The feature will track the stages of the food delivery process as the driver picks up and delivers the order.
“From start to finish, it lets you see the entire process,” BtownMenus co-founder Corey Arenson said.
Users can choose to receive text alerts about their driver’s progress and can also check the location of their driver on the service’s website, which displays a map.
“This is big tech, but we’re local in all of our markets,” Arenson said.
Elliot Bostick, sophomore and BtownMenus user, has had mixed experiences with the company.
“I’m a foodie,” Bostick said. “I ran out of meal points last year, so I used their service all the time.”
Bostick described a situation this year in which he received his food cold and had trouble dealing with BtownMenus’ management and customer service.
“I’m canceling my account with them, and I’ll just use Mr. Delivery instead,” he said.
The Bloomington food delivery market is a crowded one. Mr. Delivery and Grubhub are both national chains that offer services similar to BtownMenus.
Food delivery services make money by charging processing fees to pick up and deliver food.
BtownMenus was started in 2005 by Arenson and Mike Rolland, both IU students at the time.
Originally the first franchise of LionMenus.com, a food delivery service at Penn State University, the pair now runs franchises in Denver and Boulder, Colo., as well as Bloomington, Arenson said.
LionMenus.com, now OrderUp.com, runs franchises in 37 markets and hired the man behind the Domino’s real-time tracking app to create its technology, ?Arenson said.
Arenson and Rolland now live in Colorado, and their Bloomington service is locally run out of premises at Sixth Street and College Avenue, Arenson said.
“We have hundreds of orders a day and have had over 40,000 users total,” Arenson said. “We hope this gives them a better experience.”
