Indian food has a format problem in the office. The flavors travel fine, but the standard service model does not: chafing trays of curry that need a rice tray beside them, a plate stack, a fork, a serving spoon, and a person willing to stand in line for all of it. Eat that at a desk during a working session and you end up juggling a plate on your keyboard.
Curry Up Now built its whole menu around solving that. Akash and Rana Kapoor started the brand as a single food truck in Burlingame, California in 2009, and their signature move was structural rather than culinary: they took tikka masala and wrapped it in a flour tortilla the way a Mission burrito is built. The result is Indian food you hold in one hand, portioned per person, sealed in foil that keeps it hot on the drive over. For an office catering order, that changes what the food can do.
From a Burlingame Food Truck to a National Indian Street Food Brand
The origin story starts with an email. A friend sent Akash Kapoor a magazine feature about Roy Choi and Kogi BBQ, the Korean taco truck rewriting Los Angeles street food, with a note suggesting someone should do the same for Indian. The Kapoors tested the idea at their daughter’s fifth birthday party, renting a truck and serving two hundred guests the dishes they had been working out in their own kitchen. Two weeks later they drove to Stockton and bought a truck of their own.
Curry Up Now served its first official day on September 26, 2009, on a corner in Burlingame. Akash picked the date because it was his father’s birthday. A brick-and-mortar location in San Mateo followed, then Palo Alto, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, and Alameda, and the brand franchised well beyond California.
The kitchen philosophy stayed consistent through all of it. Indian food does not have to be slow, formal, or fussy, and the menu treats speed and portability as features rather than compromises. That is why the catering menu reads differently from most Indian catering menus you will price out.
The Format That Makes Indian Food Work at a Desk
The tikka masala burrito is the item everyone knows, and it is worth understanding why it works for catering specifically. A burrito is a complete meal in a sealed cylinder. Protein, sauce, rice, and a slaw or chickpea component all go inside one tortilla, which means no plate, no fork, and no assembly at the destination. Foil holds heat better than a vented chafing lid, so a burrito that leaves the kitchen hot arrives closer to hot than a tray of curry does.
Kathi rolls do the same job with a different wrapper, using a griddled flatbread instead of a tortilla. Bowls unbundle the burrito for people who would rather eat with a fork but still want a self-contained portion. The deconstructed samosa takes a dish that is normally finger food and rebuilds it as something you eat seated with a fork, which turns an appetizer into a lunch.
Every one of those formats is individually portioned. For an office manager, that solves the two logistics problems that make catering stressful: you can count servings against a headcount instead of guessing at tray yields, and you can label a vegetarian order so it does not disappear into a shared buffet before the vegetarians reach it.
What Is on the Catering Menu
The catering lineup groups into a handful of categories that stay stable even as individual items rotate:
- Handheld entrees. Burritos, kathi rolls, and naan wraps built around a choice of protein, with tikka masala as the anchor sauce.
- Bowls and thali-style plates. The same fillings served over rice with sides, for people who prefer a plated meal.
- Snacks and street food. Samosas, chaat-style dishes, and spiced fries, which do the work of appetizers at an evening event.
- Protein and curry trays. Ordered on their own for a buffet line or to reinforce a spread you have already built.
- Breads, rice, and accompaniments. Naan and flatbreads, seasoned rice, chutneys, and a fresh tomato-and-onion relish that lightens the richer dishes.
- Dessert. A small sweets selection to close out a larger order.
Chutneys deserve a specific mention. They arrive in separate containers rather than pre-dressed, which is what lets one order serve a room with different heat tolerances.
