#and people think its okay like 'they can just order doordash' NO. STOP IT. a corporation exists to extract not to take care of you

[betterbemeta]

If you struggle maintaining a stable food bill and reliable diet on your budget here are some things you can do:

really AND TRULY research any public food resources in your area. Don't be like "nnnooo, there aren't any that apply to me, I am not worthy, I am not a homeless person, I am not a soot covered victorian street child", SERIOUSLY LOOK INTO IT. replace 25 minutes on this website with researching this. Even if you don't find a food bank in your local area, you may find something like grocery routes for busses, shuttles for seniors and disabled people, co-ops, local people who run charity kitchens out of their home, or even local politics motions to address the critical lack of support

Grocery shop with your friends. Get together with whoever you know who has a car and is your friend, split the gas if needed and make it a hangout. You can help each other adhere to budget goals. and it's so much nicer to shop with friends and more brains = more knowledge to plan what's possible as a food to eat. If you're scared like "I can't admit I need help with this, they'd see me as a moocher and hate me forever," UNTRUE. a good friend can accept you in a moment of genuine vulnerability. We can help each other.

Broaden your food experience in general. This can be hard! But if your parents couldn't cook and therefore defined your knowledge of 'home cooked food' as horrible gray green beans or rubber pork chops or the slimiest chili in the west, your food imagination will be limited. and yes, I know, some of us have strong routine dependence, or are supertasters, or are socially scared of having to say they don't like what they've been served, and other people have been abused for not eating Everything on their Plate... but your new favorite thing could be waiting out there, cheaper than takeout to make yourself or even just in a frozen food aisle. There's no shame! Order something new when you're taken out for dinner and ask to also get fries in case you don't like it. if you see something interesting in the grocery store, search on your phone how its prepared. the more flexible you become, the more options you have.

plan your meals! This can be as laid back as, "for breakfast I want to eat... for lunch I want to eat... for dinner I want to eat..." If all else fails, there's usually a sale in the grocery store that can be a starting point: "ok, what kind of dinner can I make with..."

get the grocery store membership if its offered. Most of them are free and require no fee to maintain, unless you shop exclusively at costco or something. Coupon clipping is kind of a thing of the past, most discounts are offered on the basis of some kind of card or membership account associated at a grocery store. Some things may be on sale you don't even see until you get to the register.

set aside time every day to prepare your food. I KNOW. it's hard. But even if you don't need all your allotted time on days you only "microwave a soup", you have made room for that soup in your life. sit for the half hour you set aside for prep with your quick soup and relax. there is a voice like, "you didn't have to get up and disrupt what you're doing" or "this soup is a chore, we hates this," and that is the devil speaking. His stupid hungryroot chicken sandwich requires time too, but it'll be his time and not your time.

look up simple techniques even if you don't plan to cook EVERYTHING. Why do some dishes go in the oven at one temperature, and others go in at another? what shape to cut veggies in to help them cook? Buying a cheap cooking thermometer and knowing what temperature 'done' is for different foods. Understanding wet vs dry heat. Learning what temperature different cooking oils burn at. Learning about different cuts of meat and their properties, or different veggies and their properties. A little bit at a time. how to make this simple thing you can do in a microwave better. a nicer grilled cheese. improving what you already do, at the level you're at. the less we feel like a passenger to our basic needs the less willing we are to let something else take the wheel, and the less intimidated we are by the commitment of taking care of ourselves for the rest of our lives.

I have said it before and i don't care how many youtubers advertise hello fresh or hungryroot to make a living

meal subscription services are not worth it.

Not a single one of them is actually cheaper in the long term than planning and buying your own groceries.

many of them have initial discounts to sell you the service and then hope you are just too busy or too tired to unsubscribe. almost ALL people who sign up for a meal plan will unsubscribe within the first year because they were only there to access those early discounts BECAUSE THEY NEEDED CHEAPER FOOD IMMEDIATELY.

Your normal grocery store probably does have a few dark patterns but not nearly as many as even the 'nicest' meal subscription service.

There are articles out there like "I did the math and the groceries and meal services are the same price mostly!" but if you pay attention, there are massive holes in their thinking:

the meals or plans that track closest to grocery store prices are ones that adhere to special diets. Eating vegan, keto, etc. can be more pricey to shop for. This is a known part of the strategy for meal kits and delivery services-- they can't compete with the price of typical groceries, but just like some people will shop at an expensive Health Food store, others will be willing to pay a premium for luxury or diet-specific products. And chances are if you're a regular person keeping a special diet with a limited amount of disposable income you probably have already made compromises for your budget and don't need a for-profit service to pry away that money you're trying to save.

These articles frame, 'you don't have to buy oil, seasonings, vinegar, or staple ingredients' as a cost saving or even food waste saving measure... but that's also true if you just eat regular TV dinners from the grocery store freezer aisle, many of which offer the same or better prices per serving. But really, is this not just a grocery shopping version of 'Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness'? Exploitation of those who can't invest in the cost of things upfront results in poor people spending more money for worse outcomes?

If I can't make a restaurant's exact same fish sandwich for the same price, I can just make a chicken sandwich or a grilled portobello. Or buy a box of frozen dumplings. Saving money on Grilled Trout Over Wild Rice shipped to my door makes no sense when I simply wouldn't choose to cook something like that without a special reason.

if these meal kits and delivery plan services really WERE cheaper than groceries, grocery stores would be losing money to them and they're mostly losing money to people buying less food in general.

[yoihoshi-maki]

Reyna no last name was found outside a top secret World government building when she was 1 year old, years later she has now became the richest and the most feared spy in the government even tho she is only 16, with the government injecting a chemical that can give her fast healing and reflex’s, she became the top spy with the help of her friends( 5 friends) she saved the world on multiple occasions. Now with a new threat not on the world but more on Max Verstappen and his small family, the government sent her to watch over them, what she didn’t know about this, was that she will find the love of family the warmth of it and the love of an actual lover.

Name: Reyna

Age: 16

Birthday: May 21 2007

Occasition: Spy

Nationality: Korean

Knowledge: She was trained in every field of science, mathematics, languages, English, combat, and weapon training

Title: mother of women, spy of century, the most savage woman, The North Star, the she-devil,

Lines

“i don’t make the same mistake twice…..I make it four or five more times just to be sure”

“when Life gives you lemons, squeeze them in people’s eyes”

“its called karma and it’s pronounced ‘‘haha fuck you!’l

“ you know……slapping is an option….…right?”

“ I am her favourite godmother go suck a dick if you think otherwise”

“remember when I said Oh I am so in love with you?……..No okay me either”

“ I don’t care I claim these People as my children”

“ Twinkle twinkle little Shit I hope you get hit by a truck “

“ I know how to swear in 21 different languages “

“ you would think people would invent fly cars but no we are stuck on the ground “

“ you want my honest opinion …..you look like a rat”

“ ……SHIT IS THAT A ROCH…Oh wait it’s just you”

“ So who’s dieing today”

“ someone better being dying because it better be worthy of me stopping my show”

“ Hold on guys I need to take a shit”

“ Well, you have two choices, either you tell me who is sending you or I could stick this thing, sooooooooooo far up your ass that your whole generation line will feel it every time they take a shit got it?”

“ your too kind to me…”

“ you love me?…..”

“ let my family go!”

“ P I am back with new stories!”

“ thanks…..dad”

“ mom what are you doing?”

“ max and Kelly adopted me so I will forever love them “

Aiden: I have an idea, how about we kill them

Reyna: Aiden no

Aiden:Aiden Yes!

Reyna: Did it hurt when you fell-

Lando : From heaven? Wow, I didn’t think you were such a flirt-

Reyna: No, I meant when you fell down the stairs.

Lando: ...

Reyna: You just laid there for 3 minutes .

Reyna : What’s the dumbest thing you believed as a child?

Lando: That naptime was a punishment.

Oliver: what’s on your mind love?

Reyna:………… arson

Oliver: okay that’s enough phone for today

Lando: I can't imagine what Reyna is planning. But I can tell you two things. We won't like it and it won't be legal.

*reyna in the back holding a pan over her head ready to smack an opponent*

Emma: drop it!

Reyna: b-but-

Emma *glares*

Reyna: your no fun* throws the pan away hitting the guy by mistake and walked away*

Reyna : When I get Doordash I order 20 Cheeseburgers at a time and heat them up throughout the week so that I don’t have to pay the delivery fee multiple times.

