was critical."
In 2019, &pizza planned to open three mobile kitchens and use them as sourcing hubs for smoother, faster delivery service in locations that &pizza underserved. The challenge? Pinpointing precisely which locations would be most beneficial to their business.
There’s no question that the partner the &pizza team values most is DoorDash.
The Solution
To identify the most promising locations for expansion, &pizza needed data. As a DoorDash partner, &pizza gained access to a goldmine of customer analytics. They worked with the DoorDash Services team, leveraging customer demand data and algorithms to determine the most strategic locations for their mobile kitchens.
&pizza expanded with an informed, data-driven approach sourced from DoorDash. "Our DoorDash partnership holds the highest level of professionalism that we have with a marketplace partner," says Hooper. "We’re thankful that our team and Strategic Partner Manager continue to make us a priority."
The Results
Built-in insights from DoorDash powered &pizza’s lean and speedy growth. In just one year (2018-2019), &pizza went from five stores on DoorDash to 29. Total sales skyrocketed, yielding a YoY growth of 372%. "There’s no question that the partner the &pizza team values most is DoorDash," says Hooper.
Looking ahead, Hooper expects this incredible growth in off-premise sales to continue. "I think off-premise makes a whole lot of sense to people—it’s been a major part of the pizza experience for decades," says Hooper. "COVID-19 is accelerating the trends of the restaurant industry, moving us into a world we were likely headed anyways—and delivery is here to stay."
