I can't tell if this writer actually lived in Chicago, or just can't handle weather that isn't 72F and sunny.

"It’s as cold as the last circle of Dante’s Inferno in Chicago about half the year"

Um, not even close. And even when it is 15F, we don't sit and home and moan about it. Life goes on.

yes, we do have people on the ground in Chicago. And, we are looking for more ops focused people to join. Please email us at jobs@instacart.com - Thank you.

If it opened up "near" you, can you explain why delivery is fantastic news? I think I do grocery shopping different than most people living in the city that find these services useful. If a grocery store is five minutes away or on the walk home from the train, just-in-time shopping seems much more practical.

Where is there a Trader Joe's that just opened up a week ago?

I agree. I've also found that neither carries a lot of the brands and products that I want. Or alternatively, they are out of stock.

"Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta told AllThingsD that his company built a 'feasibility matrix' to determine which city it would expand to. Components of the matrix included what you might guess: car-ownership density and income. Weather was reportedly also a factor. Mehta tells TechCrunch that '33 percent of the year, Chicago has some form of precipitation' and that his company has learned in the San Francisco area that 'people just do not like grocery shopping when it’s raining.' Seattle, you might be next."

I think Chicago is a natural fit. The specific neighborhoods they picked have about 600k people in 33 square miles (a bit denser overall than San Francisco as a whole). There are a ton of residential skyscrapers in those neighborhoods, which means they probably can hit several orders in one go. 30% of Chicago households don't have a car, about the same as San Francisco. It rains or is cold about half the year, and is hot and humid a couple of months out of the remainder, which makes people not want to carry groceries home.

Yeah, the third largest city in the US with 2.7 million people. Perhaps you've heard of it?