ClusterTruck, the Indy-based food delivery service, is looking to expand, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017.
ClusterTruck, the delivery-only restaurant, is on the move, bringing its breakfast burritos, pad Thai and burgers to more neighborhoods in the Indianapolis area.
ClusterTruck, which began service in Carmel in December, will open kitchens in Broad Ripple and Fishers over the new two weeks.
Since launching in downtown Indianapolis in 2016, the restaurant has garnered a legion of fans appreciative of its variety of cuisines and fast delivery times.
The Broad Ripple kitchen, 2101 E. 62nd St., former home to SweeTies Gourmet Treats, opens Monday, followed by the Fishers space in the Kroger at 9799 E. 116th St. on Oct. 8.
In early November, ClusterTruck will open a kitchen in the Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Dublin, its second in that area, and it’s in negotiations for more leases in Indianapolis, Columbus and Kansas City, Missouri.
The company is on the march to establish 500 locations in the next five years, including many through a deal to operate from spaces inside of Kroger stores, said co-founder and CEO Chris Baggott.
Broad Ripple has been its most requested neighborhood.
With restaurants going under, Baggott said the company is having little problem finding spaces that can be converted to ClusterTruck kitchens with minimal investment.
“With COVID, unfortunately with a lot of restaurants, they’re not making it, and the silver lining for us is there are lots of restaurants available,” he said. “Moving into midtown was pretty much a no-brainer once we saw this location.”
The menu has more than 100 items, with salad to pizza to street food recipes developed by executive chef Tim McIntosh.
“People really like the ability to order together but get different types of cuisines,” Baggot said. “You don’t have to fight over what restaurants are we going to pick and then what are we going to order.”
For the most part, it’s the same across the board, although Carmel doesn’t have anything that incorporates pita bread. And Broad Ripple’s later start hours means customers there, for the time being, won’t be able to get breakfast items outside of the best-selling Lazy Breakfast Burrito that is offered all day.
A proprietary software system keeps the delivery time at under 30 minutes — the average is 21 — and ensures a customer’s order isn’t cooked until the independent delivery driver is ready to pick it up, getting it to the buyer within seven minutes of its preparation.
That, combined with the diversity of selection, an average item cost of $10, and the maximization of a driver’s time and ability to earn more money means ClusterTruck succeeds in areas where third-party delivery companies struggle, Baggott said.
“The fastest-growing segment of food before COVID was having prepared food delivered to you. And no one has really developed an economic model that made sense,” he said. “We’re entering the fastest-growing segment of the largest business in the world, and we have the only model that works.”
Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at cheryl.jackson@indystar.com or 317-444-6264. Follow her on Twitter: @cherylvjackson.
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