business model that is so different and innovative in this space. I really think we have something special from the bikers to the cars to the people in the kitchen like this is a welloiled machine. That efficiency ensures that you're going to have a great experience as a customer. What are a few of those proudest moments that you look back and are like, man, I can't believe we did that. From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation.
Before we get into it, just a reminder, this episode of Get In is brought to you by Cluster Truck, Indy's go-to delivery kitchen. If you haven't tried Cluster Truck yet, you are missing out. They have over a 100 menu items. Everything from handstretched pizza to tacos, salads, breakfast burritos, and my personal favorite, their pad thai ad chicken. They've got something for everyone, plus delivery is always free. Now, here's the best part.
If you order right now, by the time this podcast is over, your cluster truck order will already be at your door. It's that fast. So whether you're catching the game or just too busy to cook, head to cluster. com. Order now and use code indie ndy at checkout for 20% off orders of $25 or more. Trust me, your stomach's going to thank you.
Reminder, that code is indie ny. Now, let's get into the episode. Today I'm joined by Janet Monroe, the CEO of Cluster Truck, an Indiana based delivery kitchen that leverages cutting edge technology to redefine the dining experience. With deep Indiana roots, a distinguished background in law and leadership, and a passion for food service and operations, Janet has helped transform this big idea into a communitydriven success story. Today, we're going to cover uh her journey from law to lunch and how she ended up working at Cluster Truck. We're going to cover their secret sauce, which is operational excellence and community engagement, and talk about the future of cluster truck and what's coming down the pipeline for uh all things that end up in our stomach.
So, uh Janet, welcome to Get In. I like that. Law to lunch. From law to lunch. I There we go. I thought you might enjoy that.
I always try to sneak one dad joke in there and I thought that was one of my better ones. Starting off a 10 plus year career as an attorney. at least a 10-year career in, you know, law. How did you end up at the helm of Cluster Track? And tell me about like the journey that that got you to where you are today. I'd been practicing law for quite some time.
You know, straight out of law school, I ended up with a boutique firm that helped entrepreneurs and small businesses in town. So, I was helping uh a lot of people in the startup community with their business formations, with their capital raises, helping them with their leases and their contracts. And uh Chris Bagot was one of the clients of that firm. Um and I ended up helping him. Um I did go in-house with a restaurant group for a period of time. A lawyer from another firm that I worked with closely while I was at the business law firm and they did intellectual property, trademarks, and patents.
and he would refer his clients over to me at the business firm and he wanted to start up the business division of his law firm. So he talked me into it and uh I started helping him. Uh a lot of the clients that I was helping at that initial firm came back. Uh so I went out on my own and just started my own firm and I'd been doing that for some time. Cluster Truck started during that time when I was out on my own and they were doing great. Uh everyone was uh super excited about it.
They were getting a lot of traction in the community. Uh they were quite popular because they were doing things differently. They were getting hot food fresh to customers. Um and this was unheard of at the time. Yeah. And I think that's a big differentiator that everyone needs to know from early on is that this isn't your typical food delivery service, right?
And it's like everyone has had the experience with a Door Dash or an Uber Eats where it's like an hour late and everything's cold and you don't really enjoy it. So you talk about getting hot food very very quickly. Like that's the whole ethos of cluster truck. Yeah. It's completely vertically integrated. They won't even start cooking your meal unless they know a driver will be there to deliver your food.
So you know if it's a busy time and you have to wait 30 minutes, well 30 minutes isn't your food cooking during that 30 minutes. It might be cooking at the very last 10 minutes. And that's to make sure that once it's finished, it's packaged and it's off to the customer. And that's all based around the technology, right? Like I think Chris uh was an exact target guy and like I mean deep roots in technology. So I think what what makes it truly special is the fact that it wasn't it isn't a food company built by just food people but it's a technology company that is also integrated with food and that's super cool and it and I mean the whole ordering experience I know that we talk about it at the beginning of a lot of episodes right by the time you if you order it now by the end of the episode like you could be eating lunch or whatever you like.
Uh I just think the whole process is a very slick um interface whether you order on mobile or you order on uh online. It started as a software company and that that really is the difference and they thought about the restaurant in a completely different way you know not having a background and not being you know stuck in the way this is how we've always done it in a restaurant. So they they took uh a new approach. the way that we do things now is is different and our kitchens run very efficiently and that that enables us to get that hot fresh food out to customers. And so was downtown Indianapolis like the first delivery location and were you you were outside council at that point when when cluster truck first got rolling? Yes, I was outside council.
I was a customer. I mean it was super convenient just to order food from right down the street and have it arrive when I wanted it and didn't feel like cooking. So, they're establishing some credibility in downtown Indianapolis. What was kind of like the next few milestones for Cluster Truck as a company where where they really started to see like, "Wow, we've got some traction here and and this could be a huge thing." I think they had traction from the get-go. There was so much buzz surrounding Cluster Truck when they first started and, you know, probably homefield advantage.
You know, Chris did start Exact Target, which got bought by Salesforce, and then he started another company, Compendium, which got bought by Oracle. Um, so you know, a lot of credibility there from someone starting a software company. And so then from Indianapolis, where did they end up expanding to? They opened up several kitchens. One was in Bloomington. There was one in Denver, Minneapolis, you know, uh, all over.
Um, trying to target cities that were similar to Indianapolis. They didn't know at the time was how difficult it was to do the marketing and how expensive it was, uh, to build the kitchens and do the marketing, especially when you don't have homefield advantage. So, it was very difficult. It's startups are hard. Startups are hard. That is like that might be the title of the episode right there.