Oliver: I hope you understand how food poisoning works.

Reyna : I hope food poisoning understands how I work. I never met a burger i couldn’t eat.

*reyna walking around with Penelope*

Reyna: so you see P, that’s why you shouldn’t date yet

Penelope: I am only 6

Reyna: oh….well never too early!

Oliver: you need a kiss?

Reyna:*hugging him tightly* yes please

Reyna:*beating a enemy agent in the verstappen home*

Max:*walks in* what are you doing

Reyna: preparing for when P gets a boyfriend

Max: let me join

Max:*cuddling with Reyna* your so cute

Reyna: *half sleeping* I could break your spine in 51 different ways

Max: I know 🥰

Reyna: so you’re telling me that these girls find a rich person and fell in love for the first time?

Penelope and oille:*nods*

Reyna: sign me up

Oille sighing dreamily with a love sick smile: I think I am in love

Auther leclerc: call the doctor

Reyna: *watching Emma holding a brick over her head ready to hit the ex boyfriend of Kelly* “ drop it”

Emma:*pouts* but-

Reyna:*glares* if I couldn’t then you can’t

Emma: asshole

Reyna: * walking in the wrong apartment, stopped dead in her tracks seeing two people having their’fun’* I am so sorry!!! KEEP MAKING BABIES I SUPPOSE!!!* runs away*

Max: Reyna Verstappen! Come down here

Reyna: ………I swear I didn’t eat the last donuts

Oille: I love you

Reyna: thanks bro I love you too

Reyna: Can I have 2 straws with that milkshake?

Oille : Aww-

Reyna: With 2 straws, I can drink it double as fast!

Ollie: when I look in your eyes I see little stars

Reyna: ………..thanks?

Ollie: Are you ready to commit?

Reyna : Like, a crime or a relationship?

Ollie: So... what would you do if you were in bed with me?

Reyna : Depends. Is your bed comfortable?

Ollie: Yes.

Reyna : I'd sleep.

Ollie: Reyna and I are no longer friends.

Reyna : OLLIE THAT IS THE WORST WAY TO TELL PEOPLE THAT WE’RE DATING!

Ollie: I’m in love with you.

Reyna : We called off the prank war last night at midnight, dork.

Ollie: I know.

Reyna : Ah. Okay. Um. Cool. Neat. Very cool. Cool. Cool. Coolcoolcool-

Ollie: My hands are cold.

Reyna : Here, let me hold them.

Ollie: My lips are cold too.

Reyna : *covers Ollie's mouth with their hand*

Reyna : I am so cool. I am an absolute Chad. I am the epitome of coolness and awesomeness—

Ollie: Hi.

Reyna : *melts down in a flustered heap of softness*

Reyna : I truly go into housewife mode when I'm someone's soulmate- like, I'll make you pancakes and bacon every morning.

Ollie: This is a lie.

Ollie: I'm literally dating them. This is a lie.

Ollie: THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO COOK A PANCAKE, WHAT IS THIS.

Enemy agent: *tells his sad life story* I wish I was dead

Everyone:…………

Reyna: *crossed arms* I could throw you off a building if you wish?

Everyone: !?!! what no! Reyna! Reyna Verstappen! Baby no!

Ollie: baby you need therapy

Reyna: what! He wanted to die I am just giving him a push!

Max: well she is right-

Everyone: Max no!

Kelly: Max Verstappen!

Max: *hands Reyna a ring* I need you to promise this to me, that you will wait until your marriage to have………sex

Reyna: I am only 16!?

Max: promise me

Reyna: fine

Max: good I will be doing this for P too so-

Emma: we have something to tell you…

Reyna: who died?

Emma: what-

Reyna: you’re pregnant!?

Emma: how-

Reyna: is someone in the hospital?

Emma: you got it on the second try-

Reyna: I AM GOING TO BE A GOD MOTHER!?

Emma: how- yes

Reyna: I am a trained spy I know everything

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 310: A Tale of Two Kacchans

Previously on BnHA: Flashback!Deku was all, “hey, you know what sounds like a good decision? Abandoning my studies at the safest place in the country so that the bad guy who wants to find me and kill me has literally nothing standing in his way of doing that.” All Might was all, “I fucking knew you were going to say some bullshit like that so whatever, but I’M COMING WITH YOU and I’m also going to invite the Hawksquad to come with us, mostly so that I can steal Jeanist’s car.” Jeanist was all, “okay fine you can borrow my car, All Might, but only if you wear jeans.” All Might was all, “okay sure” and he wore jeans and also sunglasses and a leather jacket and it was pretty rad. Anyway so now they’re out there fighting crime and hunting down the LoV and stuff, and absolutely none of it is going to end well, I’m just letting you know now. But I guess we’ll let them enjoy it while it lasts.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “happy belated Kacchan’s Birthday makeste, here’s the flashback you really wanted at long last,” and proceeds to pull the old vestige flashback out of the kitchen drawer and upend its contents all over my Friday afternoon without the slightest bit of warning. OFA III is all “WHAT’S UP I’M JUST SOME GUY, HELLO,” and okay?? Hello yourself. OFA II, on the other hand, is all, “okay yeah I have different hair and stuff, but I’m like 98% sure I’m either Bakugou or his goddamn twin, I mean look at me.” Which, yeah. I looked, and he really is though you guys. Anyway though, so he and OFA II basically just showed up in the First (who goes by Yoichi now)’s prison cell one day all “HEY THERE, WE’RE HERE TO SAVE YOU, APPARENTLY, ALTHOUGH WE SEEM REAL CONFUSED ABOUT IT TBH BUT HEY.” And so they saved him, and Yoichi was all “hey nice to meet you do you want to join my super-exclusive Saving The World Club”, and so they did, and then the chapter ended lol. I would have said yes too.

oh my sweet lord?? I didn’t realize we were getting a color page this week, but LOOK AT THIS

this could have been a fucking volume cover. I’m almost mad that it wasn’t, lol but I mean fkldjslklk just look at it??! Horikoshi out here spoiling us and making sure we’re well fed since next week the manga is on break for Golden Week. well this will certainly help to tide me over. hot damn look at those colors

so now it’s raining on some dumb building in the middle of somewhere

is this where the Hawksquad has set up camp for the night? or are we actually cutting back to the League? that’d be unexpected (but not unwelcome)

ffff nevermind dammit it’s just more random citizens under attack

feels like this is the third or fourth scene we’ve had of civilians being Under Attack since this arc started. I mean no offense, but I think we get it by this point. it’s the end times, etc. etc. we’re well aware that things have gone to shit

so apparently these two guys are facing off against a girl with a mutant quirk. and she’s telling them that she’s not a monster and she was just scared, oh shit. I believe her btw, you can see it in her face

but these assholes don’t believe her at all and they’re pointing what looks to be some type of support item gun at her

you know what’s interesting, is that this kind of random quirk discrimination is the exact kind of thing PLF and the like were swearing up and down they’d put a stop to with their glorious revolution. it’s almost like those guys were completely full of shit. huh

so yeah, fortunately for this woman someone is stepping in and intervening before she can be blasted to bits by this trigger-happy asshole for absolutely no fucking reason

looks like a hero actually stepped in and saved her?? but no that can’t be, heroes are the ones that ruin everything and make everything worse, or so I understand. lol where did all of this sarcasm come from out of nowhere dlkdsjlk I’m sorry guys I just suddenly got swept up in the hypocrisy of certain people’s philosophies out of the blue idek

anyway so it is of course Deku saving her, and now he’s trying to talk thess jerks down all diplomatically instead of just kicking their asses, which is certainly a choice

MOTHERFUCKER I’M

fucking impossible to miss the real world parallels here. shit. this woman nearly died for her crime of Walking While Having A Mutant Quirk huh. and meanwhile Deku is just letting this guy scurry away and even letting him keep that fucking bazooka of his, like, ????

fucking hell she’s crying!!

