Digital ordering is now a primary driver of restaurant growth. The challenge isn’t simply offering online ordering, it’s building a cohesive, high-performing digital ecosystem across every customer touchpoint: from web and mobile app, to in-store experiences, while maintaining brand identity and operational efficiency.
The brands pulling ahead today are doing two things well; they’re investing in direct ordering experiences that convert efficiently, reduce friction, and build long-term loyalty, and they’re treating those experiences as living products, not one-time builds.
Checkers & Rally's and Capriotti's offer two strong examples of how this strategy can unlock meaningful, measurable growth quickly.
From Fragmentation to a Scalable Growth Engine
For many enterprise brands, digital ordering has evolved in a fragmented way. Separate systems for web and app are often stitched together with custom development and agency support. Over time, this creates complexity, rising costs, and inconsistent customer experiences.
Checkers & Rally’s, one of the largest drive-thru burger chains in the country, needed a scalable digital growth engine, so they rebuilt both their website and mobile app experience. Within six months of launching on DoorDash Commerce Platform, the brand saw more than 15% growth in combined web and app sales. That's not a small number for a system-wide initiative – it represents real incremental revenue and a meaningful improvement in how customers interact with the brand through digital channels.
“With DoorDash, we are seeing a notable level of differentiation with their strong appetite for test-driven learning. I am very glad we made the move,” says Adam Eiler, VP of Digital at Checkers & Rally’s.
What drove that growth wasn't a single feature. It was a continuous optimization approach; through structured testing across the ordering funnel, Checkers worked closely with DoorDash to run more than a dozen experiments with improvements ranging from better menu merchandising to more prominent loyalty integration and app adoption strategies. The key takeaway here is that digital growth compounds when brands treat their ordering experience as a product that constantly evolves.
Turning Web Ordering into a High-Performance Channel
Capriotti's, a beloved sandwich brand with a loyal following, saw approximately 35% relative lift in conversion on their website within six months of launching on Commerce Platform, a reflection of reduced friction and a better end-to-end customer experience. Like Checkers, Capriotti's leaned into experimentation. The team tested homepage design, ordering mode prominence, menu structure, and loyalty integration. Even seemingly small changes contributed to measurable gains in conversion and average order value.
“DoorDash provides unmatched support and a true partnership mindset,” says Kim Lewis, Chief Marketing & Technology Officer at Capriotti's. “Their focus on driving growth and continuous optimization has made a meaningful impact on our business.”
What Operators Should Take Away
The restaurant brands pulling ahead in digital aren't doing anything mysterious. They're showing up where customers are, and then giving those customers a reason to come back directly. That distinction matters more than most operators realize.
These results point to a few principles that apply broadly, regardless of concept or scale:
- Elevate Direct Ordering to a Core Priority –Don't treat direct ordering as an afterthought. Your owned digital ordering experience, across web and mobile, should be treated as a core revenue channel. If your online ordering flow hasn't been seriously evaluated in the last two years, it is likely costing you customers. Speed, mobile responsiveness, and a clean checkout flow are table stakes, not differentiators, and should be continuously tested and improved to keep pace with evolving customer expectations.
- Differentiate the Role of Each Channel – Marketplace and first-party channels serve different and complementary purposes across the customer journey. Investing in a differentiated first-party experience, through loyalty programs, personalization, and seamless ordering, ensures customers have a compelling reason to come back directly.
- Recognize Digital as a Growth Driver for the Entire Business – Digital growth is overall growth. The operators who frame digital investment as a cost miss the real picture. Checkers and Capriotti's didn't just improve their digital metrics, they grew their businesses. Direct channel performance and system-wide health are increasingly the same story.
Brands that invest in scalable, flexible platforms and pair them with a disciplined approach to experimentation aren't just improving their ordering experience, they're building a long-term competitive advantage. Both Checkers & Rally's and Capriotti's made deliberate decisions to invest in their direct digital channels, and the results were measurable quickly.
