A couple of years ago, Burma Superstar was faced with one of those problems most restaurants would love to have: It was too popular.
Its four full-service concepts in the Bay Area were operating at capacity, with customers regularly lined up out the door for its signature tea leaf salad and other Burmese specialities. And then there were the diners you couldn’t see—the ones ordering Superstar Shrimp and garlic noodles for delivery from their couches.
The brisk dine-in business was making it difficult for Burma to handle that growing number of off-premise orders, so owner Desmond Tan began brainstorming other ways to serve at-home guests.
“We wanted to give our customers better dining customer service, and the way to do that was to create a separate to-go business,” he said.
Tan started talking to third-party delivery partner DoorDash about opening a location in a ghost kitchen the company was building in the Bay Area. But he felt the space was too small for Burma’s needs, so they began outlining a deeper relationship.
“The vision from the Burma team was very clear from the start: Build a restaurant which brings affordable, quality, diverse fast-casual food to the Bay Area,” said Georgie Thomas, senior director with DoorDash, in an email.
Together, they developed a new, delivery-only concept called Burma Bites, available exclusively through DoorDash. The restaurant, a little over a block away from Burma Superstar in Oakland, was built from the ground up and designed for off-premise. Instead of a dining room, there is a staging area for drivers. The menu and packaging are unique to Burma Bites and made to travel. At peak times, there are six employees in the restaurant—four in the kitchen and two in front dispatching orders.
DoorDash made what Tan called a “significant investment” in Burma Bites, marking the first time the delivery company has invested in a restaurant. DoorDash would not disclose specifics of the deal.
Each brings their own expertise to the partnership, with Burma handling restaurant operations while DoorDash provides logistics support, marketing and a stream of valuable data. Tan compared it to “a marriage made in heaven.”
“We do what we’re good at and they do what they’re good at, which is on the delivery/logistics side and marketing,” he said. “We don’t have to worry about any of that.”
As a co-investor, DoorDash has an obvious incentive to make Burma Bites successful. The company gives Burma detailed data on things like pricing and ordering trends, allowing it to optimize its offering. It also has the power to promote Burma Bites to its enormous user base. Since launching in October, about half of Burma Bites’ customers have been first-timers, Tan said.
“New ones are coming in, from where, we don’t know, but we assume that it’s DoorDash’s doing,” he said.
It’s an intriguing model for DoorDash: It can hand-pick popular restaurants and help them superpower their business through its platform. It’s a win for both parties—and potentially worrisome for restaurants that have to compete with them.
Burma Bites has been an instant hit. It broke even in its first month and was on track to be out of the red in the second, Tan said, exceeding both his and DoorDash’s expectations.
It has done so well, in fact, that Tan is already planning more locations with DoorDash, in the Bay Area and Northern and Southern California.
“We plan to open five in the next two years or so. And if we can go faster, we will,” he said.
Thomas would not reveal whether DoorDash had plans for more investments like Burma Bites. “We’re always looking for new ways to empower the merchants we work with,” he said.
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