lmao this chapter is actively trying to make me mad now huh. that’s some genuine righteous anger I’m feeling on behalf of this fictional ferret lady whom I only met two minutes ago. girl you are not the one who needs to explain herself here!! you didn’t do anything wrong holy fuck. everything about this situation sucks so much

fkKJKLMMMHFGH

“I’m sorry I made you upset, please enjoy this panel of tiny!floating!Deku hefting this lady’s massive beach umbrella up for her like the fucking gentleman he is” well okay then thank you sir

and JUST LIKE THAT the tension is broken and I’m entirely incapable of taking the rest of this conversation seriously because Deku’s trying to be all calming and authoritative, but now the illusion has been broken because I know he only comes up to like her knees

“well thanks again for saving me young man. I’ll leave you to it, I’m sure you’ve got more important things to do like protecting your Lucky Charms cereal from all those greedy children”

oh hey All Might

you wouldn’t have just let that guy with the bazooka just walk away to commit more attempted murders would you?? man

OH MY GOD DEKU IS IMMEDIATELY DITCHING HIM AGAIN

I ~CANNOT STAY HERE~ oh, well, sorry to keep you detained I know you’re busy

dfslkjlk oh my god

fucking told you Deku didn’t pack any food lol. it’s literally all notebooks in that bag you guys. he couldn’t just leave them all in his dorm room when he left, because what if someone tried to read them and came across one of the pages where he absentmindedly doodled Kacchan’s name surrounded by little tiny hearts oh gosh

AWWWWW

I needed this Horikoshi. thank you for this wholesome soul-cleansing interaction after all of that bullshit earlier

so now Deku’s climbing up this tall building to eat his lunchbox more dramatically. Tokoyami would be proud

and Banjou is saying that society right now is just like in The Good Old Days (read: bad old days) when quirk society was even more of a mess than it is now

which is exactly how AFO likes it, no doubt

so now Deku’s having a whole conversation with Banjou seemingly out loud lol, weird. and he’s basically saying that they don’t have any clues as to where TomurAFO and the League are hiding right now, and none of the Tartarus escapees they’ve found knew anything either

mmmmmfmhm, marge simpson noises

but you think you can?? you, alone, by yourself?? you think you stand a chance?? I just need you to think this all through a bit more kid

Deku it is NOT JUST YOUR RESPONSIBILITY ALONE, PLEASE REALIZE THIS ALREADY. YOU MAY BE THE CHOSEN ONE, BUT EVEN THE CHOSEN ONE NEEDS HIS FRIENDS BY HIS SIDE GODDAMMIT

and of course my pleading is all in vain, because he’s a fictional character who can’t fucking hear me, and also because I’m pretty sure there’s only one character who is going to actually be able to get him to hear reason here. I’ve been saying it, and I’ll keep saying it lol. so until then I guess I’ll just have to be patient

anyway so it appears we’re segueing into another flashback??? HORIKOSHI PLEASE GIVE ME SOME BAKUCRUMBS BEFORE THE TWO WEEK BREAK, I BEG YOU

dlKSDJLFKWJELKGHSLGKLEKJLFKHLGK

YES, THANK YOU, I KNOW WHERE THIS FUCKING IS LOL, IT’S NOT LIKE I’VE BEEN OBSESSED WITH FINDING OUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THE REST OF THIS SCENE OR ANYTHING LMAO. BUT ANYWAYS DON’T MIND ME, YOU WERE SAYING??

oh my god oh my god I’m not readyyyyy, but also FUCK YEAH I AM SO FUCKING READY LOL LET’S DO THIS

YOU GUYS

I’M ABOUT TO STEP IN THAT ROOM AND YEET ONE OF THOSE FUCKING CHAIRS AT YOU ALL

NOOOOO

I’M ABOUT TO GRAB BANJOU’S GOGGLES AND STRETCH THEM OUT AND SNAP THEM BACK SO THEY SMACK THE SHIT OUT OF HIS FOREHEAD!!! IT’S WHAT HE DESERVES!!! I’M ABOUT TO MOVE TO JAPAN AND GET A JOB WITH DOORDASH AND FIND OUT WHAT HORIKOSHI LIKES TO ORDER FOR LUNCH SO I CAN BE THE ONE TO DELIVER IT SO THAT WHEN HE OPENS THE DOOR I CAN FINALLY ASK HIM “HEY WHAT THE FUCK” IN PERSON

AHHH NO EVERYBODY SHHHHH STOP TALKING!!!!

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL THAT PERSON SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS IN THE BACKGROUND TO SHUT THE FUCK UP, OH WAIT, THAT’S ME

(」゜ロ゜)」 щ(゜ロ゜щ)

LOL THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE!!! LOOK AT YOU!!! YOU’RE NOT KIRISHIMA OR SHINSOU OR IIDA IN A WIG OR ANYBODY LOL. YOU’RE JUST A DUDE. BROOOOO ABOUT FUCKING TIME, WHAT’S GOOD

I CAN’T SCROLL DOWN AHHHH BUT I HAVE TO BUT IT’S TOO INTENSE AHHHHHHH

I CAN SEE THE TOP OF HIS SPIKY HEAD, IT’S FINALLY THAT TIME AHHHHHHHH OKAY I’M GONNA DO IT HERE GOES

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

IT’S HIM. IT FUCKING REALLY FUCKIGN IS HIM OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. WHY AM I SO SHOCKED LMAO I’M THE ONE WHO’S BEEN SAYING THIS THE WHOLE DAMN TIME LMAO. OH GOD. O H MY FUCKING GOD

well okay then sir. so are you an ~ancestor~ or a Kacchan from another timeline or so what’s your deal then

YOICHI WHO IS YOICHI

YOICHI ALWAYS KNOWS WHAT’S UP. LMAO WHO IS YOICHI

(ETA: I’m going to punch myself in the face lmao. he’s Yoichi. he, the First. that’s his name. name reveal at long last what what!!)

MORE IMPORTANTLY SHOULD I BE IMAGINING NOBU’S VOICE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE LMAO I AM ANYWAY BUT YEAH

(ETA: I actually think he’s going to end up being voiced by Nobuhiko whether he ends up being Kacchan or not, just because it fits right in with the general “identical in almost every way” aesthetic he’s got going on.)

TUMBLR HOW WE LIKING OUR ANGSTY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE KACCHAN?? EVERYONE HATED YOU SO MUCH BEFORE THEY EVEN MET YOU, BUT THEY FORGOT TO CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT YOU MIGHT BE HOT LMAO WHAT A TWIST

“some bright-eyed brat” oh come on. IT’S GOTTA BE HIM LOL

oh my god you all are probably TIRED AS FUCK of all my screaming but I’M SORRY IMMA HAVE TO DO IT ONE LAST TIME BECAUSE...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

that face. that expression!! THE FACT THAT HE’S OUT HERE OPENING DOORS WITH HIS FEET, LIKE HOLY SHIT!! JUST ADMIT THE JIG IS UP ALREADY

and so they really are the ones who busted First out of his jail cell huh

so how did they know you were in the room?? why did they come and break you out?? and how, pray tell, did they know to get you to transfer OFA to them?? hmmmMMMMMMMM

oh MY GOD

you guys. oh my god. it’s too much. every last bit of it lines up exactly with the Bakuverse theory sdkjfj I’m short-circuiting. it’s really fucking happening oh my lord

HELLO SEXY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE KACCHAN WITH HIS SEXY FUCKING SCAR, FUCK YEAH WE REALLY ARE EATING GOOD THIS CHAPTER

HELL YEAH WE’RE GOING. WE’RE GOING FULL SPEED YOU GUYS. LMAO I’M SO FUCKING HYPED RIGHT NOW I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF WEFKJLDKFFFF

SO, EVERYONE, LET’S RECAP. -- ACTUALLY NO, I STARTED TO WRITE UP A LIST, BUT I IMMEDIATELY REALIZED IT REALLY JUST NEEDS TO GO IN ITS OWN THREAD. SO I MADE IT AND POSTED IT, AND NOW I’M FINISHING UP THIS HOT MESS OF A RECAP POST. SO NOW WE’RE BACK TO THIS ONE FINAL PANEL OF DEKU EATING HIS KATSU ALL SERIOUS

YES SIR. YES SIR, WE GOING, FULL SPEED AHEAD, WHATEVER, IDK WTF IS HAPPENING BUT YES!!

lol, anyways so as I said in my other post, mysterious sexy guys with tragic pasts are what bring us together as a fandom, so whatever your thoughts are on the rest of it, let’s just rejoice in that. it’s what we deserve

[bakusdumptruck]

Bakusquad Crack Post Pt.2

Hello you beautiful bitches 😌 hope you had a good day today! I was stuck on what I was going to write and decided to make a side story on what happened with the LoV in the first part! So now i’ll give you high bakusquad ft. The LoV🤩

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Pairing: Aged up Bakusquad x gn!Y/n x LoV 

Warnings: Use of marijuana, swearing, injuries, slight manga spoilers

Summary: Bakusquad gets kidnapped by the Lov, but it turns out better than expected.  