Startups are hard. Um, and so as it was going, what what convinced you to leave the business law the side you've been doing for a decade to join Delivery Kitchen Startup as their in-house council? Yeah. Well, he talked me into it. I mean, they were doing well. They had just landed 10 million in funding.
So they just landed 10 million in funding and he and Chris is going out to kind of expand the team. Yeah. So he just landed 10 million in funding that summer and I joined in December of that same year and the role was to come in-house counsel and uh help with their leases and negotiations and all the contracts and employment law and all the things that come with building quickly. And how long did you spend as the outside or the inside council before you started to kind of rise the ranks that eventually I mean to to jump to the end like you ended up becoming the CEO but how long was that journey through through the inner workings of cluster truck? Well I've been there since December of 2017 so I you know maybe every year there was just added responsibility uh and I kept saying yes instead of no. So here I am.
And then the there is a big inflection point where Chris steps away from being the CEO and you succeeded him. Correct. Yeah, that was uh about a year and a half ago and uh he wanted to focus more on Tiner Pond Farm and that's out in Greenfield, right? Yes, it is. That's like a whole experience too, right? You have to go out and visit.
That's a great I think we've had that a few times as like a hidden gem that people have shared. Yeah. Uh they're raising uh animals the right way with sustainable farming. So, if you know anything about the food industry, it's something that, you know, Chris and his wife are passionate about and they're providing something unique here for Indiana. Yeah. And so, a year and a half ago, he steps out to go focus more on Tiner Pond Farms and you end up becoming the CEO.
Yes. What was kind of the reasoning behind, oh yeah, you know, this is the thing that I want to go in and go from being an attorney and focusing on, you know, obviously adding more responsibility over the last seven years to be like at the the helm of the ship. It was quite a shift. I mean, as counsel and it was a it was a gradual um procession, you know, coming into the CEO role, but you know, as an attorney, you're on the outside, you're giving advice, you leave a decision up to your client uh to make the choices. And you know, now as a CEO, the buck stops here, right? like the choices are mine and this is how we're moving forward and you you take on all of that full responsibility, you know, we have a over a hundred investors in our company, you know, and and I want to make sure that they they do well um in the end.
So, uh building cluster truck and and building something big in the Midwest and that, you know, is changing the food delivery uh industry, I think, is something exciting. It's it's unique and innovative and I think we can do it. Like we've had nine years of experience uh in this industry. It's been hard. Uh but we've learned a lot of lessons over that time and we've really honed in on a business model that works. It's profitable and uh if you know entrepreneurs want to come along and open up a cluster truck, we can show them the way.
Right. And and so you're talking about the lessons learned over the last nine years and that original business model of going and owning the kitchen completely doing all the marketing implementing the software. I mean I think if you look on the it's like you have Kansas City, you have downtown Indianapolis, you have like the Broadripple area and a few other locations u outside of Indianapolis. Correct. Columbus, Ohio and Castleton or Castleton Kitchen here serves uh Caramel and Fischers as well. Oh yeah.
I love that. So, so when you think about those lessons and now I know you guys are are opening up a franchising kind of that's like what's driving growth for the business model. Correct. Yes. Right. So, what were the lessons that led you to be like, "Oh, the franchising model is is the right way for us to go."
Well, in the restaurant industry, it's all about unit economics. It's about getting your labor right and the cost of food right. Uh and and for us where we deliver, you know, 95% of our orders, um you got to get that delivery cost right. So the delivery cost for us is easy. The software makes it seamless. Uh it makes sense for our drivers.
You know, what's unique about us is that, you know, customers have to come to the curb. That's so huge for our drivers since they don't have to park and find where you are working in a office building or in an apartment. So it really makes it efficient for them. They're able to do four to six uh deliveries in an hour. uh and they get 100% of the tips. So, it really works well for them and they they're able to make uh a living pretty much autonomously because we don't schedule them either.
They show up when they want to work and then they go home when they're done. So, that component uh of delivery cost is easy. Uh labor is something we worked really hard on this past year and it's just getting our systems and processes right in the kitchen. you know, making sure that we're prepping uh correctly, uh making, you know, the lives of our line cooks easier, you know, during midday and dinner when it's the busiest. U and and how do we do that easier? And food cost is all about, you know, sourcing uh and we have some really great partners uh with our vendors and and really negotiating those prices down and getting quality food at a good price.
Do you get the uh the customer feedback that people get ticked off that they have to come down to the curb? They understand. It's a little bit of an education for the customer and I think, you know, once they understand why we do it, uh, they're on board with it and they can get hot and fresh food and the drivers are happy, our kitchen staff's happy, they're happy. It's like you got to walk an extra, you know, 20 feet or whatever it is out the door. But like when the drivers come, like they mean business. It's like like it's always a smile and I order a lot of cluster truck like a lot.
don't we don't need to share the order history, but it's uh it's up there. And uh they come through, they're always nice, but like they're on to the next thing. And what I love about it is they never at least from what I've seen, they don't have multiple orders in the car at the same time where it's like you see maybe Door Dash or Uber Eats, they like load up one of those big things and it's like I have Johnny's and Karen's and Kim's order and it's like you don't want to be third in line on that and the food's been sitting in the car for 45 minutes. It's like they are over to my house, then back to the kitchen, then over to where you're going next. I think, right? Is this uh this is a thing, right?
Yeah. I mean, with the third parties, the restaurants don't have any control, you know, that that driver could be picking up an order from their restaurant, another restaurant, a third restaurant, a fourth, you know, picking up groceries. It's I mean, I think there's another service that they're offering. You can get groceries as well added on to your order. Um, but that doesn't really work out for the customers. their their food's getting old, sitting around in the car while they're driving around town, you know, doing all these errands at the same time and you're just getting hungry.
