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Dinner with complete strangers? New app in Detroit aims to combat ‘big city loneliness’

Online Niel November 28, 2024

Last Wednesday, the Golden Fleece restaurant in Greektown was full of strangers having dinner together, and I was one of them.

Assigned to “table 2”, I enjoyed a 90 minute meal with five local adults I had never met before in a restaurant I was quite familiar with. At first, the only thing we knew we had in common was that we all signed up for Time Left, a social app that connects strangers in nearly 300 cities with platonic dinner plans every Wednesday night. The app’s tagline is “Fighting loneliness in big cities, one dinner at a time.”

After a round of drinks – half the table ordered alcohol and half didn’t – two plates of flaming saganaki and dinner, we got a better idea of who we each were and why we signed up for the job. I was a tech woman who works from home but frequently travels to Amsterdam for work, a Detroit native who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, a healthcare worker who has been all over Asia including South Korea, an expert in artificial intelligence from Macomb County and a New York. Yankees fan who recently moved to Detroit from the Big Apple.

We discussed “new Detroit,” “old Detroit,” books, publications, tattoos, kids, dogs, travel, the Time Left app itself, the Detroit Lions, and our mutual distaste for Microsoft Teams. Most of us didn’t have our cell phones out, and no one talked about politics or dating. Although we weren’t all exactly the same age, I felt like we were all part of the same generation at least.

One person signed up for the app because he had just moved to Detroit and didn’t know many people. Another diner explained that she works from home in Detroit and her family lives in another state, so she wanted to get out and maybe make some new friends. A 42-year-old man revealed that he signed up for up to a month because many of his friends have young children and don’t go out as much, especially during the week.

By the time the six separate checks were left at the table (gratuity included), we felt like friends.

Most of the group has used the Time Left app at least once, and most of them found it the same way I did: through targeted ads on social media. The six of us, plus the other 11 people at two other tables at the Golden Fleece, are among the 5,000 people in Detroit who have signed up for the app since it came to town in July. Globally, 1 million diners have logged in as of 2023. The app was founded in Europe a few years earlier by French entrepreneur Maxime Barbier.

Here’s how it works.

When you sign up, you take a fairly generic personality test to determine your energy level, conversation style, and food preferences. The app also lets you choose which city you want to dine in, so if you’re visiting Paris or Los Angeles and want to have a social dinner, you can use the app there too. The app’s algorithm matches diners together for a Wednesday night meal at a restaurant that shouldn’t cost more than $20-$30 per person.

Everyone is responsible for paying for their own food and drinks, and the app service also has a cost. I paid $16 for a one-time dinner, but other users choose to sign up for a monthly subscription that allows you to reserve as many Wednesdays as you like for a month. They cost $26 for one month, $56 for three, and $86 for six months.

The day before dinner, the app gives you a hint about who you’re having dinner with, but not really. Tuesday night I found out that Wednesday’s dinner would be with a Sagittarius, Pisces, Aries, Libra, Cancer, and a Virgo, who didn’t tell me anything, and that we were all US citizens who speak English. It’s kind of funny in Detroit, but in Europe, where the app originated, it makes sense if you’re having dinner with strangers in Amsterdam, for example, to know if English, Dutch, or another language will be the default language.

On the morning of dinner, it was finally revealed that we would meet at the Golden Fleece, an old Greek town destination with great gyros, imported wines and a newly renovated dining room.

The app’s surprises don’t end at dinner. A person is encouraged to put their phone away and ask for ‘ice breaker’ directions, which I found mostly silly and useless. (Though I tried a few, like “what’s the most boring thing about you.” My fellow Detroit native said she liked pancakes. I offered to keep playing Candy Crush.) Then, an hour after dinner , the location of the after-party bar is revealed to everyone using the app that night.

Last week it was at Easy Peasy, a little corner bar at Woodward and John R., a 10-minute walk away. I’ll be honest, that part felt like a dating app. People at our table were able to pair up for one-on-one conversations, or they were able to mix and mingle with people at other tables or even other restaurants. Breaking the ice was easy because everyone knew we had one thing in common: we were open to talking to strangers. The staff didn’t know we were coming, but being a downtown bar, Easy Peasy is ready for large groups to show up anytime after a concert or sporting event.

I spoke to a couple of women in their 20s and 30s who were at another Time Left table at the Golden Fleece. They looked like they were having a blast: talking loudly, clinking espresso martini glasses, and smiling throughout dinner. Many have told me they signed up for the app to meet friends, not to get dates. Another group of app users showed up, dining Time Left at Brass Rail, a pizzeria and sports bar further north on Woodward near the Fox Theater.

Once the evening is over, the Time Left app asks you for feedback about your peers. Did they appear? If so, would you like to see them again for dinner? Any mutual connection can send each other messages in the app. If you chose not to see them, they would have no way to contact you and the app will not match you for future events.

If the goal was to meet people my age who live in my city and learn more about them and their perspective on Detroit, then I’d say the app is a success. As one of my new friends said, “the algorithm was very algorithm-y.”

Melody Baetens is the restaurant critic for The Detroit News

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