✨QUICK RECAP ✨

You and the Bakusquad were v e r y faded chilling on a hill watching the stars 

A nomu pops out of no where and you all start attacking, but completely miss

The nomu starts chasing you and ends up knocking everyone out 

OKAY NOW LETS GET IT 😈

So... you got kidnapped by the infamous League of Villains

B💥: *waking up* “Fucking shit what hap- oh shit hey crusty 😏 never thought i’d be here again.”

ST(Shiggy)🧴: “Never thought you’d be this easy to catch you little bitch”

B💥: “WHO YOU CALLIN A LITTLE BITCH YOU FLAKEY FU-”

Y/n🥵: *evil/scary ass voice* “Bakugou if you don’t shut the fuck up right now i’ll let his flakey ass disintegrate you. You’re beING TOO FUCKING LOUD 😃🔪”

B💥: “uh... where’d you get that knife from :D”

K💪🏼: “Hey guys, sorry to ruin your moment but shouldn’t we be concerned that we got kidnapped.”

M💅🏽: “I agree... We literally got kidnapped by the people who want to kill us.”

S🕷: “Oh shit, that’s who they are? No wonder they looked so familiar.”

All: 👁👄👁

ST🧴: “Ya’ll are dumber than I expected... anyway we want you guys to join us. You all have powerful quirks, especially you Baku-”

B💥: “YAWWNNNN. No thank you. I already said no.”

ST🧴: “Did you just s a y the word yawn 🙃 *scratching neck* You’re pissing me off. I’ll just kill you then.”

S🕷: “Hold on mr.saltine, before you kill bakubro can we smoke our last joint? This weed was expensive and I AM NOT letting it go to waste. Plus I have even more and it needs to be gone before I die.” 

M💅🏽: “Sero please tell me you didn’t bring your stoner pack.”

S🕷: *pulls out his so called “Seros Super Stoner Pack”*

Shiggy’s starting to regret his life choices.

All of a sudden Dabi pops out of no where

DB🔥: “Is that weed? I smell weed. Where is it.”

 Sero had the most amazing idea, but not for them to escape no, he has had the most amazing idea to make sure he finishes his weed.

S🕷: “...Wanna smoke with us 👀 I already rolled a joint and I can roll at least 4 more. Don’t wanna let it all go to waste 😃”

DB🔥: “Let them out of the cuffs. I need to smoke.”

At this point Shigaraki is over everything and decides to smoke to distract himself from the stupidity.

So, ya know, Sero does his thing and hands yall the other papers to roll up

*30 minutes and 5 joints later...*

DB🔥: “NO BUT LIKE ENDEAVOR IS A FUCKING B I T C H. HE CAN KISS MY BURNT ASS.”

 This smoke session somehow turned into a therapy session. 

DB🔥: “I KNOW HE’S MY DAD BUT HOLY SHIT. FUCKER PUSHED ME INTO FAKING MY OWN FUCKING DEATH AND NOW HERE I AM. IM BURNT, MUSTY, AND STUCK WITH THIS CRUSTY ASS BITCH.”

Y/n🥵: *patting his back* “There there, let it out... uhuh just like that”

DB🔥: “I CAN’T EVEN FUCKING CRY. MY TEAR DUCTS ARE BURNT AND I FEEL DUMB AS FUCK CRYING WITH NO TEARS. I LOOK FUCKING CONSTIPATED.”

ST🧴: “Bitch please, you look constipated all the time.”

DB🔥: “Square the fuck up. 😃 Right now.”

D⚡️: “So... we just gon ignore the fact that he’s Endeavors “dead” son?”

Eventually Dabi lets everything off of his chest and goes off pouting in your arms

To lighten up the mood Sero connects his phone to his speaker and picks whatever song came up first 

It was WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

Denki was the first one to get up and starts to rap the first verse. He knew it word for word.

Sero joined in after but also started dancing

Mans was MOVING them hips. Them shits were swaying like it was nobody’s business 💅🏽

WAIT SO HEAR ME OUT,  I feel like Bakugou would be a completely different person when he’s high

Yeah he’s still angry and shit but he’d be sooooo fucking funny

 This bitch would get up all of a sudden and be like 

B💥: “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG FUCKER. THIS IS HOW YOU FUCKING MOVE”

Then he starts aggressively twerking anyway he can 😭

He’s twerking on the wall, on the floor, ON PEOPLE  

You all eventually form a circle around him and start hyping him up

LMAOO ITS LIKE THAT DANCE CIRCLE AT SCHOOL DANCES AND EVERYONE HAS THEIR PHONE OUT

Y/n🥵: “BEST FRIEND SHOW EM YOUR MOVES”

K:💪🏼: “GO, OUUU YUH GET IT I GUESS 💅🏽... OKAY IM NEXT BEST FRIEND. GET THE CAMERA 🤩”

KIRI FUCKING PUSHES HIM OUT 

K💪🏼: “dougie 🤪 hype me up 😤🥵”

He does it REALLY bad, but that’s not gonna stop the hype 

ST🧴: “AHAHAHA WHY HE MOVIN LIKE THAT. MANS STIFF AS FUCK”

M💅🏽: “Like you can do any better than that 😗”

ST🧴: “Baby please, watch this”

Shiggy starts voguing... and he’s really fucking good. 

All: “💀”

DB🔥: “HOLY SHIT THIS IS FUCKING GOLD . YO GUYS GET THE FUCK OUT YOUR ROOMS. Hehe he’s gonna regret doing this. ”

The rest of the LoV members come out and are shocked 

They don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be disgusted 

TG🔪: “Dabi... is he okay, wait a minute... wHEN DID THEY GET HERE”

SP🐊: “...I’m going back to my room.”

TW👺: “OUU YUH SHIGGY. GET IT BITCH- this is so fucking disgusting.”

Mr.Compress and Kurogiri don’t even bother to see whats happening

Once the most iconic part of the song pops up YOU AND MINA GO OFF.

M💅🏽: “OUT OF THE WAY BITCHES. ITS THE BADDIES TURN.”

Holy fuck can y/n and Mina marry me already. p l e a s e.

Yall hitting every beat, every move, THE ATTITUDE. Yes. A+. 1000/10

Everyone was screaming their asses off and jumping around

After WAP, Dear Maria, Count Me In by All Time Low played

DB🔥: “OHHH SHIT ITS MY TIME WHORES”

Dabi pulls out a guitar and amp out of thin air and plays his fucking heart out.

Bakugou finds drums and plays like theres no tomorrow

Sero finds a bass and joins in 

Y/n🥵: “What the fuck 😃 why is this so good 😃”

The rest of you starts head banging and singing along

K💪🏼: “TAKE A BREATH DONT IT SOUND SO EASY, NEVER HAD A DOUBT NOW IM GOING CRAZY WATCHING FROM THE FLOOR”

M💅🏽: “waYMENT- I THOUGHT HE COULDN’T SING. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM 😳”

Denki adds harmony to the next part

K💪🏼D⚡️: “TAKE A BREATH AND LET THE REST COME EASY, NEVER SETTLE DOWN CAUSE THE CASH FLOW LEAVES ME. ALWAYS, WANTING MORE”

Y/n🥵: “DENKI YOU TOO??? I’m going to pass away. This is too muCH. I’M GOING TO SIMP PLEASE.”

Oop, the best part’s coming up... who’s singing next?👀

DB🔥: “IT WAS NEVER A PHASE MOM. ITS A LIFE STYLE- CAUSE I GOT YOUR PICTURE IM COMING WITH YOU DEAR MARIA COUNT ME IN THERES A STORY AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BOTTLE AND IM THE PEN.”

That shit was chefs fucking kiss. Dabi has the perfect voice for this song.

At this point you, Mina, and Shiggy were on the floor with tears streaming down your faces.