So, we're um very focused on when the meal is ready, it's packaged, it's handed to the driver immediately, and that driver is off to you. We try not to batch any orders. Um we know that that's that's not ideal for the customer. And so as you think through this new franchising model, what led you guys to see that that that was the path versus, you know, starting up Bloomington or West Lafayette or or wherever they are and doing it where you own it everything and and grow it that way. Well, what we did in the past was build very expensive large commercial kitchens that cost over a million dollars per location. um that capital expense is huge on top of the marketing needed to, you know, get an area up and going.
For franchising, we're starting here in Indianapolis. You know, we have a huge consumer base, uh tons of goodwill. We do a lot for the community and, you know, franchises will be popping up, you know, around Indianapolis, areas we already serve. It makes sense for our marketing expenses as well, just to continue to market, maybe expand a little bit. And we've innovated in the kitchen. So we've gotten, you know, it's so efficient in the kitchen.
We've reduced our stations down to like three stations. And the efficiency in the kitchen means that you don't have to hire as many folks to work in the kitchen. You know, you can get by with six to eight employees. Six to eight. Mhm. In our smaller format kitchen.
So Broadripple and Castleton have six to eight. Six to eight. And they are crushing. I don't know what's the average amount of orders uh over a lunch period that come in for for cluster track. We have so many orders in our downtown kitchen. It's like you you don't even want to go in there.
It's just so busy and they're busy packaging. They are on a mission down there. Well, I did a ride along. If anyone hasn't seen the video, it was super fun. We did a ride along and did Horizon League trivia. What we did find out was that people are so used to getting their food so quickly that when I pop my head out of the car and say, "Hey, do you want to play trivia?"
They were like, "No, I just want my food." Right? Like, so hindsight's 2020 on that one that uh hungry people don't want to wait. They want to eat their food when it's hot. But um we like poked our head and it's like you're from the bikers to the cars to the people in the kitchen like this is a welloiled machine. What advice or lessons have you learned about operational excellence that listeners out there could apply to their business?
We think about the customer experience primarily um and our software really helps us to make sure that we operate completely efficiently ensuring you know that we use quality ingredients. uh we cook it to order on demand and hand it off to the driver immediately when it's done. So that efficiency, you know, ensures that you're going to have a great experience as a customer. I always have a great experience as a customer. As you think back like the you've been doing this for seven years, like involved in the business uh in-house for seven years. What are a few of those proudest moments that you look back and are like, man, I can't believe we did that.
You know, it's working with our teams and our people. you know, I've I've seen folks come in as hourly staff and now they're leading some of our kitchens. Um, we really promote from within. So, um, I'm really proud of that. I've seen, you know, a lot of our drivers start with more humble cars and then now they're driving cars that are nicer than mine. What was the car we were been in a a Kia Tellide?
Lindsay was driving around and we won't mention that it has a scratch on it. We won't we won't talk about that. Lindsay won't be happy about it. But uh we're we're driving around in a Tellide and like this thing is super nice and I could I could sit there and make that my office all day and just like if this whole podcast and media thing doesn't work, I'm coming to drive for cluster truck. That's that's for sure. Yeah.
I mean, we've really changed lives. We have over 300 drivers and their lives are better for being able to deliver for cluster truck. And uh our kitchen staff, you've been in the kitchen. No one's screaming at them. It's not Hell's Kitchen in there. It's it's they're playing music.
the orders pop up on the screen at their station and they make what's in front of them and they they hand it off to the expo to package up. So, it's it's a great job. It's a great gig opportunity and you know, as we franchise, it's going to be a great entrepreneur uh opportunity for folks who want to run a business. Yeah. Well, talk to me about that. Right.
You you I think before we started recording, you talked about like some future markets that you guys are looking to expand into. the Westfield, the Zansville, Greenwood, like some of those uh like sprawling outward from from Indianapolis and the core where I think I think uh from research downtown Indie is like your flagship like busiest location, but there's you know you've been kind of come up north to Broadripple and then Castleton and now kind of going west up along that top corridor past Carmel to Westfield and Zensville. So, when you think about these entrepreneurs that you guys want to come in to be to run some of these uh locations, what are you guys looking for? Oh, well, we need someone who's conscientious and responsible and uh financially responsible. Um you're going to have to watch your labor primarily. You know, we've got the food cost down and the driver cost comes along with um you know, the software.
Uh it really handles that for us. So being a good manager and like what background like are you looking for people that have owned restaurants in the past or someone that's owned like like if if someone out there is listening and has always wanted to chase their entrepreneurial dream but maybe just not don't have the courage to go out and like start from square one and build something from zero like what kind of experience do they need that are you looking for to come in and work with you all to help grow this? That's the great thing about uh our model. You don't need to have, you know, extensive restaurant experience to do this. You know, it it would help if you're handy in the kitchen or, you know, have a friend or, you know, someone that you can rely on to be that person in your kitchen. Um, if you plan to be, you know, more of the investor that gets it started.
But our systems and our processes, they're easy to follow and uh we make it easy for you to to open up. as you have looked at maybe like national whether it's restaurant chains or software companies where are you guys getting some inspiration from for for what you're rolling out for cluster truck? Yeah, I mean we definitely attend conferences uh and and see what's out there and in the industry a a lot of times you what we're doing is so different and we're actually you know at the forefront of you know providing this service with I mean just getting food to folks when it's hot and fresh seems to be an obstacle that a lot of people can't overcome. So um I think we're doing that right. learn from anyone and everyone who does something incredible. Um, customer service, uh, the customer experience.
