By Sueli Shaw (Social Impact Manager) and Emily Tung (Business Development Senior Manager)
At DoorDash, our mission is simple: to connect people with possibility.
That’s why we’re honored to partner with La Cocina, the renowned nonprofit kitchen incubator based in San Francisco’s Mission District. Through this partnership, we’ll support La Cocina’s mission of cultivating working class food entrepreneurs, primarily immigrant women and women of color, as they formalize and grow their businesses.
We believe that by lowering the barriers to entry into San Francisco’s rich food economy for under-resourced groups, we can collectively grow towards a more equitable, sustainable, and yes — delicious — food industry.
In addition to providing funding for La Cocina’s incubator program, we’re also creating an array of unique opportunities and dedicated support for La Cocina participant and graduate businesses through our platform. We are also excited to announce our sponsorship of La Cocina’s twice-yearly storytelling event F&B: Voices from the Kitchen on Thursday, November 8. If you’re based in San Francisco, join us in supporting La Cocina by purchasing your tickets at voicesfromthekitchen.org!
Speaking of stories, we’ll leave you with introductions to four businesses who are now catering through DoorDash:
- Bini’s Kitchen: Binita Pradhan brings Nepalese soul food from her home of Kathmandu in the Himalayas to San Francisco. Her momos are famous throughout the Bay Area, but Bini claims that her real specialty is the homeground blend of roasted and ground spices, including bay leaves, cumin seeds, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, and black cardamom.
- Mama Lamees: Owner Lamees Dahbour is of Palestinian origin and was born and raised in Kuwait. The origin of her cooking begins in her mother’s kitchen, where she started learning culinary skills at the age of 10. At La Cocina’s shared kitchen in the Mission, she prepares everything from hummus and tabbouleh to waraq malfouf (cabbage rolls) and maqloubeh (lamb or chicken slow-cooked in layers of seasoned basmati rice).
- Mission Boricua: Rosie Ortiz is a Mission District native with Puerto Rican roots. She launched her business earlier this year, with guidance from La Cocina and the community. On the menu are empanadas, alcapurrias, and rellenos de papa, as well as traditional preparations of rice, pigeon peas, and Puerto-Rican style sofrito.
- Peaches Patties: To master the flaky pastry crust for her Jamaican patties, Shani Jones turned to her mother (nicknamed Peaches) who moved from Kingston, Jamaica, to the U.S. to marry Jones’ father. Shani’s upbringing was a mix of heritages. Today, in addition to patties, Shani offers other Jamaican specialties like jerk chicken, plantains, and fragrant rice and peas.
Stay tuned for more about these entrepreneurs, their stories, and their food. We will also be on-boarding even more La Cocina businesses to the DoorDash platform soon.
Questions? Email social-impact@doordash.com to hear more about our nonprofit partnerships or to let us know if you want to partner together to deepen our community impact.
If you are interested in catering from these businesses for lunch or dinner to your office, please reach out to robinson@doordash.com to get set up.
Supporting Women, Immigrant, and People of Color-Owned Food Businesses was originally published in DoorDash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.