When yall thought it couldn’t get any better, Bakugou and Sero start harmonizing for the last part 💅🏽

B💥S🕷: MAKE IT COUNt WHEN IM THE ONE WHOS SELLING YOU OUT CAUSE IT FEELS LIKE STEALING HEARTS CALLING YOUR NAME FROM THE CROWD”

Dead. You flat lined. Your limit has been passed and now you’re a hard core simp. 

Mina was so glad she started recording because there definitely won’t be another opportunity.  

Y/n🥵: “Guys... WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. HOW CAN YOU PULL INSTRUMENTS OUT OF YOUR ASSES AND PLAY PERFECTLY. KIRI WHERE THE HELL DID THE VOICE COME FROM.”

The boys were sweating and out of breath. They just did a whole performance in the hide out with zero practice.

They stared at each other at the end for a little bit and excitedly hyped themselves up. 

Dabi spoke about starting a band forgetting about his occupation and why the bakusquad was there in the first place

Honestly this moment was precious. The villains and aspiring hero’s were getting along because of the weed in their system. This just proves how weed can solve all your problems 💅🏽

*knock knock* “Doordash delivery”

ST🧴: “Oh, when did you guys order food?”

S🕷: “We didn’t order food...”

ST🧴: “... FUCKING SHIT NOT AGA-”

The pro hero’s busted in 🤩

DB🔥: “KUROGIRIIII. GET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.”

And just like the the LoV escaped

M💅🏽: “Ya kno what, I honestly forgot where we were.”

B💥: “Same.”

K💪🏼: “We were having too much fun...”

D⚡️: “Ughhh why’d they come so early 😫 we were boutta start a band 🥺”

S🕷: “Wait... why were we here again??”

Y/n🥵: “Sero...baby, maybe you should lay off the weed for a bit 💀”

Aizawa walked in and shot his scarf out to all of you. He made sure to make them uncomfortably tight and pulled you guys right to him.

A🐱: 👺👹*gremlin noises*👺👹

Lol you guys are fucked. 

HELLOOOOO I hope you guys enjoyed this story of what went on when the squad got kidnapped!! Honestly my account is gonna have ALOT of bakusquad scenarios since I literally love all of them so much. Not a day goes by where I’m not thinking about hanging out with them 😭 Credits to jazzmonster for the gif 😌 once I saw it I knew I had to use it. Anywayy thank you all so much for the support :’-) I didn’t think people would actually like the stuff I write since its all over the place 😫 Hope you have a good rest of your day/night 🖤

[theblekromantik]

somewhere new

Erik Stevens x Black Reader

a/n: hello lovelies, i hope you’re well and i hope that you enjoy this! i’ve been experimenting with writing lately, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated!!!

summary: you and Erik go decide to go grocery shopping, but you switch things up a little

warnings: fluff-ish with some sexual tension and implied smut

word count: 3189

A booming,

“Yo, ma!”

Accompanied by a knock at the door rattles you, causing you to drop your eyelash into the sink. Your good, very expensive eyelash that requires much focus in order to be applied to your upper lash line.

Grunting and twinging your face in disgust of the sight before you, you fish it out of the sink, blowing on it to determine if the glue is still salvageable.

“Come on, E! Five minutes!” You respond with your mouth slightly parted, a strange requirement for impeccable eyelash placement.

“Princess, we gotta hurry up before the store closes,” Erik protests, pulling up his sleeve to check his diamond-encrusted AP watch. It’s almost seven o’clock, and Erik hated shopping minutes before a store closed. It made him feel like he was being rushed to gather his items and head to the register.

You and Erik frequently ran errands together, only this time you were grocery shopping. Staying in was nice and all – really quite enjoyable – but an end had to come to the endless Netflix bingeing and takeout from your favorite spots. You both, mainly Erik, decided that it was time for a nutritious, home-cooked meal, one that wouldn’t lead you down a road of clogged arteries and hypertension. But Erik was a phenomenal chef, so you could hardly complain that your ongoing DoorDash expenditure had been interrupted.

“Damn! One second!” You holler. “One second…there.”

You step back and look into the mirror, admiring yourself. Thirty minutes of hard work and determination had really paid off! You grab your phone from the sink’s surface and proceed to snap some photos of yourself.

SHUTTER! SHUTTER! SHUTTER! SHUTTER!

Beauty must always be captured, no matter what the time restraint.

“Princess! You taking pictures in there?” The dreaded man pounds on the door, harder this time. Banging, nearly shaking the hinges out of the door until you swing it open.

And there you are, dolled up and all, from the 26-inch deep wave hair to the Adidas tracksuit, the top zipped down nearly to the level of exposing the full extent of your breasts. Just the way you liked it.

Erik can hardly contain himself as he looks further down at you, ogling how your recently-manicured toes fit perfectly between each slot of your sandals. Man, he knew you were one for dressing up, but to the grocery store? Maybe he needs to step his game up.

“Well?” You jest. “You were so loud banging on the door, you got nothing to say now?”

Catching his lip underneath his teeth, he smugly looks you over once more, trying to gather words to say, for you’ve left him speechless.

He inches closer to you, “My babygirl likes to talk back, huh?”

“Yup, she do,” Boldness courses through you, nearly shattered as you maintain eye contact with your boyfriend.

His eyes were boulders, but you were just as unyielding. This game the two of you liked to play – this perpetual exchange of power – rarely ever ended with you emerging victorious. And you knew this, but you wanted to have your fun.

Finally, though smirkingly, you divert your gaze to your phone, shuffling through your gallery to decide which photos to keep, which photos to delete, and which photos to post.

“You look beautiful, Princess,” Erik chuckles after pressing a kiss onto your lips. “Now let’s go.”

While you knew you had lost the battle in the bathroom, you couldn’t wait to enjoy the war you and Erik would have in the bedroom later.

–

“Shotgun!” Erik shouted as you were fumbling in your purse for your keys, making a sprint for the car through your apartment complex’s parking lot.

The sun was setting beneath the horizon, and it illuminated the sky a burnt orange, a hue that began to embellish the surfaces of each object it touched – buildings, vehicles, windows, trees, the reflective skin of Erik’s custom-designed Air Max 97s as he raced further away from you.

After some time, your nimble fingers reach the item of your search, which results in a chime. You pull the keys out, contemplating whether to unlock the car doors for dreaded man in order to relieve him from the heat of the California sun, or let him suffer. Though it was setting, this sun still could extract a cup of sweat from one’s body. But hey, Erik was grown, he could wait.

You strut up to the car to see your boyfriend leaning on the door, panting, condensation forming on his forehead.

You release a sound of triumph, “I was gonna drive anyway.”

The car unlocks with a chirp, and you open the door and sit down. Dumbfounded, Erik was clutching the hood of the car still, trying to catch his breath.

“You getting in, or…”

He opens the car door and slumps down into the seat.

“You didn’t have to have a nigga looking dumb, baby.”

“I don’t think you need me for that, E.”

Erik snickers, “So it’s like that?”

“Yeah, it’s like that,” you tease, pressing the car to start and reversing out of the lot.

The two of you were buckling in for a long evening, and quite frankly, you couldn’t wait to see how it would progress.

–

As you drive on the road, the city and all its structures – both new and old – vanish behind you as a multitude of cool currents of air whip into the car through the windows, blowing your hair in all sorts of directions.

The vehicle vibrates as you blast a playlist full of new releases through your aux, and Erik grips your thigh as he sings to you, gold canines flashing and all.

You gently place your foot on the break, easing the car to a stop before the upcoming red light.

Erik, nearly louder than the music, starts to grind on the seat à la Magic Mike, and you couldn’t help but to laugh at the dreaded man and his silliness, a behaviour that is a pleasant break from his usual brooding nature.

But your laughter is cut short by a car honking behind you, indicating that the light had just turned green. You roll your eyes, because it had literally just turned green, and you press on the gas, revving your vehicle to the speed limit.

You pass another number of buildings a before making a sharp left turn.

“Shit!” You mumble to yourself.

You had almost missed the turn.

“Babygirl, that wasn’t the turn. Where we going?” Erik questions, for the route you’re taking was not your usual one.

“A little change of plans. I wanted to go somewhere else this time.”

“’Somewhere else’?” Erik probes. “What’s wrong with Ralph’s?!”

