How Hot Cart (Aramark) Meals Work at Marion County ADC: Schedule, Limits, and Refunds

At Marion County ADC, the Hot Cart program is tied to Aramark’s food/commissary services. Aramark also offers ICARE commissary packages that family members can order online through icaregifts.com, and those ICARE packages are delivered daily during normal commissary/Hot Cart delivery hours - 0600 to 1900 - to all floors.

In practical terms, Hot Cart is the facility’s way of getting paid meal items to housing units on a set routine. If you’re supporting someone inside, the biggest things to understand up front are (1) deliveries run on a schedule, (2) purchases come out of the inmate’s commissary funds, and (3) there are strict rules about when the food can be eaten and what happens if items are saved.

Hot Cart follows a floor-based schedule during the week, with deliveries assigned by weekday for different floors. There’s also weekend coverage. Because the schedule is tied to daily operations inside the building, your loved one should plan orders around their floor’s day - waiting until after delivery day can mean a longer gap before the next chance to receive a Hot Cart meal.

Hot Cart purchases are paid from the inmate’s commissary fund, and the jail uses daily spending caps that are different for weekdays versus weekends. If your loved one is budgeting for the week, it helps to remember that the “how much can I spend today?” limit can change depending on the day they’re ordering.

Marion County ADC does not treat Hot Cart like a stash-and-save option. Meals have to be eaten at the time of meal service, and Hot Cart items specifically must be eaten by bunk-in. If items are accumulated or set aside for later, the facility considers them contraband - and they can be destroyed.

The “by bunk-in” part matters because bunk-in is a regular part of daily life at Marion County ADC. Inmates are bunked-in during nighttime hours and sometimes at other times during the day for head counts and other issues, and they’re expected to follow bunk-in procedures when told. That’s why Hot Cart food needs to be finished by that point - once bunk-in starts, the facility isn’t treating leftover Hot Cart items as something you can keep for later.

Refunds are where people get tripped up. At Marion County ADC, the inmate’s signature is the acknowledgement that the Hot Cart order was received in full. If you’re trying to get a possible refund considered, the order has to be refused in its entirety at the time of delivery - partial acceptance doesn’t meet the refund requirement.

1. Check the order at delivery time - once the inmate signs, that signature acknowledges the order was received in full.
2. Refuse the entire order if a refund is needed - to be considered for a possible refund, the Hot Cart order must be refused in its entirety upon delivery.
3. Don’t take some items and reject the rest - the refund rule is tied to refusing the whole order, not part of it.