You know the night. There are people in your house who insist on eating dinner again. You don’t want to cook. You definitely don’t want to spend $60 on takeout. And if someone asks, “What are we having?” one more time, cereal is officially on the table.
Enter Too Good To Go.
Too Good To Go is an app that lets restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and grocery stores sell perfectly good food they have left over rather than letting it go to waste. You buy a discounted “Surprise Bag,” pick it up during a designated time, and find out what you got.
The emphasis here is on surprise.
Too Good To Go says its bags typically offer food for half the regular price or less, and many local listings offer around three times the value of what you pay. The catch? You generally don’t get to choose exactly what’s in the bag. And that’s also part of the fun.
How Too Good To Go Works
It’s pretty simple: Open the app, see what participating businesses near you have available, reserve, and pay for a Surprise Bag, then show up during the specified pickup window. When you arrive, you use the app to confirm your pickup and collect your food.
Want to try it?
Learn more about Too Good To Go
Download Too Good To Go for iPhone/iPad
Download Too Good To Go for Android
The important thing to know is that this works best if you’re flexible. If your kid needs the macaroni to be the right shape or you have your heart set on a particular meal, maybe not tonight. But if your requirements are approximately food + cheap + I don’t have to make it, keep reading.
Some Annapolis-Area Finds
Naval Bagels
This might be one of the easiest Too Good To Go options to put to practical use. Recent listings say a $5.99 Surprise Bag is likely to contain about a dozen unsold bagels from the previous day. I tried this out and ended up with a dozen-in-a-half bagels and a tub of egg salad.
Grab a bag for breakfasts, freeze some for later, bring them into the office, or turn them into inexpensive sandwiches for lunch. There are participating Naval Bagels locations in Annapolis, Arnold and Edgewater.
Squisito
Here’s another one that lends itself perfectly to the “buy tonight, feed everyone tomorrow” strategy. Squisito’s listing recently offered a $12-value Surprise Bag for $3.99, generally containing pizza slices and possibly other menu items. I went to try it out and received two full boxes of pizza and a bag of garlic knots. Way more than the $12 value!
Pick it up at night, put it in the refrigerator, and suddenly tomorrow’s lunch or dinner is already handled.
Whole Foods Market
This one may have the most possibilities. Whole Foods initially offered Bakery and Prepared Foods Surprise Bags through Too Good To Go, then expanded the program nationally to include produce, meat, seafood, refrigerated groceries, frozen groceries, dry groceries, and even flowers.
The Annapolis store’s bags are typically priced around $9.99 for approximately $30 worth of food and may contain things such as soups, ready-to-eat meals and protein salads.
The exact bags available vary, so this is one worth checking regularly. I’ll be honest, this one is super competitive. I’ve only been able to score a bag of prepared foods once. However, that bag of prepared foods had two rotisserie chickens, four breakfast burritos, a container of chicken wings, and two caprese salads. The value definitely was over $30 for that one!
Depending on the day though, a bag could solve dinner, stock tomorrow’s lunches, or put a serious dent in the grocery list.
CAVA
CAVA has also participated locally at its Annapolis Town Center location. Because the contents depend on what is left at the end of the day, this is another good option for someone who likes CAVA but doesn’t need to build a specific bowl. Local Too Good To Go users have reported receiving multiple end-of-day CAVA meals through the program, although availability and pickup times can vary.
Abby Diehl’s Produce
Too Good To Go isn’t limited to prepared meals. Abby Diehl’s Produce has offered a $4.99 produce Surprise Bag valued around $15. The produce may have blemishes, imperfections or simply be a little older while still being good to eat.
If you’re flexible enough to let the bag decide what vegetable is accompanying dinner, this could be a particularly good grocery-budget find.
Great Harvest Bread Co.
If your family goes through bread and baked goods quickly, check Great Harvest on Ridgely Avenue. Its Surprise Bag has recently been listed at $8.99 for approximately $27 worth of made-from-scratch breads, muffins, scones, cookies, and other baked goods.
A Few More Things to Know
You can’t request certain flavors or swap items. Some listings specifically say they cannot accommodate dietary restrictions or allergies, so read the description carefully before purchasing. Pickup windows can also be narrow, and popular bags sometimes sell out.
And availability changes constantly. A restaurant listed today may have nothing available tomorrow simply because it sold all of its food. New businesses can join the app, too, so the Annapolis-area list is likely to keep changing.
My favorite way to think about Too Good To Go is that it’s an inexpensive wild card.
Maybe tonight’s $4 pickup becomes tomorrow’s lunch. A bag of bagels becomes several breakfasts. A Whole Foods haul saves you from another grocery run. Or you end up trying something you never would have ordered yourself.
When money is tight, you’re hungry, you don’t want to cook, and you’re willing to let someone else decide what’s on the menu, that sounds pretty good to me.
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