Caviar

Caviar is a curated online food-delivery service that connects consumers and businesses with local restaurants, many of which did not previously offer delivery, and dispatches its own couriers to complete orders. Customers browse photographed menus in the web and mobile apps, place orders, and track deliveries in real time; the service also supported shareable group-ordering links, making it well suited to office lunches and events. Unlike marketplaces aggregating restaurants that already delivered, Caviar's positioning centered on an exclusive, quality-focused restaurant selection with professional dish photography.

Founded in 2012 in San Francisco by five University of California, Berkeley friends, Caviar grew out of the failure of the founders' earlier daily-deals app, Munch on Me. The team focused early on two metrics — orders per week and revenue — and grew by signing high-profile neighborhood restaurants whose own promotion generated inbound demand, keeping marketing spend minimal. It expanded from San Francisco to seven U.S. cities by mid-2014.

Square acquired Caviar in an all-stock transaction in August 2014, and DoorDash bought the business from Square in August 2019 for $410 million. The Caviar consumer app continues to be published by Caviar, Inc. with DoorDash as the operating parent; support is handled through the DoorDash help center, deliveries are performed by Dashers, and DashPass benefits apply on Caviar.

Founding story

Caviar was founded in 2012 by five University of California, Berkeley friends and fraternity brothers — Jason Wang, Richard Din, Shawn Tsao, Andy Zhang and Abel Lin. Their first venture, Munch on Me, a "Groupon for food" daily deals app, went through Y Combinator with $180,000 in investment but failed in 2011 as Groupon's market value dropped and investors soured on the model; the team sold its data to CollegeBudget for very little. At a Berkeley campus pub at the end of 2011 they decided to continue together and gave themselves six months to find a new idea. Tsao, who had planned to become an architect, conceived the concept while craving a sandwich from Ike's Place across town, and the team reframed the business as the "Uber for food."

Business model

Caviar acted as an intermediary between consumers and restaurants that did not otherwise offer delivery, signing restaurant partners without commitments, monthly fees or delivery infrastructure requirements and operating its own courier fleet to pick up and drop off orders. Restaurants gained a delivery channel without logistical or operational costs; customers browsed picture menus, ordered, and tracked deliveries live on a map, with orders promised within about an hour.

In the early model, food messengers kept the $10 delivery fee and part of the gratuity, while the balance of the fee and food surcharges accrued to Caviar. The company reported reaching profitability within its first six months and seven-figure annual revenue in its first year.

Traction

By April 2014 Caviar reported an average order size of about $80 and 80% of orders coming from repeat customers. It had 10 full-time employees in January 2014 and 40 by July 2014, when order volume had grown more than 500% year over year. Six months after the Square acquisition it had tripled orders, reached 15 cities and exceeded 100 employees. The Android app lists more than 1 million downloads.

Latest developments

Caviar operates as part of DoorDash following the 2019 acquisition: the Android app is published by Caviar, Inc. with a DoorDash developer contact, deliveries are made by Dashers, DashPass benefits apply, and trycaviar.com support redirects to the DoorDash Support Center. App features referenced include no-contact delivery by default, real-time tracking, scheduled orders and pickup; the Google Play listing shows 1M+ downloads and an update dated August 2026.