My 4 Day Sprint Through All of San Francisco’s Prepared Meal Startups
Do you ever want food? Delivered right to your face? With little to no effort? Sure you could resort to ordering a pizza box full of cheese and regret from Domino’s, but if you keep up with the startup scene in San Francisco you’ve probably heard of the new meal delivery services popping up every few months. I’m not referring to the startups that deliver takeout from restaurants, I’m talking about the ones with their own kitchens and recipes, where the chefs are as essential as the software engineers. With the touch of a button a hot, gourmet meal can be delivered to your door in minutes. Sounds too good to be true, right?
Four of these startups have set up shop in SF, so I decided to take it upon myself to evaluate each one in a sprint of slothful, self-indulgent food delivery (I know, I’m really putting myself out there for this one). My vegan housemate joined me so we could test how the services cater to veggie-lovers as well. Keeping both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes in mind, I planned to rate each service on the quality of their app, food, and overall experience. I know a thing or two about apps and cooking, but lets be honest: I’m doing this is because I like to eat, and the easier it is to go from empty belly to food coma the better.
Day 1: Sprig
App: 2.5/5 | Food: 4/5 | Experience: 4/5 | Average: 3.5/5
I began my food journey by downloading Sprig. Right off the bat, when I opened the app I ran into issues. Everything looked clean and well-designed, but it simply didn’t work. I navigated to the menu page and scrolled through a selection of appetizing (albeit highly photoshopped) pictures of the meals for the day. Then the app crashed. Unperturbed, I reopened it and it promptly crashed again. Several crashes later, I finally placed an order for the Braised Chicken & Veggie Rice Bowl with Chipotle Sour Cream and the Green Lentil Coconut Curry with Quinoa Pilaf. Immediately, I received a text alerting me that they were out of the items I had ordered and that I’d been refunded. Annoyed and increasingly hangry, I placed the same order again. This time it went through and I was notified that it would take 51 minutes for the meal to arrive. Ugh.
Despite the app experience, when the food arrived, my housemate and I were pleasantly surprised. The food was delivered to our door within thirty minutes and tip had been included beforehand. It came nicely packaged in compostable food containers which were color-coded to match bags of condiments and utensils for each meal. Also included was a boxed truffle with a note thanking us for trying Sprig. Nice touch!
The food wasn’t terribly exciting, but it was definitely tasty. The chicken was tangy and slightly spicy. The rice and sautéed vegetables were simple, but they complimented the chicken well. The creamy chipotle sauce pulled the whole thing together. I didn’t know what to do with the grilled lime, but I guess it looked cool. I had a few bites of my housemate’s curry and was also pleased; it had a slight coconut flavor and I liked the unique texture of the quinoa, as I’m used to rice with my curry. The portion size was excellent: filling, but comfortably so.
Overall, Sprig impressed me. For about $25 total, the food was more than edible and, after the ordering fiasco, the process was incredibly streamlined. Despite the bugs, the app has a lot going for it. The ingredients and nutritional information of each meal are carefully described and you can monitor delivery on a map. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re working on the app’s stability and will order Sprig again in the future.
Day 2: Bento
App: 2/5 | Food: 3/5 | Experience: 3/5 | Average Rating: 2.7
I’m the kind of person who is immediately put on guard when I hear food described with the incredibly vague term “Asian,” but, for the sake of science, this was the day I would try Bento, “Delicious Asian Food Delivered in Minutes.”
Opening the app, I was hit by one of those “Whoa this is cool” moments. The app presents a virtual bento box with slots for a main and four sides. You can choose which type of food you want in each compartment. For my box, I chose the Mongolian Beef, Pork Gyoza, Kale Salad, Jasmine Rice, and Shiitake Mushroom & Chinese Broccoli. My housemate ordered the same thing, but replaced the beef for a vegetarian pad thai and the gyoza for a second helping of mushrooms.
Then came trouble. When I tried to order, the app crashed and deleted my bento boxes. When I reopened the app, I was shown a screen announcing that Bento was closed for the day (huh?). I continued to reopen and reorder until, after several more crashes and lost bento boxes, my order finally went through. I was given no information other than that my order had completed and that I would receive updates via text message. Five minutes later, I received a text with a link to a third party delivery tracking website. So far, I wasn’t very impressed with the quality of these delivery apps….
