Breaking Bread, Building Business

I’m a big history reader in my spare time, and if I could climb into a physical ‘wayback machine’, one of the experiences I’d have it take me back to is New York Public Library’s Lunch Hour NYC exhibit in 2013. Exploring the ways New Yorkers reinvented lunch over more than a century, it included a partial reproduction of the Horn and Hardart automat, with recipes behind each door, for dishes like mac and cheese, savory pot pies and fruit pies.?

Automats featured more slots than a row of pinball machines, but every door delivered guaranteed payoffs. Last month we tested New Yorkers’ appetite for new food experiences ourselves, with the DashMart DisPlay (below) This pop-up re-created the iconic claw game and gave people a chance to win a customized bag of groceries from local hotspots like Magnolia Bakery, Milk Bar and Baz Bagels. Hundreds lined up every day, for the chance to play and win!

On a much larger scale, we’re using DoorDash for Work to help people figure out what’s for lunch, from coast to coast. I started my latest journey to learn more about how customers are using this solution, right in the middle of Manhattan, at Reprise Digital .

Reprise is a leader in digital marketing, using content and advertising to move customers along the path to making a purchase. It’s ideal for companies looking to reach audiences at scale through media channels. Renee Marquardt is the SVP and General Manager. She recalls how they used to think about working creatively:

?“When the shutdown was first announced, we were all in shock, but said ‘Okay, we will be back in two weeks’, and went home. We were so used to working together creatively, we hadn’t yet wrapped our heads around what we could do remotely. At the same time, the company happened to be in the middle of transitioning to a new messaging platform, and our teams were getting used to working without visual cues. We were lucky to have had the messaging platform in place, to make communication amongst teams less challenging as we transitioned to remote work.”

Reprise experimented with ways to maintain their sense of community and fun workplace culture, while adapting to the pandemic. Renee continued: “We held happy hours, online scavenger hunts, offered Zoom backgrounds so people could choose not to show their real home life in the background. But making time for lunch became a high priority, because some colleagues slipped into expecting to be ‘on’ from the moment they woke up, and were scheduling meetings with that mindset.”

I’ve written before about the crucial reasons not to skip meals. But it doesn’t get easier, just because your kitchen is a few feet away from your work area. Reprise started blocking lunch hours on calendars three days a week. Then, Renee says her U.S. CEO, David Mataranglo, heard about DoorDash for Work: “David said ‘let’s investigate this and see what we can find out’. We piloted it for six months, before rolling it out permanently to staff normally used to working in each of our offices across America.”?

DoorDash for Work is designed to accelerate comprehensive, flexible, fast and easy meal ordering for today’s workplaces. It’s a benefit that is paying off even for customers who have started to encourage staff to come back into the office again, like Reprise.

As proof, Renee proudly talks about how the team has found better work-life integration and what they’ve achieved since making the pilot official: “Before, I would never have imagined you’d be able to work remotely and win new business. But we’ve actually won several new accounts through pitches and organically grown our business with existing clients in that time. On top of that, we were awarded one of Ad Age’s best places to work this year. We value our employees, and it starts with a solid benefits package.”

Over a thousand miles away, Gena Tavis in the HR department of NDBT (North Dallas Bank and Trust ) now includes DoorDash for Work as one of the benefits that helps her recruit, in a very competitive market. The community bank with five branches was founded in 1961 (former site above), and emerged from the financial turmoil of the 1980s stock market, as one of Money Magazine’s top 100 safest banks in the country.

NDBT’s marketing promises that ‘true financial knowledge is not shared in an online thread, it’s discussed face to face.’ Inevitably when the pandemic struck, all staff were sent home. But by maintaining that reputation for financial prudence, the bank was able to retain all of them, even tellers, who couldn’t actually do their regular work.?

Gena shares her theory behind the bank’s success: “Integrity is one of our core values, and we talk a lot about doing things the right way. And just like being able to connect with a doctor in minutes by video or phone has become the new norm, convenient access to great food has become expected. For a while after the pandemic shut down, that was impossible. But with DoorDash for Work, I’m able to order from places like my favorite sandwich place, Beck’s Prime Rib or Chuys (below).”

One of the great additional draws of DoorDash for Work, is that DashPass can be used whenever you need something conveniently brought to you, not just at work. Gena puts it this way: “The cafe in our headquarters had to close because of the pandemic. But with DashPass for Work, we could order with 0% delivery free from so many great restaurants that were able to survive, and that’s been a real ongoing plus. The cafe is open again (below, with Owner/Chef Tyler Aponte), but everyone is still excited about this benefit.”

I know many readers work at companies that are also figuring out how to ensure they provide benefits that draw and retain the right people, as the pandemic lingers on. If you’re ready to explore further, visit DoorDash for Work , inclusive of DashPass for Work .?

In the next few weeks I’ll introduce you to new graduates from our Accelerator for Local Goods in Chicago and New York, the program I first wrote about in March. You’ll meet the owner of a plant-focused Vancouver restaurant, which recently made our coveted Most Loved list. And I’ll share how an accidental choice in college led me to lean into computer science in a much bigger way than I planned, which explains a lot of what’s happened since then!