Timeleft (The Strangers Meeting For Dinner App) – Review

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Attendance Type	Offline – In Person
Event Status	On Schedule, Rescheduled
Duration	2 Hours
Dinner Date	October 30, 2024
URL	https://timeleft.com/
Tickets Starting At	$16.00

Summary

Timeleft is an international app aimed at solving the loneliness epidemic by creating group dinners hosted at restaurants worldwide. After paying an initial fee, you can then book yourself to attend a dinner in which you and five other people will attend.

Now, who are these five other people? Well, Timeleft has a concise questionnaire that, granted, is a little superficial, as it does questions like, “What’s your zodiac sign?” for compatibility. However, other questions include do you have children, your relationship status, your religious affiliation, what menu options you want, and asks about your habits and personality, like do you work out, whether you are introverted, do you enjoy politically incorrect humor, your style, and how do you usually base your opinion.

Before we move on, let it be clear: Timeleft is not a dating app, and they have it in their description that is not their goal. If something naturally happens, great, but the goal is for good company that could become good friends—maybe to the point of hosting your own dinner get-togethers without the app.

Getting back to what happens, Timeleft is a little secretive. Once you sign up for a date, you don’t know where you are going to eat until the morning of and for this app, currently, all dinners are on Wednesday only. So, there is an air of mystery some may not like, which includes not knowing what the people who will dine with you will look like or their answers to the majority of the compatibility questions. All you will initially learn about the group is what industries they are in, what countries they are from, their primary language, and their zodiac sign.

So what happens at the dinner? Well, a reservation will be made for your group and potentially others. There is an option to note that you might be late, and if you can’t attend, there is an option to set that since maybe you know the restaurant and don’t like it. But let’s assume everything is good, as was our experience.

You arrive, everyone gets settled, and then Timeleft gives you ice-breaker questions ranging from why you chose to attend, can men and women be platonic friends, and what’s a guilty pleasure to deeper questions about past relationships. Of course, you are welcome to come up with your own questions. No one from Timeleft will be physically present, and the app only provides information; there isn’t a chat feature.

I should note that the initial fee likely covers keeping the app running. You are paying for the food, however much it costs, which can be handled according to your group’s preferences. Timeleft expects dinner to be just an hour, so let’s assume it isn’t expecting you to have a full meal since it thinks you’ll want to have drinks right after.

Based on the experience of someone I was with, your location may have a few groups (ours had three), and across your chosen city, there are other groups at other restaurants. The idea seems to be that you will converge, after dinner, at a place to have drinks close to where you had dinner. I can’t speak for that experience since dinner ran long for my group. Timeleft expects people to be prompt, arrive at 7 PM, and go out for drinks at 8 PM. By 9:00 PM, Timeleft has done its job, and it is up to you if you wish to stay out later.  

However, after a certain time, Timeleft does ask for feedback, and the sole dating-like element it has is that if you make a connection with one of the people in your group, you have the opportunity to express that, akin to how, after speed dating, you can say you like this person or that one. That is how the experience ends with Timeleft, but it can begin outside the app.

Review

Good If You Like

• Meeting new people
• Answering questions that allow you the opportunity for transparency, if not vulnerability
• Learning about new restaurants or ones you may not frequent

Highlights

Meeting New People

The main benefit of this entire experience is meeting new people. Yes, there are always people to meet and network between school and work. You can even meet your best friend or significant other at either. However, sometimes you want out of your bubble, people who exist beyond your routine and have different walks of life to bring to conversation. That is the goal, and I think Timeleft does this well.

My group had a divorce attorney, an executive assistant, a person who works in finance and tech, and our ages ranged from 31 to mid-40s. Most of the 6 were Black people (I chose Newark, NJ) and the ratio was 4:2, men to women. The majority were divorced, a minority had kids, I believe only one was in a relationship; and while the majority of the dinner had us relying on the prompts and going around the table answering, by the end, you could see side conversations developing and the potential for people to get to know each other beyond the app.

Low Point

Timeleft Is Not Easily Accessible During Dinner

There isn’t a local representative who can handle things for you via phone call or chat on the app, and as noted above, there isn’t a representative physically in the room. This could be frustrating for those who believe that if you pay for a service, whether it is $16 for one dinner or their subscription, which ranges from 1 month for $26 to 6 months for $86, you should be able to get a hold of someone.

For example, I couldn’t tell you what the second part, going to a bar, was like because the restaurant I was at took nearly two hours to serve us food. They got our orders at least around 7:15 or 7:20, but the food didn’t arrive until after 9:00 PM. Considering Timeleft likely picked Wednesday under the assumption most restaurants wouldn’t be busy, and the one I was at wasn’t, needless to say, having a Timeleft rep accessible would have helped.

Luckily, we had some wonderful Type-A people amongst the larger group, and between speaking with the server and the hostess, both of whom were lovely, and going up the chain to the manager, our entire meal was comped. But again, if we’re going to dinner, with Timeleft playing the role of the extroverted friend bringing us all together, them leaving us on our own during the actual event, beyond some conversation starters, should be seen as a negative.

On The Fence

The Potential To Feel That Certain Questions Should Have Been Asked In The Questionnaire

While politics isn’t considered polite conversation at dinner, you may feel that should have been a question. In general, I’m of the opinion that, as much as the app asks you about yourself, it should also ask you what you look for in friendship, in conversation, and things like that. Granted, you could submit that this app exists because people don’t know how to get out of their own way and build new or lasting relationships and often filter out who they think they can and won’t get along with.

But, with that said, I’m not going to pretend that sometimes I felt like I could understand what was being said but couldn’t relate, and with the way things were, I didn’t know if follow-up questions could be asked as I would do if I weren’t dining with strangers.

How Cooperative The Restaurant Is

The restaurant Timeleft chooses will play a significant factor in the experience. Unfortunately, for my first time out, the restaurant was unable or unwilling to turn down the music, which they were asked to do multiple times. So, for those easily distracted like me, imagine music playing, other groups having conversations, and you are trying to hear what is the prompt from Timeleft, which someone likely has to read since only one phone is supposed to be used for the ice breakers, and also hear other people’s answers. Never mind, if the service isn’t good, that can get to some people and lead you to see their representatives give way to who they are – thankfully, all good from my experience.

You Can Always See The Same People Over and Over

New Jersey has Newark and Jersey City as our two Timeleft locations. Theoretically, you could bounce between weekly, monthly, or at will, show up and meet a new group of people. However, like going to the gym or conference for work, there is the chance of running into the same people. So, with that in mind, you could match with someone who was at your table before or at the same restaurant.

This is a good thing, for familiar faces can make it easier to interact with new people. However, not knowing how things work in the background, let’s say you thumbed down someone in your group in the feedback; there is no guarantee you will not see that person again who wasn’t your cup of tea.

I’m not saying that was the case for the people I dined with at all or me, but Timeleft isn’t pushed to be more than a mediator, and I don’t get the impression that those behind it are going to dig deep into your likes and dislikes profile or the algorithm, for that matter.