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The way to consumers’ hearts is through their bellies … or at least that’s what the delivery startups are hoping.
First, Postmates made national headlines when it started delivering Chipotle with a steep price tag.
Now DoorDash is the next logistics startup to try to stake a claim to fast-food fame. It’s teamed up with Taco Bell to deliver the entire menu in 100 cities in California and Texas. Once the details are ironed out, the duo hope to take the partnership national.
Unlike Postmates’ hefty fee, Taco Bell denizens can get their grub for a set $3.99 delivery price. There’s one catch, though: DoorDash will be tacking on extra costs for the individual meal items, a hidden fee that varies from market to market. During initial testing, the average wait time from order to delivery was 38 minutes, according to Prahar Shah, DoorDash’s head of business development.
This is the first time Taco Bell has worked with a third party delivery partner in the U.S. and it’s the biggest partnership DoorDash has done so far. They haven’t nailed down the logistics yet and will be experimenting with different setups — like delivery people picking up the food in the store location versus going through the drive-through.
DoorDash was started years after delivery rival Postmates, but it still managed raise north of $54 million in capital from startup investment firms Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins and others, according to data from analytics firm Mattermark. Its investors crow about the company’s technology, saying its machine learning algorithms help it develop the most efficient routes.
In recent months DoorDash is starting to make a little more noise about its existence. It began testing grocery store delivery in Los Angeles, edging into on-demand grocery startup Instacart’s space. Now, it’s ripping off the Postmates’ playbook with a splashy big partnership with a stoner food favorite.
Is there room in the market for more than one imitation-Mexican delivery service?
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.