Um, you know, oftentimes we'll we'll throw something in the bag. Like for Valentine's Day, we had the little nerd clusters in there just for fun. Uh, and so if you ordered on Valentine's Day, you got a little something. Um, yes. Yes, you totally did that. And I, this is the first time I'm hearing of that.
And I did not eat the nerd clusters on Valentine's Day. I did. I really did. They were delicious. And I think just a small way to like delight a customer is is impactful. Oh my gosh.
You personally, right, 10 years uh as an attorney and then this I mean your first time being the CEO of of a company. Do you have mentors or or anyone in whether it's in the in theapolis community or beyond that really helped you as you've stepped into this leadership role? Well, we have a board of directors and some really smart people there. Um, so you know, Chris Bagot is on our board. Of course, you know, his leadership is is helpful. Uh, Mike Cunningham, he runs CRG Dining.
Is he on your board? Yeah, he's on. He's one of the co-founders. Oh, no way. That's super interesting. So, Cunningham Restaurant Group, right?
Like they have some staple restaurants across uh Indianapolis, right? Is that like Brewber and then the new one by the Pacers Complex? that's interesting that he would be one of the co-founders and like sees this innovation that you guys are doing and he's like they've kind of figured out the like traditional brick-andmortar restaurant come in and have a really good customer experience but still sees the value and where the puck is going when it comes to delivery kitchens. Yeah, I I reach out to them maybe more often than they would like but you know they have so much experience in the restaurant industry. So, well, one other piece about Cluster Truck that I think is is awesome is the involvement you guys have in the community. It seems like every everywhere I look, I see you all partnering with someone, whether it's the IU Indianapolis basketball team or actually all athletics, right?
Or I mean, us here at Get Indiana or I mean a lot of nonprofit work, the Monumental Marathon. People might remember that I uh ran the marathon and uh my pregame meal was uh was the macaroni and cheese. Not the buffalo mac and cheese, just the normal one with some chicken in it before I ran the marathon. Carved up. Yeah. Carb.
That Yeah, that was how I carbo loaded, right? The morning of. That's what you have to have. If anyone's seen The Office, the episode with Michael and he's eating all the chicken Alfredo. Why is it important to cluster truck to invest in these community partnerships? We wouldn't be here today without the support of the community to, you know, be on board with ordering from Cluster Truck in the first place.
So, I think the least we can do is support the folks who have supported us. We know we deliver quite a bit of food to the hospitals around town. We know that there's um folks there who, you know, the doctors, the nurses, maybe even families who are visiting loved ones in the hospital. Um, so we chose uh an organization that is closely tied uh the children the Riley Children's Foundation, you know, supports the the research of children's nutrition and how it affects them in childhood and then as adults as well. So we renamed our kids menu the Riley Children's Foundation kids menu and we donated a portion of those proceeds towards that research. Wow, that's awesome.
I actually I've seen that a ton, but I didn't put it all together there that you guys actually donated a portion of the proceeds. Like that's that's awesome. So when you, you know, you and your kids are getting lunch or whatever, you can also help um an amazing local charity. Are there other partnerships or organizations that you work with that you're super proud of? Yeah, we started working with the IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center last summer with the event Burger Bash. Um and it's something that What is Burger Bash?
Burger Bash is an event that was at the IMS. Uh and it was in support of the cancer research that the IU SA Comprehensive Cancer Center uh does. That's the first uh the moment that we we you know forged that partnership with Burger Bash and this cause. It went over really well. We made some friends. Uh and it's actually a cause that is close to the hearts of you know some of the folks at Cluster Truck um who may have gone through cancer and have survived.
Talking about Burger Bash and and other events. Do you have events on the calendar or promotions or anything that people can get excited about? Well, an event coming up that we haven't participated in the past is swing at the uh the Indians baseball. Yeah. Victory Field. Yeah.
I've never been to it, but we're going to be part of it this year. Are you going to go? Uh I I think so. Do you have a a Roaring 20's outfit? No. Have you heard one?
That's their the whole theme. Oh, it's amazing. It because everyone has their thing, right? You have Rev, you have Zub Zubilation, you have this that and the other thing. Swing, you dress up. I'm pretty sure it's from the Roaring 20s.
So you have like the guys in the news boy caps and suspenders and the white long sleeve shirts and the flapper dresses I think are what a lot of the ladies wear and it looks like they had to cancel it last year because of rain unfortunately. So I think this is their third year but their second event and it looks like a total I was going to go last year um but it got cancelled but it looks like a a total awesome time and they get a a bunch of amazing local partners so that's really cool. Do you guys do a lot of events like that where because I I think through the model, right, where it's delivery kitchen, how are you equipped to go out and do events on site places? Well, we also do catered events as well. It's something that, you know, we're we're fully capable of doing. Uh we did zubilation as well, so we just show up with uh a few of our top dishes and give samples out.
A lot of it's just awareness. You know, it's it's hard to think about ordering food from a place you've never heard of or don't know what it is. So, just to be in front of uh potential customers and our and our customers, you know, they're they're going to these events as well. Well, you're talking about a few of your favorite dishes. I'd love to maybe do a little draft style, like top three of what your favorite thing, and I'll I'll share what my favorite thing on the Cluster Truck menu is if you're game for that. So, I'll give you I'll give you the first pick in the draft.