Now this took Erik by surprise. He’s genuinely concerned about your decision. To him, Ralph’s is King.

“Nothing, just wanna try something different.”

Your boyfriend clutches his heart, feigning a heart attack. You snort and turn into the parking lot. Both the wind and the car’s engine settle as you drive into a spot and press the vehicle off.

“Trader Joe’s?!” Erik cries. “What they got up in there?”

You exit the car, grabbing your purse from the backseat. “Stop complaining. Let’s go.”

–

If boredom could be personified, it’s spitting image would be Erik, for he rests his forearms on the bar of the shopping cart, eyes drooping as he observes the eccentric packaging of Trader Joe’s products.

Picking up a container of salsa he says, “Why all this shit organic?”

But you just suck your teeth and let him sulk behind the cart, ignoring him and all his grumbling.

“And this,” His gaze sets upon another display, “Who the fuck needs all these types of dried fruit? Probably taste like tumbleweed anyway.”

“Yo, stop moaning and groaning over there,” You shoot back at him, grabbing two packages of dried mangoes and placing them into the cart.

But Erik persists, dragging his feet across the smooth, concrete floor.

Minding the grocery list you and Erik had created earlier on your phone, you head deeper into the produce section, searching for some leafy greens and other ingredients that would contribute toward Erik’s signature salad. He walks off with the cart, gathering some tomatoes and bell peppers before making his way into another section of the store.

You, on the other hand, stand in front of the illuminated display with every type of green you could think of: arugula, kale, spinach, and lettuce, just to name a few. Reaching in, you squish some of the bags in order to determine their freshness. And you grab some kale and return to your shopping partner, who was waiting patiently for you, his previous protesting done with.

Looking down at the list on your phone, there wasn’t that much left for you all to grab, just some seasonings that were essential for the completion of any dish. There’re so many to choose from, and quite frankly, you’d just grab them all if you weren’t on a budget. So, you place a couple in the cart. And when you look up again, there Erik is, a pouty look on his face.

“Birthday cake popcorn?” Erik suggests, holding up the multicoloured item.

“Put it in the cart,” You giggle, maneuvering to a checkout line with the least amount of people.

The line becomes shorter and shorter, with customers paying and leaving with their large brown bags. And before you know it, the cashier shouts, “Next!” and moves to take your cart.

“Find everything okay?” The cashier asks, briefly glancing up at the two of you before moving to scan the items in your cart.

“Yes, thank you,” you respond, blankly staring as more items appeared on the customer screen and the worker transferred your groceries into the bags adjacent to the register.

Erik, standing beside you, wraps his right pinky finger against your left one, linking the two of you before you adjust to hold his entire hand. He grips your waist and pulls you in to kiss your lips and lingers there for a short while, eyes boring into yours while also relishing the traces of your chocolate-flavoured lip gloss that had found its way to onto his tongue.

You’re flustered, of course, but not because he hadn’t kissed you this intensely before, but because you were reminded that you were still at the grocery store, for the cashier cleared their throat awkwardly, repeating the total cost you had missed in your fleeting moment of passion.

Scratching your neck, hoping to relieve the embarrassment that that crept up your spine, you ask, “I’m sorry, how much is it?”

To which the cashier responds, “That’s $43.96.”

“I got it, bae,” Erik interjects, pulling out his wallet and handing a crisp yet folded fifty-dollar bill to the worker.

And while the cashier hands Erik the change, you grab the red cart and head toward the exit but not before thanking them. A few steps behind, Erik acknowledges another cashier – the only Black cashier – with a head nod and a knowing smile, to which the cashier nods, shrugs, and returns the grin: the shared feeling of being the only Black person in the room. The automatic doors open, reintroducing the cool evening air upon your face and hair, and the rubber wheels of the cart greet the smooth pavement.

When you reach the cart return, Erik grabs all of the bags while you fit the cart among the lines of carts already present. The two of you begin to walk to your parked vehicle but instead accidentally stumble upon on one with a similar make and model to your own but was not yours.

“I swore I parked right here,” you huff, standing on the balls of your feet, searching the sea of identical cars in the well-lit parking lot. And the fact that there were so many other last-minute shoppers did not help your plight either.

“Lemme see the keys,” Erik says, intrigue in his voice. “I wanna see something.”

You hand him the keys to the car, and he places them under his chin, pressing the unlock button repeatedly.

“That doesn’t actually work, does it?” You quiz, doubt heavy on your words.

“We have to see.”

Supposedly, this little trick should increase the bandwidth of the key’s signal, using one’s head as a sort of antenna. But after a couple clicks, you hear nothing besides traffic on the neighbouring streets.

Pointless, you think, just wanting to hurry up and head home.

But then, you hear a series of chirps in the distance and Erik yipping about the fact.

“Over there,” Erik says, nodding his head toward the source of the noise.

He picks up the bags, and you both head to the vehicle.

–

Shutting the door to your car, you release a sigh. Finally, the bags are all placed on the floor of your car, and you can finally head home.

With your foot on the break, you reach to push the car to start but then Erik yelps, “Wait! I wanna try those mango joints.”

“Oh, now you wanna try them,” You jest, “Because if I can remember, you were just–”

“–Man,” Erik interrupts, reaching to the backseat and rummaging through the bags. “Found it.”

He surveys the clear package titled “Soft & Juicy Mango” with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips curled, a slight repugnance that he couldn’t even help hide. But ripping the bag open, his expression softens as the aroma fills his nostrils, the sweet, tropical scent soothing him.

You watch, rolling your eyes, as Erik cautiously lowers his fingers into the package. One would think that the former Navy Seal wouldn’t be so dramatic over something like trying a new food, but Erik never ceases to amaze you.

Mango slice in hand, Erik purses his lips as he brings it to his mouth, slowly. Tortuously. And chews, his head cocked to the side.

“Wait,” he says as he swallows the last bit. “These bitches smack!”

You release a sound of disbelief, start the vehicle, and pull into the street, heading home. Of course the mangoes were delicious.

–

The sound of the car door closing can be heard as you and Erik finish grabbing all the groceries and head to the entrance of your apartment building. Your boyfriend opens the door for you, his veiny forearm braced on it and towering above you as you enter.

“Damn, ma! You getting thick!” He hollers as he watches the sway of your hips in your fitted bottoms.

You feel your cheeks warm up as you push some hair behind your air. You had been getting thick.

The lobby as you pass through is empty except for the security guard looking down at a glow coming from their lap and a couple of young people with white wires cascading down from their ears, bopping their heads to music that you can hear but not quite make out specific lyrics.

You and Erik find your way inside the elevator, the flickering fluorescents easing you back home, a stark difference from the glaringly bright ones at Trader Joe’s. Erik presses the round “4”, and the aluminum doors begin to close before you, you staring ahead while Erik sneaks a glance at you, smirking before redirecting his gaze toward the sliding metal.

Watching the line of numbers flash as the lift ascends from the ground floor, you turn to Erik, kissing him softly on the lips, closing your eyes and feeling a tingling sensation coursing into him through you. An electrical current that ceases to meet its end, ravishing you both entirely.

And with a ding, the elevator doors open and there you and Erik are, standing chest to chest in the moment, biting your lips like a couple of anxious teenagers on a first date. You pull away from him, keys in hand, heading for the apartment while Erik watches you.

God, how did he get so lucky? You were a treasure to him, and not only because you were so extraordinary but the little things: how you treated him so tenderly and with love yet wouldn’t hesitate to call him out when he was acting like a fool, and how you were so receptive to him as he was to you. These were all things that he scarcely experienced, if he ever experienced them at all. You helped him learn how to love and to receive love, which is an astonishing feat that many cannot confess that they’ve accomplished for themselves. And as you look back at him and smile while you unlock the door, he feels a bit weak in the knees, your electricity overwhelming him once more. You’ve got him hooked, and he loves it. He’s entirely entranced by you, and he doesn’t mind.

You open the door and are welcomed by your apartment, which is completely shrouded in darkness, save for the streetlights, the headlights of passing cars, and the last sliver of the orange evening sky before it is overcome by those distant stars in the night sky.

“Whew,” you exhale, flipping on the light switch and opening the door wider.

Erik sets the bags down on the countertops and approaches you.