Catering Formats for the Office
Four service shapes cover most office scenarios:
| Format | Best for | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Individually boxed meals | Desk lunches, working sessions, hybrid days, conference rotations | One burrito, bowl, or roll per person, countable against a headcount and labelable by dietary need |
| Buffet-style packages | All-hands lunches, team celebrations, evening events | Entrees with rice, bread, and accompaniments, served with the equipment and disposables to run a line |
| Build-your-own and grazing setups | Mixed-preference teams, receptions, longer gatherings | Half-portions and assemble-your-own components let people self-select proteins and heat levels |
| A la carte trays | Supplementing an existing order, snack tables, dietary top-ups | Protein, rice, bread, samosa, and dessert trays ordered on their own without committing to a full package |
Who Curry Up Now Is Ideal For
A strong fit when:
- Your team eats at desks or in meeting rooms without a real serving surface
- You need per-person portions you can count and label
- Someone in the group eats halal and you would rather not run a separate order
- Vegetarians make up a meaningful share of the headcount
- The rotation has gone bland and you want something with actual character
- You are feeding a Bay Area event large enough to justify a food truck
Look elsewhere when:
- Your group skews strongly toward plain, unspiced food
- You need a formal plated dinner with table service
- The event calls for a light, cold spread rather than a substantial hot meal
- Strict allergen isolation is required, since a shared kitchen limits what any location can guarantee
Dietary Coverage: Halal, Vegetarian, Vegan, and Gluten-Free
The coverage here beats most chains, and the details are worth getting right before you order.
Halal. Most of the meat is halal as a default rather than as a special order, with the brand naming chicken tenders and wings as the exceptions. Ordering a halal-friendly office lunch usually means finding a dedicated caterer or building a separate order; here it is the standard menu. If your group requires certified halal, confirm sourcing with the specific location, since franchised operations can vary. Our guide to halal office catering covers what to verify.
Vegetarian. Indian cooking is vegetarian-first by construction, which is a different thing from a menu that offers a vegetarian option. Paneer, chickpeas, potatoes, lentils, and greens are load-bearing menu items, so a vegetarian burrito is not a compromise version of the chicken one. See our vegetarian office catering guide for how to scope quantities.
Vegan. Plenty of the vegetable-based fillings work, though dairy runs deep in North Indian cooking through cream, yogurt, paneer, and ghee. Ask the location which specific items are prepared without dairy. Our vegan office catering guide goes into the questions worth asking.
Gluten-free. Rice-based bowls and plates give you a natural path, while tortillas, naan, and fried items do not. A shared fryer and shared prep surfaces mean cross-contamination cannot be ruled out, so treat this as preference-level accommodation rather than allergen-safe. Our gluten-free office catering guide and our allergy-safe boxed lunch guide cover the distinction.
Spice Levels and a Mixed Office Palate
Spice is the objection people raise when someone suggests Indian for a team lunch, and it is usually overstated. The default heat on a fast-casual Indian menu sits closer to approachable than to punishing, and the creamy tomato-based sauces that anchor the menu read as mild to most palates.
The heat lives in the chutneys, and chutneys arrive on the side. That separation is the whole trick. One order feeds the person who wants a green chutney on everything and the person who wants none, without a second order or a compromise that satisfies nobody. Flag your group’s range when you place the order and ask for the sharper condiments packaged separately.
Ordering the Food Truck
The trucks are a direct descendant of the 2009 original, and in the Bay Area they can be booked for events. A truck changes the character of a gathering: people queue, order what they want, and eat while it is still hot off the flat top, which suits a company picnic, a parking-lot summer event, or an office anniversary better than a drop-off ever will.
It comes with real constraints. Truck bookings carry a headcount floor, need far more lead time than a delivery order, and depend on parking and access at your site. Sort those three things before you build an event around it. For gatherings that do not clear the bar, the buffet packages deliver a similar spread without the logistics.
How to Order Curry Up Now Catering
Direct. Order from a nearby location’s catering channel for a one-off drop-off. Straightforward for a single order in a city where a location is close by, and the right call when you know exactly what you want.
Through Zerocater. Better for a recurring program or an order that has to satisfy several constraints at once. Zerocater handles delivery, setup, dietary scoping, and consolidated billing, and it lets you rotate Curry Up Now through a schedule alongside other cuisines instead of managing each vendor separately. Start from the Curry Up Now page on Zerocater, or let CaterAi assemble a menu around your headcount and dietary mix.
Either way, a few things are worth settling up front: your headcount and how firm it is, the vegetarian and halal split, whether the room needs individual portions or a shared line, and the delivery window against the actual start of the meeting rather than the start of the event.
Curry Up Now and Zerocater
Curry Up Now sits in Zerocater’s Indian catering lineup, which spans everything from traditional North Indian kitchens to fast-casual hybrids like this one. In the Bay Area that includes partners such as Indian Bento, Raavi Indian Cuisine, and Rose Indian Cuisine, alongside Curryous and Tikka La Cantina further down the peninsula.