What What are you taking? If you could only order one thing for the rest of your life off the cluster truck menu, what would it be? I really like our carneasada tacos. Oh, I I actually haven't had those. Um because my my one two in the draft would be you have to get the pad thai and I have to add the chicken. And early on I used to get ticked off a little bit.
I was like I don't want tofu in it. Now I love the tofu. It's good. Like it's a good little extra like you're like oh yeah that like I've never I don't eat a ton of actually the only time I eat tofu is within the pad thai. It's worth it. It's awesome.
Like I had a great time. So, my one two would be the Pad Thai Add Chicken. All right, we're back to you for the 2-1. Well, this one's for my daughter, but she loves the Buffalo mac and cheese. Oh, that one is fire. Uh, that's like my That was going to be mine.
Now I have to go back to the Oh, I've recently gotten into cuz I'm trying to keep it light. The chicken Caesar wrap. Uh, that is my tutu. It is phenomenal. And it doesn't make me want to take a nap. Like, I can't eat the pad thai for lunch cuz it's just a lot of it, which is a good thing.
A good problem to have is that you're getting a lot of food, but after if I have like a podcast in the afternoon and I eat some pad thai, I'm like falling asleep over here in the chair. All right. And then your third and final, what are you getting? Um, the applewood chicken salad. It's actually something that came from Cunningham's group. So, it it's it's excellent.
The applewood chicken salad. It's the dressing. All right. I'm going to add that one to mine. Uh, we have Evan in the producer chair over here. He's freaking out.
He's Evan, what's your one? The lazy breakfast. Oh, no questions. The lazy breakfast burrito was Evan's top pick. Sunday morning, maybe you spent a night out downtown or Broadripple and you just like need a little pickme up. Lazy breakfast burrito is the go-to.
And we added Cholula to the menu. I think maybe just for Evan. Oh, look at him. You're making an impact, Evan. You're a man of the people. Getting on the menu.
Uh, I would say yeah, we'll put we'll put lazy breakfast burrito in as my three three. It's solid. I'm just not a huge breakfast guy. Like I when I want breakfast, it's like a weekend and it's like before 10:00 a. m. So as you think through you've been there for seven years.
In the middle there was this crazy thing that uh really really increased delivery for everything. Oh, right. Like I don't know 2020 maybe it's the time that we remember. Take me back to to that time. I'm sure there was a large increase in cluster truck orders during the pandemic. How were you guys equipped to handle uh an increase in in orders?
And take me back to like what the leadership was thinking during that time. Well, it's actually quite scary uh the very first week or two. Um all of the large buildings downtown emptied out, so no one was coming to the office and we did most of our business at lunchtime. Um so those orders just stopped. Um but you know, folks got tired of cooking after about two weeks and the orders started coming in. So, it was great.
Um, we were very busy really. Uh, we were already set up for this. The only thing we had to add was, you know, wearing masks and some hand sanitizer, but you know, otherwise we were pretty much contactless anyways. Yeah. And that was we were ahead of the curve, right? You you were ready to go there from the driver drop off and basically contactless.
What what people think is, oh, everyone would be ordering then. But when all when you're relying heavily on corporate lunches and things like that and all the office buildings clear out, you're probably like, "Oh, shit." Like, what's going on here? It flip-fpped. It was like 60% lunch orders, 40% dinner, and then, you know, it all went away for a while, but then it came back as dinner orders. It was more like 40% lunch, 60% dinner.
Right. So, you're talking about corporate ordering and all these buildings start to clear out. Is that based around like group ordering and and how people were buying lunch for their entire office or I know the cluster has something special when it comes to ordering for groups? Yeah, so we developed a process where you can just share a link uh with your friends, your family and everyone can just add to the bag whatever they want to eat for the day and you've seen our menu. It's vast. Uh there's over a hundred items to choose from.
Um and you can pay for the group all uh one person can pay for the entire group or you can just split the check so everyone pays for themsel. Um, and that's available in our app and also online. So, it's handy. And so, you guys go from that where you're sharing links around the office building where everyone's like, "Oh, yeah, I'll go down and pick up our lunch for 5, 10, 15 people to then not having any people in the office." So, it's all like down to single orders. So, like you think about order size, all those things.
Definitely uh an interesting and a difficult challenge to navigate through there. Yeah, typically at dinner time it's just, you know, one person buying for multiple people, but in the office it was definitely shared checks were were common. JC Hart Company is your answer to navigating the apartment rental journey. With almost 50 years of creating enjoyable living experiences in Indiana, you'll be sure to find your new home sweet home. You're going to find 30 communities in the best areas Indiana has to offer. Hamilton County, downtown Indie, Bloomington, just to name a few, along with five brand new luxury communities.
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Be sure to check them out on Instagram at homejart or visit homeisjart. com/nate. One more time. Hope is JC Hart. But did you also see more competition with like a Door Dash or an Uber Eats and like it start to get saturated uh with the delivery space? Maybe, but we were so busy.
And have you continued to ride that wave of like, oh, we're still ripping? And is that was that like a a catalyst for future growth? Well, I mean, yes. Uh people I think got used to ordering food delivered. Um so that was just, you know, getting people comfortable with that idea. I think a lot of ghost kitchens struggled because, you know, they're ghost.
You don't know where your food's coming from. You don't know who's cooking it. So, we've done a a really good job now of, you know, making sure you see us and we're visible and you know who we are and how we cook. You know, we do a lot of social media posts. We've added, you know, signage and a mural to our Broadripple location. The all of our locations were initially built without any sort of signage at all except for the Downtown Indie Kitchen had a mural.