“What are you–” you begin, but Erik is sliding his arms around your midsection and turning you to him. He presses his forehead against yours, twirling the ends of your hair and breathes you in and attaches his lips to yours, gently, truly wanting to savour this moment and you in this moment.

He pulls away, slowly, and confesses for the first time aloud, “I love you,” in a voice no louder than a whisper in a public library, to which you respond, “I love you, too.”

And the two of you remain like this for a few moments, staring into each other’s eyes, not even letting the ever-busy late-night traffic rattle you.

“So,” he starts, “About earlier in the bathroom…”

“Yeah, what about it?” You respond, seduction laced in your words.

“I’m thinking we need to address that.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yup,” Erik answers, popping the “p”.

“And what about the groceries?”

“They’ll be a’ight.”

“Hm,” You sound, lacing your hand with his and walking the both of you to your shared bedroom.

Erik walks towards you, making you both fall on the bed. And the dreaded man begins pecking at your neck, travelling up to the bone of your jaw and landing once again on your plump lips. He swipes his finger down them, and repeats, “I love you.”

You stand up to close the door, while Erik sits up, waiting on you to return to him. You cradle his head in your hands while you kiss him, deeper, all that former tenderness left at the door. And stripping him of his shirt, his impatient fingers also dance to the zipper of your top, lowering it. He slides the jacket over your shoulders as you kneel on the bed to straddle him. But before you could grind down on his crotch, Erik grips your hips and flips you onto your back, the sudden movement bouncing your body on the bed after it meets the comforter.

“Not so fast, babygirl.”

[samingtonwilson]

Apartment 8C - Chapter 4

The First, First Date

SERIES MASTERLIST // PREVIOUS PART

Summary: college au. you and bucky are the closest of friends, the most functional of roommates, and… exes. but just because it didn’t work out romantically doesn’t mean he has to move out! it’s not like he’s so deeply in love that he can barely breathe. totally not in love. at all. not even a little. maybe.

Pairing: bucky x reader

Warnings: LANGUAGE, the use of marijuana/pot/weed/reefer/that loud

A/N: i had a bad thought while writing this chapter and i’m not going to share it with y’all because that might put y’all off this story. actually fuck it, i’ll share the thought. isn’t it so weird how obsessed we all are with love? like these are college students with so much more happening in their lives but they’re sitting around and always talking about love. and a lot of us do that shit too. weirdos. 

There’s a knock at the door and Bucky replies to it with a groan. A loud, I don’t give a fuck if the neighbors hear me kind of groan. 

Slumped on the couch, phone balanced on his stomach and remote control set on his thigh, he very nearly snarls. He doesn’t bother to pick up either electronic as he stands, letting his phone fall face down on the area rug while the remote knocks against its corner with a clang. 

His journey to the door is comprised less of steps and more of a slide, a glide, a bit of a skate. He’s thankful he kept his socks on and unlocks the door, eyes half-lidded and heavy head tilted back. “The delivery instructions said to text and leave the bag at the door, not to knock and make me get up.” 

“That how you talk to delivery people? They should ban your sorry ass from Doordash.” 

He straightens his head and glares at Steve— smirking, smug, smart ass Steve who holds a large brown paper bag in one hand and a six pack in the other. It somehow makes Bucky frown deeper. “You intercepted my delivery?” 

“And brought you beer,” he holds the cardboard case up and shakes it, smiling. 

That smile fades, however, when he pauses in thought for a moment. He frowns then, indignant. Pushes Bucky out of the way to cross the threshold into the apartment. “So, you know, you’re fuckin’ welcome, you ungrateful jerk.” 

A sigh and Bucky shuts the door. He watches as Steve appraises the room and feels no shame at the look of disgust on Steve’s face. Instead, he rolls his eyes when Steve fully faces him. “I don’t want to hear it.” 

“You clean out your fridge? It broken or something?” Steve asks. He sets the bag and beer onto the coffee table, shuts Bucky’s dead laptop that he hasn’t bothered to charge. Steve then places Bucky’s phone and the remote control on the couch and begins to gather the empty take out containers still cool from the refrigerator. 

Bucky grits his teeth at the sight. “Steve, just— What the hell are you doing?” 

“Picking all this shit up so we can eat and watch the game,” there’s a cheerful lilt through his words. He sends a smile Bucky’s way, humor in the blue of his eyes, as he passes to toss the containers into the trash. “Thanks for asking, Buck. What the hell are you doing?”  

“I—” Bucky still stands by the door. His arms are crossed over his chest, his brow furrowed in incredulity when Steve crosses to the couch once more and falls into the cushions with a sigh of relief. “Steve, I’m not in the mood today, man.” 

“In the mood for what?” The volume of the television is turned up, Steve hugs the elephant cushion to his chest. “You were gonna watch the game anyway, so was I. Might as well do that in the same place and eat a li’l somethin’ while we’re at it.” 

Bucky’s sigh is one of defeat. He takes steps back to the couch rather than skating over, and sits beside Steve with a mumbled, “I didn’t order anything with your fat head in mind.” 

Steve leans forward to pull the bag open, paper crinkling as he pulls a sandwich from the depths. He tosses what remains in the bag onto Bucky’s lap. “Stopped at a deli on the way here. Don’t know what the fuck you’re eating but it smelled like dog shit.” 

He smiles to himself. Wryly. “What deli you stop at?” 

“Shelsky's.” There’s pride in Steve’s voice. Arrogance in his posture. “I didn’t want to cheap out and settle for something worse.”

“That’s where I ordered from, you fucking snob.” 

“Must’ve ordered something nasty then.” 

A sarcastic hum of agreement and Bucky shakes his head. He narrows his eyes at the television as Steve flips through the channels in an attempt to find something more entertaining than the advertisements currently airing on Fox. “Why’re you really here?” 

“It’s Thursday night,” he replies, using a keychain to pop the cap on a bottle of beer. “Titans are playing the Jags.” 

“You don’t care about either of those teams.” 

Steve drops his smile now. He scowls and settles back on Fox, unsatisfied. “Can’t a guy eat a sandwich, drink a beer, and watch a game with a friend without the third degree?” 

“Couldn’t have done that with Sam?” 

“I do a variation of this with Sam almost every night. Wanted to spend time with you today.” 

“But—” 

“Buck, for shit’s sake, let me be here for you without making us both live through me saying why.” He reaches forward to pull another beer from the carton, placing it in Bucky’s lap, and slouches back against the soft grey velvet. “And if you wanna talk about it, I’m here for that, too.” 

“What’s there to talk about?” Bucky asks, more rhetorical than expecting an answer. 

There’s a pause as Bucky gazes at the television with practiced focus. His arms fold over his chest again. His knee bounces.

“She’s on a date,” he continues after the lull stretches for too long. “She was going to start dating eventually. I’m okay with it. Happy for her. T’Challa’s a good dude. Good looking, good soccer player. Smart. It’s nice. Good for her. I’m happy for her. She deserves someone like him. I’m happy for her. 

“He actually came to the door. Didn’t text her to meet him downstairs, didn’t show up empty-handed. We both know how uncomfortable she is with actual romantic gestures and I guess he knows, too, because he gave her a Ziploc of peaches like she had in class the day they met. It’s nice. He’s a good dude. I’m happy for her.”

Through the thick silence that falls over them, Steve blinks. “Christ, you know you just spoke for a minute straight without taking a breath? I think you said ‘I’m happy for her’ thirteen times.” 

Bucky’s inhale is loud and pointed, his exhale a huff. He’s no longer interested in eating the sandwich he’d ordered, suddenly full from all the leftovers he’d tucked into just minutes ago. All he wants is for Steve to leave. 

Well. That’s not all he wants. 

But it trumps his other desires. Momentarily. 

“I know you’re happy for her,” Steve says as Bucky parts his lips to tell the former off. Bucky shuts his mouth now, though. And just listens as Steve’s voice grows softer, eyes no longer dancing in humor. “But I know you’re fuckin’ miserable, too.” 

He knows there’s no point denying it. No point denying what’s so plainly written across his face. 

But he tries anyway. “M’not miserable. I’m ha—” 

“You can be both.” Steve, unwrapping the parchment from his sandwich, keeps his eyes on the television. “It’s possible to be happy for her but miserable at the idea of it all deep down. S’why I thought you might wanna move out.” 

“She’d still go on dates if I’d moved out.” 

