What is TimeLeft?
You may have heard of it by now, but simply put, TimeLeft is an application that pairs you at a dinner table with five other strangers. Each TimeLeft location has a Wednesday night dinner option, but in larger cities, there are also things like weekend coffee reservations and dinner options multiple nights a week.
The app provides some questions for an ice breaker game that tables can use, although I’ve seen many tables prefer to just let conversation flow naturally. In available cities, there is also the “Last Drink” event, where TimeLeft provides a bar location and diners can then meet up with everyone else who had TimeLeft experiences throughout the city. Once the night is over, TimeLeft asks you to rate your experience with each diner and the restaurant itself.
**TimeLeft dinner tabs are always meant to be paid individually, and the restaurants that work with TimeLeft are supposed to agree to this. That’s great because many restaurants in the U.S. specifically ban groups of 6 or more from splitting up their bill.
While it could be cool to get to see people’s photos prior to the event and know which nationality belongs to which job industry, that unknown ultimately adds to the anticipation. I’m guessing the creators felt that revealing too much information about the other diners might cause people to drop out before the event began or cause cliques to form prior to the dinner. There ends up being a bit of an unveiling ritual of who’s who at dinner, usually before orders have even been taken.
What’s the TimeLeft Experience Like?
Pretty fun! I’ve been to dinners that were 100% in Spanish with me being the only foreigner, 100% in English with a mixture of locals and travelers, and dinners in Spanglish; dinners that had a slow start but ended in laughter and dinners that felt like some sort of magical synergy was taking place between the attendees. I’m also not weirded out by the idea of meeting strangers and don’t find it hard to socialize with people, so that may be important to keep in mind.
CHISME (GOSSIP) TIME!
I’ve yet to have any outrageous experience, but love asking other diners for gossip on their weirdest stories. Here are the best ones I’ve heard:
- A diner who seemed more concerned with getting free food from all 5 people’s plates
- A diner who wouldn’t talk to a single soul at the table, even when attendees tried to engage them
- A diner who spent the entire time hovered over their plate inhaling everything on it
- A diner who got into a disagreement with another attendee and stormed out of the restaurant!
Keep in mind that the above stories tend to come from people who have been to dozens of dinners. I haven’t experienced any of these and would prefer to keep it as only second-hand information.
What Have I Eaten through TimeLeft?
I’ll try to update the photos below as the months go by and I have more delicious meals:
There ends up being a sort of TimeLeft community in the cities where it’s available. You may hear about people from previous dinner experiences before you meet them yourself, bump into old diners on a different night, or end up at a Last Drink event where you learn of someone who has been to 200 TimeLeft dinners around the world (true story)!
What Are The Drawbacks of TimeLeft:
Subscription Service
TimeLeft is now a subscription-based application. Apparently you used to only pay per dinner that you signed up for. Since I never used TimeLeft back then, I actually like the subscription model because my plan is to go to these dinners weekly wherever I can. The reality is, it’s a business, and I personally know the benefits a company reaps when they use a subscription model. However, the subscription cost varies per city. In Santiago, the monthly cost was around $12/month before any discounts, which is about half of what it costs in some other international cities.
Repeat Restaurant Locations
I had an unfortunate introductory experience to TimeLeft, which is that it gave me the same exact restaurant two weeks in a row on my first two times ever using the app! Two weeks after that, it gave me the same restaurant for a third time. I learned on Reddit that this was becoming a more common frustration despite TimeLeft cities having so many restaurant options. For me, a different restaurant almost every time is a must. I’m usually only in a given city for a limited amount of time, so for me, the app isn’t just about meeting new people; it’s about getting to experience new restaurants as well. I think it should be simple enough for the creators to have an algorithm that says “if a user has been at this location in the past month, then do not reassign them to it.”
Unappealing Restaurants
I understand this would be a somewhat heavier logistical lift for the company, but I once cancelled my attendance 24 hours before the dinner because I really, really didn’t like the options available at my assigned restaurant. I would have loved to request a one-time change of venue, but that was not an option. Instead, I just stayed at home and ate leftovers. I can see why that doesn’t matter to the bottom line of TimeLeft because they already have my subscription money, but user experience is important to having customers who will continue paying that fee.
It’s not uncommon to show up to TimeLeft dinners where one or two people never show. I don’t consider it a big deal because you never know what could have led to it. But there are also Reddit threads of people who were the only one to show up to the dinner!
Trouble in Paradise?
I’ve seen whisperings of people saying the company is struggling to keep their current cities afloat and that they’ve even had to pull out of some cities altogether. I know that creating a profitable business is tough work. I think the company has a fabulous idea, and I would love to see it continue on and improve the experience. So if it’s available where you are or somewhere that you’re traveling, maybe give it a try before it’s too late.
A home for my words. 
Share your thoughts and/or questions.