So, we've changed that this past year and I think that helps right when I think through you know the the rise of ghost kitchens basically for anyone that doesn't know and from I'll give my kind of crude uh definition and I'd love to hear what from from the expert but like Mr. Beast right starts Mr. produced burgers and like yes there was high quality when he was over there like and he was never overseeing a kitchen right he wasn't a staff manager it was a marketing company that produced burgers all across the country but quality in San Antonio versus quality in Indianapolis versus quality in LA it's all it varies right and I think that I don't know if it folded or if it's just not taken off I don't think it's doing super well no offense there Jimmy Mr. beast, if you're listening, you talked to quality, right? And how important it is that they know that a professional staff that values quality is making their food versus uh McDonald's or wherever these cloud kitchens are, like the same people that are making a Red Robin burger are also making your Mr.
Beast burger and they're like, "Oh, I don't care about this. Like, just get it out of here." Is that kind of like what you're seeing from the cloud kitchen perspective and ghost kitchen perspective? Yeah, especially with that burger. You know, customers will order it once, have a terrible experience, and never order it again. you know, our what we want with cluster truck is for you to order, have a great experience, and then if we mess it up for whatever reason, we make it right.
You know, I don't think a lot of companies do that. Um, especially if they're, you know, going through a third party to make those deliveries because it's just a blame game. It wasn't my fault, it was fault. So, I can think of a million other things I'd rather do than file a complaint on Door Dash when like, "Bro, they forgot my salsa for my chips or whatever." And you're like, "This is going to be an hour of my life for a $3." I'm like, "Oh, nope.
Lost Soldier. Forget about it. It's gone." So, I do appreciate that with with Cluster Truck and and your guys' um commitment to customer service there and making and especially when it is your name, right? Like I think Mr. Beastburgger when you're not actually an employee of that it's like oh whatever who cares like it's it's his thing like he's going to be fine he's making the YouTube money like it's a blame game right so I do think that building trust is so important what steps have you guys taken and do you continue to take to build trust with your customers you know it starts with our company culture right you know you have to have people on staff who care um and that care you know trickles down to the customer eventually uh our drivers care that's why they're nice and they smile smile and they hand you your meal and they get it to you quickly.
our kitchen staff, you know, care about the quality of the food they're putting out and and ultimately we care about, you know, how was your experience? And we ask and we read the reviews that come in and, you know, if we see something that, you know, maybe this item is is hard to control the quality on it, maybe we should rethink it or, you know, if someone, you know, is is not getting the items, our our GMs will know and our GMs, you know, will be able to correct uh, you know, within their four walls if there's an error going on there. We own our mistakes. Uh, and you know, we're not perfect, but we try really hard. So, why drive for cluster truck versus Door Dash or Uber Eats. Well, you don't have to get out of your car.
I mean, sometimes if someone has a broken leg, you know, I broke my ankle and the drivers would come out and bring me my food, which was so nice. Um, but you know, they don't necessarily have to do that every single time. Like, you got to toss that in the notes like, "Yeah, I have I'm in a cast. Like, please, for the love of Yeah, considerate, right? They're not like holding fast to this rule that they'll never get out of their car. You know, they'll make some exceptions, but um not getting out of your car is so much different than any other service because they don't have to go through that heartache of going into a restaurant trying to find the meal.
The kitchen doesn't even want to cook this meal because it's not for a patron that's in their actual restaurant and they don't have to try to find parking when they're trying to make the delivery to you and they don't have to like go and find your office in a tall building. It's inefficient. And the flexibility piece of it, right? Um, I think we when we were riding along, we like Lindsay said that sometimes she'll have her child in the car and like, you know, it's like a good twohour break to get out of the house and you go get to make some money, but it's also like a mobile daycare and like, you know, kids love riding around in the car and hanging out with mom and dad. Like, that's fun. So, granted, I don't know if this is what happens, but if you're parking your car and going into a building, you probably shouldn't leave your child in it, right?
Like, that's probably a bad idea. If you're definitely probably Yeah, definitely a bad idea. If you're a Door Dash driver, you know, probably don't do that. But with Coach Truck, you don't have to leave your car, right? So, you can spend time with your kid. Heck, I might just sign up as a driver.
Yo, like get my buddy, hang out for two hours, drive some orders around, and just like catch up, like do my coffee meetings as a cluster truck delivery driver. We get paid to hang out. We talked about what makes driving for Cluster Truck so special, but you also talk about working there, right? And I know there's a special story with Chef Epsy and kind of starting and and progressing a career through working at Cluster Truck. Can you share a little bit about that? Epsi may have started before I did full-time uh at Cluster Truck.
She came in as an hourly staff on the expo line. So, our expo is the one who packages all of our meals and hands them to the drivers. And she was there. Um she ended up learning all of the various uh stations within our downtown Indianapolis kitchen. um and we were opening up a location up in um Carmel at the time. So she went there and she ended up you know starting uh just working as a line chef but then you know working up the ranks and becoming you know the manager of that location.
She was just doing a great job and uh then she moved over and ran the Fischer location when that opened as well and she spent some time in the Castleton kitchen as well. Um, so she really learned how to run that smart kitchen concept. And you know, I could always tell when I look at the financials when Epsi was in the kitchen because she would knock the numbers out of the park every single time. I could totally depend on her. And when you say knock the numbers out of the park, it's just like keeping that labor cost down or Yeah. Keeping your uh cost of goods sold in line.
Uh just managing the kitchen, managing your labor, managing, you know, scheduling of who's in there. And you know, you don't need five people at 2:00 in the afternoon when there's no orders coming in. No one's really eating during that time. So, you send folks home in order to make the numbers work for that location. And and that's just that's just smart uh business running a kitchen. When we needed a leader for our Indianapolis kitchen, the busiest kitchen, we do $6 million in sales through that kitchen.