Delivery took half an hour and required curbside pickup. We received two impressively engineered boxes which unfolded, revealing our neatly parceled food. Ignoring the fact that Chinese, Thai, and Japanese dishes don’t really belong in the same meal together (and certainly not in a bento box!), I dove in. All of the sides were pretty yum, their small portions kept the meal interesting. The Mongolian Beef was another story. It came on a bed of limp, unseasoned boiled cabbage. It would have been much better raw, or just not there at all. The beef itself was extremely salty and I wasn’t able to finish it. In my opinion I’d have been better off ordering Chinese fast food; I could have gotten more food for my $26. Looks like my prejudice against Asian fusion lives to see another day.
Day 3: Spoonrocket
App: 5/5 | Food: 4/5 | Experience: 4/5 | Average: 4.3/5
Spoonrocket was supposed to be the second restaurant on my list, but I had to postpone it as there were no vegan-friendly options available on its allotted day. Fortunately, the second time around we found the Japanese Soba Noodle Salad which was marked as vegan. I ordered the Slow-Cooked Cowboy Beef Brisket for myself (cause cowboys). For the first time, I placed an order without a single technical difficulty: easy on-boarding, automated phone-call updates, live map of delivery progress. Very refreshing.
The delivery required tip and curbside pickup. The food was… actually really good! I have to admit that when I looked at the meal I was skeptical. It looked a lot like a TV dinner, but the beef was tender and flavorful, the gravy wasn’t too salty or fatty, and the vegetables looked and tasted fresh. The salad was chilled and seasoned with what seemed to be a miso-based dressing — nothing near a traditional Japanese dish, but a nice take on a salad with an Asian flair. Both meals were portioned very well. Overall, I’d say my housemate and I had an excellent experience ordering from Spoonrocket.
Day 4: Munchery
App: 5/5 | Food: 4/5 | Overall Experience: 4/5 | Average: 4.3/5
Last but not least: Munchery. Munchery is a bit different from the previous three services in that the food is delivered cold. It’s prepared ahead of time, but you’re required to heat the food in an oven. I think the idea is that all of your meals for the day can be shipped in one delivery.
The Munchery app actually looks a lot like the Spoonrocket app and for the most part works the same way (these are both good things). It also shared the similarity of not crashing or losing any of my orders . I ordered the Buttermilk Fried Chicken and the Quinoa Spinach Burger without any issues.
Delivery took about half an hour. They dropped the meal off at my doorstep but didn’t ring the doorbell so I didn’t actually realize my food had arrived until my housemate went out to put out our compost. To be fair, I was notified of when it would arrive, I just expected a knock.
Preparing the food was simple: we just tossed the chicken, mashed potatoes, and quinoa patty into the oven for 15 minutes. If I could describe the meal in one word, I’d call it “wholesome.” Maybe it was the act of putting the food together ourselves, but it felt closer to a home-cooked meal than any of the other services. All of the food was fresh and you could pretty easily identify the ingredients in each item. I was glad that the oven adequately revived the chicken, as I’m generally doubtful of reheating fried food. My only gripes were the slight blandness of the quinoa patty and the lack of enough dressing for the coleslaw. Other than that, Munchery proved to be a satisfying end to our experiment.
The Verdict
Overall, I enjoyed each meal delivery service and would happily order from any of them again. They all had similar price points and delivery times so the differences really came down to the food quality and app stability. Munchery and Spoonrocket shined through, but I see a lot of potential in both Sprig and Bento. If the app had been more stable, Sprig would have had the most streamlined experience. Little niceties like door delivery, not having to worry about the tip, and compostable packaging go a long way for me. Bento’s attraction lay in its unique ordering experience. It was fun to pick out exactly what I wanted in my box. My housemate and I decided we liked Munchery the most, but I can easily see how the different services would appeal to different people.
Ignoring the obvious use case of pure laziness, these services would be genuinely useful if I were home with a cold or pressed for time before a plane flight. I could also imagine one using these meals as a weight loss solution as most have fewer than 600 calories but are filling. For the same price as eating out at a restaurant, meal delivery services offer a healthy, tasty alternative with convenience thrown in for free. I can’t wait for more of these apps to spring up; I’m feeling hungry just writing this.
