Is it Worth Dashing the Late Night Midnight to 1:30 a.m. Shift

When this article was originally written in December of 2017, the latest schedules that a Doordash driver could work was midnight until 1:30 a.m. Here we are in 2023, and all of that has changed now as most regions have schedules almost all night long. It does not end at 1:30 a.m. anymore. Dashers are out there delivering food at all times of the night.

One of the benefits of driving for Doordash is the flexibility of scheduling that the company offers. Basically, a dasher is free to work whenever they want. You are not an employee of Doordash. Instead, you are an independent contractor, and they have no right to tell you when to work. It is great to be able to choose your own schedule. As a dasher, you are able to schedule dashes around other obligations in your life.

To make the most amount of money dashing, most dashers try to work during peek time hours. Lunch time (11 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and dinner time (4 p.m to 6 p.m.) is when a dasher will get the most calls. For some people, working during these time frames is impossible due to other obligations. That is not a problem though because a person can make Doordash deliveries in the middle of the night if they want to.

What dasher wants to dash in the middle of the night ?

Most people don't want to dash in the middle of the night. For those that want to work the late hours, they will usually choose to dash from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. During this time, there are still calls to be filled and usually there is still a good amount of orders to keep a dasher busy. What about the late night Doordash shift though? Is there many orders coming in from the 12 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. and beyond shift? Can a dasher stay busy from midnight until 5 a.m.?

The midnight to 1:30 a.m. and beyond shifts are the ones that you will usually see lingering on the schedule of Doordash. It seems like it is the one shift that most people are not eager to get. This is very understandable as it can be kind of dangerous delivering food at these hours. Even though it's dangerous for anybody, I would especially advise females not to deliver at these late hours, but I don't think I need to tell anybody this.

Dashing late at night can become dangerous

While dashing, a dasher will deliver to nice neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. I am not going to say that a dasher is completely safe in a nice neighborhood because crime and other bad things happen in nice neighborhoods too, but when I am delivering in a bad neighborhood, I sort of take a bit more caution. I know the parts of my region where there is a gang and drug infestation, and having this knowledge would be good for any dasher to know instead of being on the streets in the middle of the night ignorantly. There are some places that would not even be worth delivering to. A dasher's safety is always the number one priority, and nobody should risk their safety to deliver a Jumbo Jack Meal.

Take safety precautions if dashing late at night

If working the midnight to 1:30 a.m. shift and beyond, I would advise dashers not to get out of their car and go knocking on a customer's door. I know some might disagree with me on this, but you never know what  kind of strange person you will be delivering food to. I have to admit that I have delivered food at these hours to some people that seemed beyond strange. 

What I usually do is text the customer when I pull up in front of their house and let them come out to the car to get their food. If they do not answer my text, I will call them. If they don't answer my call, I will go on the Doordash app and click on "Customer is not available." You are usually given a certain time limit to wait for the customer to respond before you can leave. As I sit waiting, I will continue to text and call the customer. It's great if they answer, but if they never respond, oh well, I am marking that the customer was not available on the app and leaving. I am still getting paid for the delivery, and if it's something I like, I get to enjoy free food.




It may seem kind of harsh to just leave without knocking on the door, but when you see a house with all of the lights out at 1 a.m. in the morning, something tells you that you shouldn't be knocking on the door. When a customer places an order with Doordash, I do expect them to be expecting me, and they should respond to my text or telephone call. The way I figure it, if they are completely unresponsive, they must not really want their food that badly.

Another thing that a person should know is that during the late night hours it is very dark, and sometimes it is not easy to see the addresses on the houses. Even though most neighborhoods have the addresses painted on the curb, in older neighborhoods the addresses are often faded and unreadable. I always have a thought that I am going to go knocking on the wrong house at 1 a.m. and really piss somebody off by waking them up. Some people may become confrontational as they don't know who the hell you are. They have a family to protect, and when some unexpected stranger comes walking up their driveway in the middle of the night, they are not going to be too friendly. This has never happened to me, and with the precautions that I take, it will never happen.

A Doordash driver should always remember that the freaks come out at night

I remember one time at about 12:30 a.m. I received a ping for a Doordash order and accepted it. I was headed to the restaurant to pick up the food when the customer called me. I answered, and the customer told me that he wanted to change his delivery address. He explained that his house was on top of a hill, but that he was on the bottom of the hill at his friend's house. He wanted me to deliver the food to his friend's house and then give him a ride to his house on top of the hill. I asked him how far it was, and he told me it was a couple of blocks. I told him that since I was not Uber or any other similar type service it would be $20. I never intended to give him a ride. I just wanted to see what he would say. He said okay. I'm not going to lie that this guy really annoyed the hell out of me asking me for a ride. The first thought in my head was that this guy was lucky that my mind was not where it was at when I was a youngster because I would have robbed the guy. Just kidding. Or am I? Anyways, what I did was contact Doordash support and tell them about the customer's request. They immediately said that they were going to cancel the order and note this on the customer's account. That was the end of that.




If you are wondering if it is even worth dashing in the middle of the night, there is no straight answer for you. There are times when I can complete five dashes in an hour and a half. You can drive faster than usual at this time of night because there is no traffic. Sometimes, pings will come in one after another. It is not to say that it is very busy, but you have to remember that there are not many dashers out there so all of the calls will be coming to you. On the opposite side of the token, there are times when you will get very few calls during the midnight hours. It may just be a slow night. My advice to anybody working the middle of the night Doordash shift is to just be safe. Always remember that no delivery is worth your safety. If you don't feel safe making a delivery, do not do it. It's not worth the measly $6 or $7 you will be earning.