Um I turned to Epsi and uh I gave her a chance to run it and she's she's incredible. How long has she been running the Indianapolis Kitchen? about a year. And what I think is super interesting is with your chefs, you get to like that's the person that's the face of each of the kitchens, right? Like that's the person. It's not necessarily like clusterbot or whatever like that.
It is the chef that that is there. And it is a chef. And what was the thought process behind making them the faces of these locations? Well, they were originally built as ghost kitchens. And you know, I think it's really important for consumers to know who's cooking their food, who's in charge, you know, how we cook the food. So there's a comfort level with where you're getting your food from.
It's scary ordering from a ghost kitchen. Spooky. And then the final one I was going to ask, okay, so I have to ask, where did the name, the logo, branding for cluster truck come from? So cluster truck is a um cluster of food trucks is the concept. So, you know, when food trucks would circle up and and all go to an event, uh, they would call it a cluster truck. So, originally, you know, I think Chris's idea was to have menu items from actual food trucks in town.
You know, they turned into virtual food trucks. You know, a lot of it was the advice of Mike Cunningham, a smart business person, and he's like, you can just do it yourself. You know, come up with these virtual food truck names to organize the menu. And that's where it's come from. Logo. Incredible.
The whole branding is so fun. I did not think that's what it came from. I thought it was just like a play on words that I was like, "God, that's so clever." But no, a cluster truck is a group, a cluster of food trucks. Yeah, we've come to a part where we're going to do a segment. So, this is our younger years segment.
It's brought to you by our friends at OR Fellowship. They're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young business leaders across the state. So, Janet, what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self? I mean, never stop learning. got my MBA and then, you know, decided to go get my law degree and then, you know, I I worked a ton of hours as an attorney just, you know, because it was fun because I was learning. Um, and then, you know, stepping into cluster truck and this restaurant, you know, food food on demand, uh, business, you know, we're learning constantly.
And then, you know, just trying to get better every single day. And you know, nine years of running uh a cluster truck, it produced this model that is great for an entrepreneur to come in and and you know, really change food delivery industry. When you think about ownership and starting a business versus franchising a business, what do you think the pros and the cons of each one of those are? Starting your own company, you know, I went on my own, had my own law firm. You you know, the buck stops with you. You make all the decisions uh right or wrong.
you have your freedom, you also have very little guidance, I suppose. I mean, unless you're going out and seeking it. Um, and the franchise um model that we've come up with, we've really proven it out. We've negotiated partnerships. You know, we we have, you know, the best pricing on our ingredients. Uh we have, you know, all of the knowledge that, you know, Mike Cunningham brings to this with his restaurant experience in addition to all the knowledge of Chris Bagot and the software industry.
So um it all culminates and creates this this business model that is so different and innovative in this space. Um I really think we have something special. Yeah. Having like a a playbook for entrepreneurship is helpful. That's one of the things I've noticed. I've been doing this for a year now and there isn't a playbook and it's like I spend nights figuring out what tomorrow what play we're going to run tomorrow and we'll figure it out.
It it gets lonely I think when you go out and like let's say you go let's say restaurants, right? You go want you go out and you want to start your own restaurant. You do get all the freedom. You can make it whatever you want to make. Like that's really fun and the right subset of people will crush it there. But it's like it's lonely.
There's not a ton of feedback or guidance or leadership, especially when times get hard. Not that many people to celebrate your wins with, even fewer to like go to when you're going through hard times. And so having the franchise model where you still get a lot of the good of entrepreneurship and the fun of entrepreneurship and you're running a business, but you don't have necessarily the as low of lows. I would say you're really joining a team and we're going to be there to to help you succeed. So working as an attorney to now selling burritos, right? Like what would you say to the people that are listening whether it's entrepreneurship or just you know they're in a career path that maybe isn't just totally satisfying all of their their entrepreneurial itch or just fulfilling them totally.
What would you say to to to those people? What advice would you have for finding where your passion is? Find something that you love to do that you wake up and you're like, man, I'm going to I'm going to do this. I'm going to crush it. Uh this is fun. you know, as I was on the outside as an attorney and uh not really in a business necessarily other than my own and you can only sell so much time in your life, right?
You know, attorneys charge by the hour. Um and I think I can build something even bigger uh by building up a a corporation like this. Yeah. Was that a scary decision to make like going from the stable career of law to running a delivery kitchen? It was a little scary. I was going from running my own company to becoming an employee.
So, that was different. And uh yeah, they talk about like all the freedom that you had to then like oh now we have a board and employees and this that and the other thing. Yeah. Yeah. What advice would you have for um people that that are whether they're making a transition from corporate to entrepreneurship or from entrepreneurship to you know going to work for someone? Um is is there advice that that that helps you through that transition?
I guess for me, I always enjoy challenges. Uh, and that's part of the fun in life, I think, is to take something on and do the best you can and see where it leads. So, that's where I am now. Uh, with Cluster Truck, I I think that this company will will expand beyond Indianapolis and the Midwest, and it's it's just such a great model that is actually profitable at the unit level. And that's just not something that's happening anywhere that I know of in in restaurants, right? Like it's already like razor thin margins, especially with food delivery and then deliver.
