Earlier this week, I flew up to SF for the day for the DoorDash Forward event where VPs announced a handful of new products and features at the intersection of online and offline commerce. There were a lot of announcements, including a surprise visit from Kroger Chief Digital Officer Yael Cossett and of course, the platform’s new bug-like Dot autonomous delivery robot. The announcements were divided into five buckets designed to further entrench diners, Dashers, and merchants into the DoorDash ecosystem by owning the entire rails of omnichannel restaurants. Some of these developments had already been out in the wild, like the recently reported “Going Out” tab or DashMart’s virtual storefronts. I also had the opportunity to sit down with VP of Strategy & Ops Parisa Sadrzadeh, who recently joined after leading delivery initiatives at Amazon and Flexport. But what are the implications of these announcements and more importantly, how will restaurants thrive within its newly-integrated ecosystem that spans on and off-premise?

“We started with restaurants, and along the way built foundational technology to bring you everything in the city while allowing our partners to be omnichannel businesses,” said Xu as he kicked off the day, explaining how DoorDash plays a role in helping cities grow in a meaningful way by increasing GDP of local businesses. “We have graduated from a single restaurant delivery marketplace to a multi-product, multi-category global business creating the future of local commerce.”