Zesty: DoorDash's AI restaurant discovery app
Funded by DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang.Special thanks to Elisha Ong who kept raising the bar and made it easy to care about the craft.Most days I lived in brand, the UI system, and real UI code next to engineers. Messy first builds, all the way to launch.
Scope
2025 to 2026. Small team, no shortcuts. Shipped an AI-first restaurant discovery app from idea to App Store.
My role
- Defined how AI discovery should feel
- Shipped production features with engineers (AI tools in the editor)
- Led brand and App Store launch
Impact
- Showed other DoorDash designers they could land changes in production
- Zesty now lives inside the main DoorDash app
Early on I kept prototyping by hand until the flows felt right.
Later on, I started shipping code for Zesty.
From one-line styling fixes to key screens, flows, and features.
Behind the scenes and learnings
December 2025: Zesty 1.0 shipped on the App Store. Press, social, and store placement landed the same week, and we watched early searches and signups roll in next to DoorDash.
Zesty 1.0 Launch
For 2.0 I refreshed the app look in about a week: type, spacing, and motion so the product felt more intentional.
Zesty 2.0 Launch
Zesty now sits inside the DoorDash app next to ordering and reservations.
When we turned off the standalone app, early users could export their data if they wanted it.
All of us have transformed into the builder archetype.
We came from different backgrounds but shipped the same way: try fast, show the work, own what we shipped.
More work
More from this site. Open a tile to read the story.
