The Triangle's restaurant survival rate
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The vast majority of restaurants using DoorDash in the biggest U.S. cities that were open in September 2024 remained open in September 2025, per new data from the company shared exclusively with Axios.
Why it matters: Some churn is normal, even healthy. But especially low rates of restaurant survival in any given city may suggest something rotten in the state of the local industry, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick writes.
Zoom in: The Durham metro area had one of the highest resiliency rates in the country at 95.1%, per DoorDash data. Raleigh came in at 94.3%.
- The resiliency rate across all included cities was 93%.
How it works: The data is part of DoorDash's new State of Local Commerce report, which features a bounty of metrics on restaurant trends and more across the 100 most populous U.S. cities.
- Reality check: One year of survival isn't nothing, but business closure rates tend to rise on longer time horizons.
What they're saying: The report's data should be considered in full context to get the best idea of any particular city's performance, DoorDash chief analytics officer Jessica Lachs tells Axios.
- "Being high or low on one of these scales doesn't necessarily mean that a city is doing well or doing poorly," Lachs says.
- "When we looked at the data, there really wasn't any city that was, across the board, a lower performer. It really is a mixed bag everywhere."
The bottom line: Running a restaurant is tough even in the best of times — and with rising costs and cash-strapped consumers, this isn't the best of times.
- And the Triangle has seen several prominent restaurant closures this year, many of which were not likely to be the type to use DoorDash.
- Some notable closures include: Fine-dining restaurant Mandolin in Raleigh, Littler in Durham, 42nd Street Oyster Bar in Raleigh and Mama Dip's in Chapel Hill.