The Radish team includes (from l.) co-founder Max Meyers, chef David Yusefzadeh, co-founder and chief technology officer Joe Andrews and co-founder and CEO Blake Bible. [Radish]
CHICAGO — The complaint that Radish founder Blake Bible said resonated most since starting his app-based meal delivery company in April came from the person responsible for, well, him.
"My mom's been yelling at me, 'Why aren't you delivering to us?,'" said Bible, referring to the Bucktown neighborhood where he grew up and she still lives.
Mom, your son listened. Last week, Bible widened Radish's delivery boundaries from Downtown to Western Avenue, thus covering Bucktown, Wicker Park and most of West Town and Ukrainian Village. That's welcome news for the "several hundred" other Bucktown residents Blake said signed up on the app in the last month alone.
The demand for freshly prepared gourmet meals delivered quickly in Uber-like fashion is heating up in Chicago's neighborhoods.
Radish's chief competitor, Sprig, a San Francisco-based company that launched here in June, delivers as far west as California Avenue and will be expanding its boundaries "ASAP" and adding weekend delivery by the end of the year, said co-founder Neeraj Berry. (Both companies go north to Belmont Avenue and south to Roosevelt Road.)
"We are growing faster in Chicago than in any other market that we're in," Berry said.
Radish's menu items, like this vegan farro chili, range from $3 to $4. [Radish]
Sprig delivers lunch and dinner on weekdays.
Radish currently delivers dinner only from 5:30-9 p.m. Monday to Thursday, but Bible said that too will soon change — by moving to a 5 p.m. delivery start time, adding a fifth night and starting lunch service.
Eat Purely, another Chicago company with a similar approach, will launch its app sometime this fall, starting with dinner delivery to the Downtown area and expanding from there, said co-founder Raymond Lyle. Unlike its competitors, Eat Purely's food comes chilled, to be reheated by the customer.
On-demand food delivery in Chicago that works with a few swipes of the smartphone or mouse clicks is on the upswing, from UberEats and Postmates, which offer quick turnaround from local restaurants, to Home Chef, which delivers cook-at-home meal kits.
There's reverse expansion happening, too. Kitchfix, which delivers heat-and-eat meals, just opened a brick-and-mortar store at 1165 N. State St.
But the market for services like Radish that straddle these areas — restaurant-quality food that's healthy, uses local and organic ingredients and comes warm, in less than 20 minutes — isn't yet as crowded as, say, San Francisco, where the on-demand meal movement began and where Bible moved last year specifically to find a business partner. (He found one: Joe Andrews of the now-defunct Chefler, an early startup.)
Radish and Sprig use technology by which they can track orders and potential customers, keep their drivers roving on the streets, stocked with food and ready to deliver, and gather valuable data.
Radish's average delivery time is 10 minutes, though Bible said, "We like to tell people 20 minutes or less." Sprig's is 15 minutes.
San Francisco-based Sprig expanded to Chicago in June, delivering lunch and dinner entrees like this salmon salad. [Sprig/Facebook]
"We know exactly how long every delivery took," Berry said. "Through the app, the customer can rate every dish and the delivery experience. We get a lot more feedback than what I think restaurants get."
On the culinary side are executive chefs with impressive resumes. David Yusefzadeh came to Radish from Baffo at Eataly. Newcomer Eat Purely has Sean Spradlin, who worked at Hot Chocolate, Girl & the Goat and The Bedford.
Nate Keller, who oversees Sprig's chefs, was Google's executive chef. Sprig also features menus by guest chefs. The dishes from former Blackbird pastry chef Dana Cree earlier this month included braised Moroccan chicken with wheatberry pilaf and tres leches cake.
Beyond that, and perhaps the most important distinction: Unlike restaurant meals, this food is designed for delivery.
"We're reverse-engineering every dish so it's perfect when it reaches your doorstep," Berry said.
Sprig preps its food in one day at its Goose Island headquarters and "finishing touches" are added on day two, delivery day, Berry said. There are typically three lunch items and four dinner items offered daily, dishes like steak salad with dried cherries, pecans, goat cheese and a mulled wine dressing, or grilled chicken satay with mango-lime braised cabbage. The average tab is $9.
Radish's meals are customizable and "vegetable forward," Bible said. The seven dishes, which change daily, are side portions as opposed to typical single-person entrees and run $3 to $4 so customers can pick and choose to make a meal. Recent offerings included pork loin with butternut squash, eggplant Parmesan and curried cauliflower.
The food is prepared during the day and throughout the evening in Radish's Near West Side kitchen. The supply in drivers' cars, equipped to keep the hot food hot and the cold food cold, is constantly refreshed.
"Our drivers are never carrying too much food with them. It's a balancing act," Bible said.
Eat Purely, a meal delivery service launching this fall, uses organic, locally sourced ingredients. [Eat Purely]
Like its competitors, Eat Purely, which operates from a West Town facility, emphasizes its use of organic, local and seasonal ingredients and healthy approach to cooking that's a far cry from the greasy pizza and gloppy lo mein that have come to define restaurant delivery.
When Eat Purely launches, it'll offer five or six items plus drinks. Meals will range from $8 to $13. That's substantially lower than if a customer were to shop for and cook the meal herself, using the same caliber of ingredients, Lyle said. Delivery time will be under 20 minutes.
Still, it all comes down to how the food tastes when it arrives. Lyle said that's why Eat Purely has tested and re-tested recipes for months and is taking time to enter into what he knows is a fast-growing and hungry marketplace.
"The food has to be spectacular," he said. "There's no margin for error."
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