You add that on it too and it's like everyone wonders why it's like he's like, "Oh, I'm checking out and it's $12 and you get to the final piece and on Door Dash or whatever and it's like $47 and a left kidney. Like what are we doing here? Come on." Well, and that's part of why customers I think are fine meeting us at the curb because we don't charge any delivery fees. There are a few times where I'll complain about going to walk the 50 steps or whatever when it's like you get to the end of a Door Dash page and it's like 3x what you thought you were going to spend and you just like cancel it out. You're like, "Nope, not worth it."
Like whatever. I'll starve versus paying three times what it's supposed to be. All right. Well, we've come to the lightning round where we get to ask some fun food questions today. That's kind of what we have on the on the docket. So, actually, I have one law question, too.
What's your peak comfort food? Rice. I mean, my mom's Korean. Come on. Yeah, that's fair. So, like hard day, a hard week of work, Saturday comes around and you're like, I just want some rice.
Just maybe it sounds funny, but you know. Hey, that's that's a peak comfort food. I'll take that. I spent a week with my parents. Uh, and yeah, I had all the Korean food I could want for an entire week. It was amazing.
What's what's like Korean food? What would you say like a traditional Korean dinner is? Um like thin sliced beef, bulgogi, it's marinated. It's just like oh and a ton of side dishes. Just the entire table is full of side dishes. Oh, I've always thought that indie and we might have one.
I just don't know about it. But Korean barbecue where you like cook it on the little plate in the center. I did that when I was out in LA and I was like this thing is awesome. And it was like an unlimited one I think and they just brought us so much stuff and I was like this would crush in Indie. But I don't know if there is one. Is there a Korean barbecue place here?
There's a couple around town. Yeah. Really? I guess I just need to I need to know about them. Okay. So, we did get another Mount Rushmore draft style of clutter truck food.
I just want to know for you, what's the go-to order consistently? If someone was going to experience their first cluster truck moment, what do they need to order? Breakfast burrito. That That's the thing. Mac and cheese. Okay.
I mean, are we doing multiple things here or just one? Whatever. It's like you you're let's say you're having a friend over, you're going to watch the big game, whatever it is, and you're like, "You know what? Instead of ordering pizza or whatever, we're going to order from Cluster Track tonight. What's the order for a group of say four people, four friends hanging out, watching the game, what do they need to order? What's what's Well, right now we have that Dunkfest special.
So, I mean, what's on there's pizza and fried chicken and chips. It's perfect money. And it's only $29. 99. The madness Dunkfest special. Just madness.
Nothing else. It's It's madness that you can get that much food for 29 bucks. Is that what it is? Yeah. I love it. Okay, we're going to we're going to dive into the law career for a second.
What was your favorite celebrity trial? Oh, you know, I wasn't a litigator. I didn't go to court. I mean, I did initially the very first year that I was practicing just for the experience, but I ended up becoming a transactional attorney, which is the attorney who does all that boring paperwork that you don't want to read. So, yeah, I'd want to sell burritos if I was doing paperwork, too. So, no, but not interested in celebrity trials.
That's not like uh part for the course. No, not All right. No celebrity trials. These are the same three questions that I ask everyone that sit in the chair that come on the show. So, the first one is, what's something the world needs to know about Indiana? I mean, self-promoting cluster truck, right?
I mean, cluster truck's amazing and we're here in Indianapolis. It's where it started. The way you guys have innovated on the space using technology and making it very, very efficient. the operational excellence. It seems like this is a commercial for cluster truck. This is genuine, right?
Very, very cool. I from seeing the inner workings of it from the outside looking in and then getting to ride around. Super cool. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? H if we're talking restaurants, I love Bodie. Oh, so it could be restaurants, it could be anything.
But I like that. Uh that's down on by Massav, right? It's on Massav Bottle Works District. It's three generations. Grandma, mom, and daughter. No way.
It's amazing. Okay, what's the go-to order at Bodie? I haven't been yet, but I think I I need to schedule a date night there. Uh the green curry and Yeah, it's really It's very spicy. So, just get the mildest you can. Well, you don't think I can handle spicy?
Well, I can't even handle it, right? All right. So, the green curry at Bodh Thai. Three generations, I think. So, wow, that's impressive. And finally, who's a Hooer that we need to keep on our radar?
someone who's doing big things. John Caner, he's leading our franchising. John Caner, uh, leading franchising, getting new owners to come in, uh, if people are interested and that's an, uh, something they want to explore. How can they get a hold of you guys? Go to ownclusterruck. com and fill out the form.
Ownaclusterruck. com. Great URL. Super easy there. I love it. Other than that, where can we find you?
Oh, I do have to remind people because it's in the episode. Use code indie N dy and you get 25% off any order. Evan says any order. Use code indie ndy and you're going to get uh a very good deal on some delicious food. Uh other places they can find you or cluster truck in general anywhere. Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
Cluster truck on social media. You can find Jana on LinkedIn. Um thank you so much for coming on and sharing a little bit about Cluster Truck. I'm really excited to see how the expansion via franchise goes. I I'm super grateful to have you guys as a partner and and for all the great work that you guys are doing. I mean, you talk about supporting I think I have a list in here of of the community orgs, right?
So, IU Indie, the Indians, Monumental Marathon, Riley's Children Foundation, tons of brewery partners, you talked about the IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. Yeah. Come on, let's go. Uh, like I just think that when people, you know, okay, it's food, it's this, that, like why would I go cluster truck versus a Door Dash? Like Door Dash isn't sponsoring the stuff here in our community and they're not committed to the city of Indianapolis. So, I just appreciate that and having great uh local partners right here.
I mean, down the street in Broadripple and all the other locations. So, appreciate you and uh and we'll talk soon. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater.
Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all of my gear recommendations at sweetwater. com. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok @ natepangle. Thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the Who's Your State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
