◆ Washington DC online ordering · Now onboarding

DC restaurants are losing $48k+/year per location to delivery apps. Zay-OS is how the District takes it back.

Commission-free direct ordering on your own DC restaurant's branded site. DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub keep running, ingested into the same kitchen tablet via Otter. $499/month flat, no commission on orders or tips. Built for the U Street Ethiopian kitchens, halal and Levantine grills, mumbo sauce carryouts, and Columbia Heights pupuserias feeding the city.

Zay-OS gives Washington, DC restaurants commission-free online ordering on their own branded website. Third-party apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats charge 20-30% per order, costing a typical independent $48,000 or more per location every year. Zay-OS charges a flat $499 to $699 per location per month with a small flat service fee paid by the diner ($0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery; 10% on catering), and routes marketplace orders into the same kitchen tablet through Otter. It is live at Naya Grill in Florida and now onboarding Washington, DC operators.

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Every DC food district

U Street. Shaw. Adams Morgan. Georgetown.

From the 9th and U Ethiopian corridor to Adams Morgan's 18th Street late nights, H Street NE, the Columbia Heights pupuserias, and Navy Yard game nights — Zay-OS is set up to rank your restaurant in the neighborhood diners actually search.

U Street
Shaw
Adams Morgan
Dupont Circle
Georgetown
H Street NE
Columbia Heights
Navy Yard
Capitol Hill
Logan Circle
Petworth
Mount Pleasant
NoMa
Anacostia
Silver Spring
Arlington

Plus every Montgomery, Prince George's, Arlington, and Fairfax community in the full DMV service area.

Why Washington, DC

America's Ethiopian food capital — and every platter taxed by the apps.

Washington carries the largest Ethiopian community in the United States, and the city eats like it. The historic Little Ethiopia blocks around 9th and U in Shaw — and the second hub that grew up in downtown Silver Spring — run kitchens serving doro wat, tibs, kitfo, and the vegan fasting spreads that fill tables on Wednesdays and Fridays. Ethiopian food is group food: combination platters, family-sized orders, big tickets shared off one round of injera. That is exactly the order profile a 25-30% marketplace take punishes hardest — and exactly the repeat behavior a branded site converts, because the same households reorder the same platters week after week. The corridor also runs deep on halal and Levantine — shawarma, kebab, Lebanese, Yemeni — food with the same big-platter, loyal-regular economics. Naya Grill, the one restaurant live on Zay-OS today, is itself a Lebanese fast-casual: the system was proven on this food first.

The rest of the map is just as distinct. Adams Morgan lives on the 18th Street late-night rush, where the jumbo slice was invented and where a one-tap branded reorder beats fumbling with a marketplace app at 1am. Georgetown pulls students and tourists onto M Street; Dupont and Logan Circle run on office lunch and group catering; H Street NE and the Atlas District skew young and repeat-heavy. Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant anchor one of the largest Salvadoran communities in the country — pupuserias and Peruvian charcoal-chicken spots running high-frequency, tight-margin tickets where a marketplace take can erase the profit on a whole order. Navy Yard stacks Nats Park game nights on top of some of the fastest residential growth in the city, and Capitol Hill and Barracks Row feed a neighborhood that orders in more nights than it goes out.

And then there is the food DC invented: the mumbo sauce carryout. Wings under sweet-tangy mumbo, fried rice, fries — the four-wings-with-mumbo window is a homegrown institution across Petworth, Anacostia, and up Georgia Avenue, built on thousands of small, fast tickets. That math is the exact math the apps punish worst. What every one of these operators has in common is that the marketplaces own their customer relationship and tax every order: a typical independent loses $48,000 or more per location per year to third-party commission — for a busy carryout or Georgetown kitchen it is far more. Zay-OS flips it. Your regulars order direct on your own branded site at zero commission, while DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub keep bringing first-time diners and route straight into the same kitchen tablet via Otter. You keep the reach and stop paying rent on the customers you already earned.

The proof restaurant — the exact playbook DC gets

Naya Grill — live in Florida, proving it works.

Zay-OS is not live in Washington, DC yet — the District is onboarding now. But the system is already running in production. Naya Grill is a Lebanese fast-casual brand on Zay-OS across two Florida locations. Direct orders flow through their branded site with zero commission. DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub orders ingest into the same kitchen tablet via Otter. One ticket flow, one menu source of truth, four channels covered. That is the identical setup a U Street, Shaw, or Columbia Heights operator runs on day one — and for DC's halal and Levantine kitchens it is closer still: the proof restaurant serves the same food. The District's dense repeat-customer base means direct ordering ramps fast once the regulars have a site to reorder from.

2
live locations
0%
on direct orders
1
kitchen tablet
4
channels routed
Every DC cuisine

Injera. Half-smokes. Mumbo sauce. Shawarma.

DC's table runs from Ethiopian combination platters and U Street half-smokes to mumbo sauce carryouts, Columbia Heights pupusas, Adams Morgan jumbo slice, and Levantine grills. Zay-OS schema ranks across all of them, and the branded site bends to your menu whether you are a decades-old carryout window or a new Shaw concept.

