Fast Boise delivery from gourmet restaurants nationwide? This new local service gonna eat

Does it feel like you’ve eaten to-go food from every single Boise restaurant during the coronavirus pandemic? Twice?

Expand your culinary horizons. Grab award-winning delivery food from out of state.

Crave Delivery, a new local startup, is planning an early launch of its unique service June 1. Customers in Boise, Meridian and Eagle will be able to order mix-and-match cuisine using an app in the Apple and Android stores. After fully launching in the Boise area this fall, Crave plans to expand to other other states beginning in 2021.

Located in a 15,000-square-foot building being built at Ten Mile Crossing in Meridian, Crave will be a combination ghost-kitchen collective and delivery company. This spring and summer, Crave’s menu will include shareable dinner items from four restaurant partners:

▪ Seattle seafood veteran Elliott’s Oyster House.

▪ ESR@Home, featuring Italian fare from Seattle restaurateur Ethan Stowell.

▪ Southern food from Crawford Cookshop (led by five-time-James-Beard-nominated chef Scott Crawford of Raleigh, N.C.’s Crawford and Son).

▪ Asian street eats from longtime San Francisco gem Betelnut, which closed in 2015.

In October, Crave plans to turn up the heat. It will increase its menu to 16 restaurant partners, including Idaho representation, all cooking at the Meridian headquarters. Options will range from breakfast and lunch to dinner and late-night food. Most of Crave’s selections will lean toward high-end, chef-driven offerings, said Shannon Bloemker, director of strategy.

“I’m not going to say that we won’t have, like, pizza at some point,” Bloemker added. “But it will probably be award-winning pizza. It’s a different caliber.”

Crave’s menu won’t just be restaurants’ signature dishes. Selections will be optimized and specifically packaged for delivery. As many consumers have been reminded during the coronavirus pandemic, not all food is built for takeout. “If you order from any high-end restaurant, not everything shows up well,” Bloemker said. “Not everything will last in the 20 minutes it takes to get to your house.”

Crave’s restaurant partners will hire their own staffs to work in the kitchens. Crave employees will specialize in packaging and delivery, focusing on customer service.

Crave Delivery co-owner Barry Werner is also a co-owner of the local Tavern at Bown Crossing, Owhyee Tavern and Tavern at Eagle Island. Werner said that Crave’s business model will give restaurants more control than relying on third-party delivery services.

“That is a big deal,” Werner said. “We’re going to train our delivery employees. They’re going to taste the food, they’re going to know all the kitchens. They’re an extension of our business. They’re going to be like a server.”

Being able to order food from 16 restaurants with a one-stop app should appeal to hungry customers. If Dad wants Italian food, Mom wants Asian food and Junior wants pizza? “You’re getting it from one location,” Werner said, “and you’re getting it all delivered at the same time with white-glove delivery.”

Crave has created a 25-minute delivery radius that covers most of Boise, Meridian and Eagle, Bloemker said. The app will provide customers with an expected time of arrival. “Our goal is to reach people in under 40 minutes from the time they place their order on the app,” she said, “although we believe it will be closer to 30 minutes for a good number of people.”

And once Crave has fed a hungry Idaho?

Look out, America.

“We’re starting in Boise, but this is a national expansion,” Bloemker said. “Our partners are coming with us to all the other facilities across the U.S. Our intention is to open 50 kitchen facilities in the next three years. So a lot of the partners we’ve chosen are especially interested in that level of expansion.”

▪ For more information and a $25 introductory promotion, visit cravedelivery.com.

This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.