If you are building an Indian order from scratch rather than picking a brand, our Indian corporate catering guide covers the traditional side in depth: thali construction, buffet versus family-style, regional differences, and serving quantities. Read it alongside this post and you have both halves, the classic tray-service approach and the handheld one.
For San Francisco teams, our San Francisco corporate event catering roundup and our San Francisco office catering cost guide cover the wider market and what to budget. Other spotlights worth a look include Everbowl, Joe’s Pizza, Kung Fu Tea, and WaBa Grill.
On the format side, our boxed lunch catering guide and our boxed versus buffet versus family-style comparison help you decide which shape fits the room, and our conference and training catering guide covers multi-session days. For specific occasions, see our guides to lunch and learn catering, board meeting catering, and finger food for office events, plus the corporate event catering checklist and the office manager’s guide to ordering catering.
Running a standing meal program rather than a one-off? Corporate catering handles recurring schedules, and corporate event catering covers the larger one-time gatherings. New to all of it, start with how Zerocater works.
Menus, formats, availability, and pricing vary by location and change over time. For the current Curry Up Now catering menu and a live quote for your office, visit the Curry Up Now page on Zerocater.
Plan your Indian office lunch with CaterAi
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Curry Up Now?
Curry Up Now is a fast-casual Indian street food brand founded in 2009 by Akash and Rana Kapoor, who started with a single food truck in Burlingame, California. The kitchen takes North Indian flavors and rebuilds them in handheld California formats, most famously the tikka masala burrito, alongside kathi rolls, bowls, thali platters, and samosas.
Is Curry Up Now halal?
Most of the meat is halal by default rather than by special request, with the brand calling out chicken tenders and wings as the exceptions. That makes it a straightforward option for teams with halal eaters, though preparation and sourcing can vary by location, so confirm with the specific store before you order for a group that requires it.
Does Curry Up Now cater vegetarian and vegan office lunches?
Yes, and the depth comes from the cuisine rather than from substitutions. Indian cooking is vegetarian-first by construction, so paneer, chickpea, potato, lentil, and greens-based fillings are core menu items instead of afterthoughts. Every handheld format can be built around a vegetarian protein, and plant-based options extend the coverage further. Confirm dairy and ghee details with the location for strict vegan orders.
What catering formats does Curry Up Now offer?
Three main shapes. Individually boxed meals built around a burrito, bowl, or kathi roll suit desk lunches and headcount-tracked events. Party packages cover buffet-style spreads, build-your-own setups, and assorted half-portion trays for grazing. A la carte trays let you order protein, rice, naan, samosas, or dessert on their own to round out an existing spread. A bookable food truck is available in the Bay Area for larger gatherings.
How spicy is Curry Up Now catering?
The default heat sits in the approachable range rather than the punishing one, which is what you want for a room where palates vary. Creamy tomato-based dishes read as mild, while chutneys carry the sharper heat and arrive on the side. Ordering the hot elements as separate condiments lets each person calibrate their own plate, and it is worth flagging your group’s tolerance when you place the order.
Does Curry Up Now deliver catering to offices?
Yes. Delivery, radius, and setup depend on the location and how you order. Buffet-style packages generally arrive with serving equipment and disposables, while boxed orders are built for a straightforward drop-off. Ordering through Zerocater adds managed delivery, setup, dietary scoping, and consolidated billing on top.
How far in advance should you order Curry Up Now catering?
A day of notice covers a standard office order comfortably. Large headcounts, staffed setups, and food truck bookings need much more runway and should be arranged well ahead. Ordering through Zerocater helps lock timing, delivery windows, and setup so nothing lands late.
What office occasions suit Curry Up Now catering?
The handheld formats fit anywhere people eat without a proper table: desk lunches, working sessions, lunch and learns, conference rotations, and hybrid days where portions need to be individually tracked. The buffet and thali packages suit all-hands lunches, team celebrations, and evening events where a shared spread does more work than boxes.
Related guides: Indian Corporate Catering Guide | Halal Office Catering | Vegetarian Office Catering | Best Corporate Catering in San Francisco | San Francisco Catering Costs | Summer Office Catering Ideas | Healthy Office Catering
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