ClusterTruck Food Delivery Now Open in Carmel, Indiana @clustertruck

By Bob Burchfield, Editor
AroundIndy.com, LLC

DISCLOSURE NOTICE: I am an independent contractor who makes deliveries for ClusterTruck in Carmel, Indiana on a part-time basis as of December 2019.

I’ve written in the past in this blog about the impressive and remarkable ClusterTruck food delivery service that opened in Indianapolis in 2016 (and at this writing also has locations in Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, Missouri, and Denver, Colorado).

ClusterTruck recently opened a new location in Carmel, Indiana on December 2, 2019 in cooperation and partnership with Kroger. The delivery-only kitchen is located in the old Max & Erma’s restaurant building next door to the Hampton Inn on North Meridian.

ClusterTruck is a state-of-the-art restaurant-quality DELIVERY ONLY kitchen that delivers to any street address within the delivery area, including all residential, business, and commercial addresses. It’s not a sit-down restaurant; you can’t go in there and order or eat.

Real chefs prepare over 100 breakfast, lunch, and dinner items from a LARGE menu when you order, including pancakes, biscuits and gravy, croissants, bagels, omelets, burgers, tenderloins, Cubans, club and other sandwiches, chicken strips, pizza, wings, burritos, tacos, quesadillas, noodles and rice dishes, mac and cheese, smoked pork, wraps, soups and salads, gyros, tater tots, a good selection of side orders, delicious desserts, beverages, a kids menu, gluten free and vegetarian options, and more.

Just this week they added menu items for babies, as well as three new Dinner for 4 choices served 4-9 pm, and also recently added Sahm’s famous whole sour cream coffee cake!

Here are a couple of amateur snapshots from my smartphone, just a tiny sampling of the numerous choices available. These are photos of actual deliveries that I ordered for myself:

Mushroom pizza with chicken at ClusterTruck Carmel.

Breakfast Tacos combo at ClusterTruck Carmel.

Breakfast Croissant with bacon at ClusterTruck Carmel.

BBQ Chicken Strips at ClusterTruck Carmel.

• Does everyone in your office or family want something different? No problem. Group ordering is available.
• Want your food delivered at a specific time? No problem. Scheduled ordering is available.
• Headed home from work after a busy day? No problem. Schedule an order for delivery to your home to arrive just after you do! But be careful: sometimes the couriers get there before you do! The #1 comment I’ve heard while making deliveries: “You guys are fast!”
• Taking your kids to one of the city parks for some play time? No problem. Designate the park’s address as the point of delivery and have lunch in the park.
• Hanging around the house on a cold and dreary winter morning? Why go out? No problem. Hot breakfast available seven days a week.

And it’s easy…

Download the ClusterTruck app on your smartphone for iOS or Android. If you don’t want to install another app on your phone, simply go to https://krogerdeliverykitchen.com. Order and pay online in the app at checkout just like any other online purchase. Use Promo Code RB6277 at checkout to save 50% on your first order.

There are no service or delivery fees, regardless of the size of your order, small or large. Delivery couriers carry no cash and there are no cash transactions. Tipping is included in the app.

It typically takes the kitchen 8-10 minutes or so to cook your order. Dedicated ClusterTruck couriers are waiting at the kitchen door and when they are handed your order, they typically arrive at your address in another 7-10 minutes or so, depending upon distance from the kitchen, traffic, etc.

For that reason, hot food is still hot when it arrives. It just came off the stove when it was handed to a courier. What a concept! Compare that to other food delivery services where a restaurant prepares an order for you and then waits and waits and waits for a delivery driver to show up. You know which delivery services I mean. ClusterTruck couriers take one order at a time to one customer at a time. Couriers don’t have half a dozen orders for six different addresses getting cold in the back seat of the car while they make deliveries.

So ClusterTruck deliveries are often delivered within 20-30 minutes of your order, although unscheduled large orders, group orders, and peak order hours may take longer. But scheduled orders are always prepared when scheduled (hint, hint!). You can even schedule your order in the app at checkout BEFORE the kitchen opens for the day. And scheduling helps the kitchen ensure that it has enough couriers on hand to make all the deliveries in a timely manner.

The Carmel delivery area is approximately 96th to 146th Streets (south to north) and Towne Road to Keystone Parkway (west to east), plus an expanded area between Keystone Parkway and Gray Road from 116th to 136th has recently been added to the delivery area. The delivery area is limited so that hot food is still hot when it gets there.

If you live or work outside the delivery area (you can see the delivery area here: https://www.clustertruck.com/locations/carmel), simply designate a delivery address inside the delivery area — such as a mall, a gas station, a hotel parking lot, etc. — and meet your courier there! Just be sure to give good delivery instructions in the app, when you order, so your courier can find you upon arrival. For example: “Meet me at Entrance B” or “I’m in a black Ford Escape in front of the hotel entrance” or “3rd door on the left past the roundabout” or “I’ll be out front wearing a Pacers hoodie,” etc.

From personal experience I can tell you that it is hard to find some Carmel addresses, especially at night, and especially in multi-tenant complexes. If you live in such a complex be sure to give both the BUILDING number and the UNIT number in the delivery instructions.

The kitchen will send you a text message when your order leaves the kitchen. For your safety, it tells you the name of your driver, describes his or her vehicle, and gives you an approximate time of arrival at your address.

Once your order leaves the kitchen, you can follow the courier’s location in real time on the map in the ClusterTruck app and see exactly where he or she is enroute with your food.

The kitchen will also send you a text message when the courier has arrived at your address. MEET THE COURIER AT YOUR CURB who will hand you a sealed bag with your order. Simple as that! For customer and courier safety and to expedite the kitchen’s numerous deliveries, couriers do not get out of their vehicles.

SAVE 50% ON YOUR FIRST ORDER by using the referral link here: https://www.clustertruck.com/referral?promo_code=RB6277. This link is good at all ClusterTruck locations nationwide, not just Carmel. The 50% discount applies to all first-time orders regardless of size! Even if you were to make a $200, $300, $400 or more group order, you still get half off if it’s your first order.

So share this referral link with your family, friends, and colleagues: any first-time customer may use it! DISCLOSURE: If you make a purchase using this link, I get a referral bonus from ClusterTruck.

I’ve been an avid fan and customer of ClusterTruck since it first opened in 2016 in downtown Indianapolis. Now that I’ve experienced the total operation from both sides of the fence as a customer and as a courier, I am in awe of the efficiency, the quality of the food, the proprietary high tech software (written completely in-house!) that drives the entire operation, and the expeditious delivery service utilizing multiple dedicated ClusterTruck delivery couriers.

There’s no other food delivery service of which I am aware that even comes close. Why? Because ClusterTruck owns and controls the entire process from ordering and payment to cooking and delivery. No other food delivery service does this — at least not any that I know of. Correct me if I am wrong.

Is ClusterTruck popular with Carmel residents? I’ve already made nearly 500 deliveries in only seven weeks, and I’m just one of more than 40 couriers who have signed on to make deliveries from the Carmel kitchen.

Give ClusterTruck a try. And if you are ordering in Carmel, you never know who might show up to deliver your order! [big grin]