We believe that our communities thrive when we create equal access to opportunity for small business owners. Through the Main Street Strong Accelerator, we’ve worked to increase access to restaurant education to stabilize, adapt, and grow small businesses.
Together, DoorDash and Accion Opportunity Fund, along with other restaurant industry experts, constructed a seven course curriculum that provides restaurant owners with immersive courses designed to help grow their business, covering topics such as marketing, access to capital, managing cash flow and menu creation.
Curriculum
The Main Street Strong Accelerator online curriculum is open to all restaurant owners at no cost. Restaurateurs can complete the courses at their own pace, with content and topics designed to address some of the core challenges they face when trying to grow and scale their business
Course 1
Finding Your Niche and Defining Your Brand
Course 2
Build a Financial Roadmap to Access Capital
Course 3
All Things Legal
Course 4
Hiring & Employee Relations
Course 5
Creating the Right Menu
Course 6
Marketing Like a Pro
Course 7
Scale Your Business
Boston Cohort - Class of 2022
Meet the 17 local restaurants that make up our Main Street Strong Accelerator - Boston Cohort Class of 2022! The Accelerator participants represent a diverse cohort of restaurateurs and business owners. Overall, 47% of Main Street Strong Accelerator participants are women; 76% of participants identify as immigrants or refugees; 70% identify as people of color. These Boston restaurateurs will be guided through the Accelerator curriculum by local chefs and entrepreneurs, receive a $20,000 grant, one-on-one business coaching, and the opportunity to connect with other local restaurant owners:

















Previous Cohort Participants
In early 2021, 100 restaurateurs from five cities went through the Accelerator guided by some of the industry’s most recognized entrepreneurs and chefs. These local cohorts participants represent a diverse cohort of restaurateurs and business owners.
Previous participants were comprised of:
61%
women
47%
identify as immigrant or refugee
38%
identify as Black or African American
15%
identify as Latino, Latinx, or Hispanic
12%
identify as East Asian
9%
identify as South Asian
In partnership with
Accion Opportunity Fund
Accion Opportunity Fund works to create an inclusive, healthy financial system that supports the nation’s small business owners by connecting entrepreneurs to affordable capital, educational resources, coaching, and networks. Through innovative partnerships and outreach strategies, Accion Opportunity Fund reaches underserved entrepreneurs — including entrepreneurs of color, low-income entrepreneurs, and women — who often lack access to the financial services they need to build and grow their businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions
Businesses and the people behind them are vital to the culture, spirit, and economic health of local communities, and the Main Street Strong Accelerator provides the capital, support, and marketing they need to grow. Participating businesses will have access to:
- 8-week curriculum designed to stabilize, adapt, and grow your business for long-term success
- 1:1 financial, legal, and other support from industry experts
- $20,000 in grants to keep your restaurant open
- Free merchandising and marketing benefits from DoorDash
The application is designed to glean a better understanding of the business’ long term goals and their involvement in their local communities. A rubric will be used to review and score each application. The rubric is based on the application questions and the program's overall objective to support the business owner's plan.
Yes, all selected applicants will then go through an interview with local partners and the Accelerator team before final selection for the cohort.
To date, we've hosted 5 local cohorts in the U.S. and are looking forward to expanding over time as part of DoorDash's commitment to supporting local economies. To stay up to date on our local cohorts, please visit news.doordash.com.
No. Applications to the program are open to eligible restaurants regardless of whether they are current DoorDash or Caviar partners.
Participants will receive $10,000 at the beginning of the program, and $10,000 at the conclusion. The goal of the Accelerator program is to help entrepreneurs not only learn hard skills necessary for adapting to challenges of running a small business, but to create very unique tailored business plans to apply to their restaurants for the future.
Our online accelerator curriculum is available in Spanish. If you have additional access needs to participate in the Accelerator, please email accelerator@doordash.com. While the format of the Accelerator local cohorts are best suited for proficient English speakers, we’re committed to supporting language access and look forward to providing resources that address multilingual needs.