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(NEXSTAR) – It started with targeted advertising on Instagram – like many of my online shopping adventures do these days. There was a new app expansion service for the area I live in Los Angeles that allowed me to buy leftover food from restaurants, grocery stores, cafes, and bakeries for a fraction of the price.
The company has been operating in European cities for some time and has recently started expanding to cities in the United States. At the time of publication, Too Good To Go has been in Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, DC, New York, parts of New Jersey, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Portland, Philadelphia, Providence, Seattle, and a few more parts of the country . The company announces on its website that it will continue to expand in the coming months, but does not say where or when. (Too Good To Go did not respond to Nexstar’s request for comment.)
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The app is pretty easy to use. When you open it, there are offers from restaurants in your area with different pick-up times and prices. Most of the options I’ve seen in my area are what’s called “surprise bags,” a mix of items that will remain a mystery until you pick them up.
A look at the Too Good To Go interface, which sells scraps of food from companies at a discounted price. (Screenshot / Alix Martichoux)
Still, the prices were attractive – especially in expensive Los Angeles. Besides, I’m not a picky eater.
Too Good To Go sounded too good to be true. So I decided to give it a try.
Attempt # 1: Epic Failure
My first attempt to try Too Good To Go – to put it simply – didn’t work at all. I discovered a deal from a smoothie shop less than a mile from my apartment for $ 3.99. I paid via the app and was given a pick-up window in the early evening, shortly before the store closed.
This was one of those “surprise bags” so I had no idea what it would be, but I was intrigued to see what goodies a high-end smoothie shop had left at the end of the day. It turned out the answer was nothing.
The clerk at the store seemed really confused when I showed up for pickup. “Nah, I’m fine,” he told me as if I were selling him something, not the other way around. I explained how the app (supposedly) works and he still doesn’t fully understand. I left empty-handed.
If there’s one silver lining to this failure, it is that Too Good To Go seems very prepared to deal with this situation. It took a tap of a button on the app to receive a refund.
Experiment no. 2: It’s uphill
Undeterred by my search for cheap food, I decided to give Too Good To Go one more try. I wasn’t ready to risk heartbreak at the smoothie shop (which once did me wrong when I first moved to LA and accidentally bought a $ 16 smoothie, but that’s another story). I decided to try my luck at a pizzeria and set up a pick-up window from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.
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When I got to the empty pizzeria, I was a little confused again. But this time there was a happy ending. Explained a little and they started packing up my order: four huge slices of pizza – the kind that one slice counts as a meal – each with different toppings like mushrooms, garlic and ricotta.
I ended up having four meals for $ 4.99. Not too shabby.
Experiment no. 3: Get the hang of it
On my third try, I went to a French bakery with confidence and my redemption code was ready. The employee who greeted me also knew what she was doing this time. She wrote down my code from the app, ran to the back of the store for a brief minute, then came back and loaded me with a bag of pastries.
I got all of this for $ 4.99 – not bad in a city where you could easily pay that much for a single croissant.
A selection of Le Pain Quotidien pastries purchased on the Too Good To Go app for $ 4.99. (Photo: Alix Martichoux / Nexstar)
That was the bag of food that won me over. Otherwise, if that were thrown away at the end of the day – as Too Good To Go advertises – it would seem like a win-win situation: cheap food for me, less waste for business.
But in my experience so far, flexibility is crucial. Fixed pick-up times, a mysterious assortment of goods and the possibility that you have nothing from time to time are something you have to accept. I wouldn’t rely on this in my weekly meal planning, but I’m not the type to turn down a discount. Or a pastry.
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