Chicken Shack, a 23-unit brand out of Michigan, has long done the majority of its business via off-premises sales. For years, that has mostly meant taking orders via phone, or more recently, through delivery platforms like DoorDash.

But when the pandemic triggered a labor crisis, Chicken Shack found that short-staffed restaurants often had to make a choice between picking up the phone or helping a customer already in the store. Either choice might lose a valuable order, or affect the customer experience. And while the brand did have an online ordering presence where customers could place orders for pickup, it was cumbersome at best and did not see a whole lot of traffic. 

“We needed something that would be more functional for our customers,” says Nicole Muriel, a jack-of-all-trades style employee with Chicken Shack. “Our POS system doesn’t have an online platform, and we were looking for something a little more attractive that would reflect our brand a bit more than the online ordering we had at the time.” 

As a result, Chicken Shack partnered with DoorDash to be one of the first restaurant brands to roll out a commission-free online ordering platform: the all-new Storefront, the first white-label, SaaS product from DoorDash. The platform is designed to help brands of all sizes provide customers with an effective way to place online takeout orders through the restaurant’s own website. 

DoorDash Storefront allows restaurants to fully customize their online ordering portal, complete with branding. That means that customers using the platform experience the seamless digital experience engineered by DoorDash but associate the user-friendly process with the restaurant brand. Meanwhile, tickets are immediately sent to kitchen display systems or a store’s DoorDash tablet, just like an order through DoorDash’s traditional delivery platform. 

One of the biggest advantages for brands—especially those already using DoorDash’s delivery platform—is that orders of all kinds are conveniently stored in the same place. 

“Storefront makes it a lot easier to track orders and sales on the back end of things,” Muriel says. “Instead of having two different spots where the info is stored, we have delivery and online orders on one platform.” 

In order to convert customers to the online ordering platform, Chicken Shack offered specials, like $10 off when a customer purchased $50 worth of food or more, or 20 percent off a first order. When stores were especially busy the brand would even encourage employees to pick up the phone and relay to a customer that they could now order through the website in order to push users toward using the new and efficient channel. 

Since rolling out Storefront, Chicken Shack has found that online ordering ticket sizes are higher. Muriel reports that customers seem pleased with the new online ordering portal, and they’re now seeing more digital orders than ever before. And of course, the online orders are commission-free—it’s the user who pays a few dollars more per order, while the restaurant only covers the credit card fee. 

Best of all, Storefront has streamlined Chicken Shack’s operations, making the brand better at what it does best: Serving great food to its loyal following. 

“It’s definitely been a great thing for us,” Muriel says. “It definitely saves us time on the phone and keeps our employees happier. So that’s really helped us at a time when everyone’s struggling to hire.” 

For more on Storefront’s commission-free online ordering capabilities, visit DoorDash’s website.