Ethiopian
Halal
Levantine + Middle Eastern
Mumbo sauce carryout
Salvadoran pupuserias
Half-smokes + DC classics
Jumbo slice pizza
Peruvian charcoal chicken
Soul food
West African
Vietnamese
American bistro
DC flat pricing

$499/month per location. No commission. Ever.

Operator is $499/month. Operator + Marketplace (Otter-ingested DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub) is $599. Concierge is $699/month per location (up to 5 virtual brands per kitchen included). The diner pays a small flat service fee at checkout ($0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery; 10% on catering) — the restaurant keeps 100% of food revenue, with zero commission on orders or tips.

Start now → Full pricing breakdown →
DC operator questions

Asked by the DC restaurants we are talking to.

Is Zay-OS live in Washington, DC yet?
Not yet — Zay-OS is now onboarding Washington, DC operators, not live in the District today. The only live restaurant on Zay-OS is Naya Grill, a Lebanese fast-casual brand running two locations in South Florida (Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach). DC is the exact market we are opening next: the playbook Naya runs — a branded direct-ordering site with zero commission, plus DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub ingested into one kitchen tablet via Otter — is what a U Street, Shaw, or Adams Morgan operator gets on day one.
How much are DC restaurants losing to DoorDash and Uber Eats?
Third-party apps take 20-30% per order. A single DC location doing 3,000 orders/month at a $28 average ticket pays roughly $21,000/month in marketplace commission at a 25% effective rate — over $250,000 a year off the top. Even a modest carryout or pupuseria pushing 650 orders a month through the apps loses $48,000+/year per location. High-volume Georgetown and Navy Yard spots doing 6,000+ orders/month bleed $150,000+/year. Direct ordering on Zay-OS puts every one of those dollars back in the operator account.
I run an Ethiopian restaurant on U Street or in Silver Spring — why does direct ordering matter for us?
The DC metro is home to the largest Ethiopian community in the United States, anchored on the historic Little Ethiopia blocks around 9th and U in Shaw and a second hub in downtown Silver Spring. Ethiopian food is group food — combination platters, family orders, fasting-day vegan spreads — which means bigger tickets, and a 25-30% marketplace take on a big ticket is real money on every single order. It is also regulars food: the same households reorder the same platters week after week, which is exactly what a branded reorder site and CRM convert best. Zero commission on direct orders means the platter margin stays in the kitchen.
Does Zay-OS serve Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, Georgetown, and H Street NE?
Yes — the whole District core is a priority area. Adams Morgan runs on the 18th Street late-night rush, where a fast branded reorder beats reopening a marketplace app at 1am. Georgetown mixes students and tourists ordering off M Street. Dupont Circle and Logan Circle lean office lunch and group catering — and catering on Zay-OS carries a 10% diner-paid fee instead of the flat $0.99/$2.99 per-order fee, still zero commission to the restaurant. H Street NE and the Atlas District corridor skew younger and repeat-driven. Zay-OS is set up to rank your restaurant in the specific neighborhood diners actually search.
I run a halal or Levantine restaurant — is there a better-fit page?
Yes. DC runs deep on halal and Levantine kitchens — shawarma, kebab, Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, Yemeni — from the U Street corridor to Georgetown and the Virginia side. Start with our halal operator guide at /for/halal and our Arabic-language overview at /ar, both built specifically for halal operators and Arabic-language discovery. Worth knowing: Naya Grill, the live proof restaurant on Zay-OS, is itself a Lebanese fast-casual — the system was proven on exactly this food. Zay-OS serves the full DMV either way.
Do mumbo sauce carryouts and wing spots do enough volume for direct ordering to matter?
That is precisely where it matters most. DC’s homegrown carryout culture — wings under mumbo sauce, fried rice, fries — runs thousands of small, fast tickets, the exact volume where a 25-30% marketplace fee compounds into six figures a year. Carryout is literally the format direct ordering was built for: no dining room to fill, just orders in and food out. High order count is the argument for direct ordering, not against it: the more orders you push, the more commission you are handing to the apps every single month.
What if I run multiple DC locations or virtual brands?
Concierge ($699/month per location, up to 5 virtual brands per kitchen) is built for multi-location and multi-brand operators. A common DC setup: one Concierge plan covering a U Street flagship, a Navy Yard second location, and a ghost-kitchen wing (say a mumbo wing concept and a shawarma brand) run out of the same physical kitchen. One menu source of truth, one tablet per location, one dashboard.
Do I have to drop DoorDash and Uber Eats to switch?
No. Every operator we onboard keeps the marketplaces running for first-time-diner discovery — the Nats Park game-night crowds, the tourists, the suburban customers ordering for the first time. On Operator + Marketplace ($599/mo), Otter pulls every DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub order into the same kitchen tablet as your Zay-OS direct orders. Your regulars move to direct ordering and stay there; you keep marketplace reach without paying commission on the customers you already own.
Keep reading
Halal + Levantine operators →
Built for DC's shawarma and kebab kitchens.
Salvadoran + Latin operators →
Built for Columbia Heights pupuserias.
بالعربية →
Arabic overview for Arab restaurant owners.
Also: how it works · integrations · pricing

Built for the District. Onboarding now.

Run the free grader to see what your U Street, Shaw, Adams Morgan, Georgetown, H Street NE, Columbia Heights, or Navy Yard restaurant lost to the marketplaces last month — or jump straight to getting started.

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