“You wouldn’t have to watch her going on them.”

“I’m okay with her dating.”

“I’m okay with a lotta things, too. Doesn’t mean I wanna see it all happen in front of me.”

Bucky watches as Steve takes an impossibly large bite out of the sandwich, Russian dressing smearing over his lips. “I’ve got a date, too.” 

“Buck,” Steve’s mouth is full. Horribly so. And Bucky scowls at the sound of his thick voice. “This ain’t a date. Don’t know how many times I gotta tell you. I just don’t feel that way about you, man.” 

A sarcastic smile and even more dry laugh. “Shut the fuck up. I’m talking about Connie.” 

Steve scowls as he swallows. “That perky little brunette from the bar?” 

“Perky?” 

“I can just look at her and tell she was on her high school cheerleading squad.” Around another bite, he adds, “Seems nice enough, I guess.” 

“She is nice.” He pauses only to mumble more to himself, “And emotionally available.”

Steve cocks an eyebrow and briefly looks at Bucky in skepticism. “What, you determined that from just a few days of talking?” 

“On the second day she told me she’s liked me since freshman year orientation.” He sighs your name then. Slowly. Laboriously. “She was somethin’ else entirely. You know how long it took her to admit she liked me?” 

Steve nods upwards and flips the channel when the commentators on the pregame show begin to argue. 

“Took her three months after we started dating to admit she liked me. And she never said it again after that.” 

Steve drags the back of his hand over his lips, wiping off a bit of stray dressing. In visible disgust, he wipes his hand on the discarded butcher paper. “Some people show their feelings rather than say them.” 

Bucky seems to smile at that. Unbeknownst to himself, there’s a slow grin spreading over his lips. 

He thinks of instances. Instances when silence would act as a wall but actions a wrecking ball. 

The morning after your third date when you’d tried your best— despite your absolute inability to cook— to make the breakfast he always orders at the diner in Astoria. 

The eggs were runny in places, burnt in others and the bacon was traumatically floppy under a layer of not-even-close-to rendered fat and added oil. You’d apologized as he scrubbed the pan and plates, bright yellow dish rag waving as you insisted repeatedly that you couldn’t live if you’d given the guy you’d only just begun to date salmonella. 

Independence day when you’d Irish-goodbyed from Steve’s birthday party only twenty minutes after arriving to steal away to the rooftop of Mama Wilson’s brownstone in Harlem. 

You’d said something about fireworks and pizza, a six-pack of beer already snagged off the kitchen counter. Played it off as Sam’s idea, his house keys in the pocket of the navy blue bomber jacket you’d “borrowed” from Bucky. Nothing about Bucky’s hatred of parties at the Rogers-Wilson residence, though. Not even a hint until he overheard your apologies to Sam’s mother for the intrusion— an apology you later denied, kissing him silly to make him forget any further questions. 

The week before you’d broken up— a week Bucky remembers less for the distance you’d successfully created— when you sought comfort in him after a long day. 

Your boots had been kicked off by the door, your bag and its contents scattered beside them. You’d tearfully slurred words together, words he barely caught, in explanation. Something about work, and school, and your mother’s unnecessary opinions about your major and future. Something which forced sobs from your chest as you set your head against his. You’d wrapped your arms around him tightly, the two of you huddled together on his worn barcalounger as he stroked your hair and pressed kisses to the crown of your head. 

It’s well after the game has ended— Steve vengefully chowing down on your once-hidden stash of This is for when I have my period chocolate, Bucky barely paying attention to the episode of The Office the two had resorted to watching— when you come home. 

Hair mussed, lips swollen with gloss smudged every which way, you stumble through the doorway with a laughed, “No more rule-breaking on the first date, T’Challa.” 

The door is shut and locked just as T’Challa begins to respond. You spin and press your back to it, still laughing but quietly, more to yourself. You open your mouth to greet Steve and Bucky, both looking at you in either confusion or amusement, but shut it as a knock at the door cuts you off. 

“I’ll call you,” T’Challa promises through the wood. There’s a chuckle laced through his words, a smile in his voice. 

Exaggeratedly, you scoff. Still grinning however. “Who calls?” 

“I do,” he replies without concern that your neighbors may complain about his volume. “And you’re gonna pick up.” 

“Oh, am I?” 

“Yeah, you are. ‘Night.”

You don’t respond beyond a hum and stand at the door until you’re sure he’s gone. A nod to yourself and you step away as you remove that navy blue bomber jacket to toss it onto the counter. You also toss a smile over your shoulder to Bucky. “You here just to eat my chocolate, Rogers?” 

“No,” Steve says without a glance in your direction. “I ate your ice cream, too.” 

You shut the freezer. Empty-handed. Frowning. “Your stomach’s just a bottomless pit, huh?” 

“I’m a growing boy.” 

“Have I told you how uncomfortable it makes me when you call your grown-ass self a boy?” you remark, settling for a bottle of water from the refrigerator. You pause before shutting the heavy steel door. “You clear out all the leftovers, too?” 

Steve peers at Bucky, the latter stuck in a thoughtful, sad stare, and nods. “Yeah. We’re all out of food at my place and I don’t get paid ‘til tomorrow night.” 

You’re frowning in consideration as you walk to the barcalounger and fall into it sideways, legs swung over the opposite armrest you’ve set your back against. “Fair enough. How was your day, Buck?” 

The question breaks him from whatever daze he’d fallen into and he blinks. Averts a steady gaze when you shift a bit to look at him. “The Jags won.” 

You smile. It’s warm, a little honeyed. “Is that good or bad?” 

“Neutral.” He can’t help but smile himself. It doesn’t even falter as he asks, “How was your date?”

A shrug. Your eyes narrow at Michael Scott as he attempts to toss pizza dough. “T’Challa got a large popcorn at the movies.” 

“Damn, he’s got money.” 

You laugh, startled. Bucky grins when you do, too. “That’s what I said! I also beat your high score at pinball in the theater arcade.” 

“Went on a date with a guy who’s got money, beat my pinball score. You’ve just had a magical day, haven’t you?” 

There’s a softness and affection in the way Bucky speaks and looks at you, your responding giggles just as sweet. Steve, sitting between the two of you, almost feels as if he’s intruding on something, an empathetic ache in his chest as he watches. “Explain the pinball thing.” 

“Bucky and I went to the movies last month and fucked around the arcade while waiting for our showtime. And he got so competitive.” You roll your eyes at the memory. “We ended up missing the movie because he was determined to beat the high score this poor kid had just set when we got there. Took him hours and, like, forty bucks in tokens.” 

“It didn’t take me hours.” 

“We got there in the afternoon and by the time we left, the employees were cleaning the popcorn machines,” your expression and tone leave no room for argument. “Only took me two hours.” 

Steve looks between you two, fighting the urge to scoff at the satisfaction in your eyes and the combination of annoyance and so much adoration in Bucky’s. “Two hours? You miss the movie again?” 

“No, I snuck out before the movie ended. Said I had to pee and went straight to the machine so none of the kids in our auditorium could take it before I got there.” You ignore Steve’s disappointed gaze. “T’Challa was confused and probably unhappy I made him sit there for so long while I played.”

“Probably unhappy?” 

“I didn’t ask.” A nonchalant shrug and you flash them a knowing smile. “Beating Bucky’s score was my priority so I could come in here and casually mention it like I’m not bragging only to bring it up everyday for the rest of his life.” 

Your eyes meet Bucky’s and, at the look you’re giving him, Bucky has to remind himself that the two of you are no longer in a relationship and he can’t just kiss the arrogance away. “Sucker.”

—

It’s a makeup caboodle. 

Pale pink and lime green. A tropical flower sticker pasted to the clasp. There’s a ribbon tied to the handle— deep magenta velvet in a neat bow. 

It’s unassuming. A little innocent looking. Like it should belong to a seventh grader in the nineties just learning how to use glitter eyeshadow and lip balm palettes. 

It’s when you pop it open, the mirror attachment springing up only to reflect Wanda’s skeptical features, that the pungent smell permeates throughout the kitchen and small living room. Skunky, but a little floral. 

A speckled glass pipe, multicolored glaze splattered over a white base, sits in the top compartment alongside a few toothpicks and a package of rolling papers. In the compartment directly below rests a round steel grinder, three-tiered and emblazoned with the engravement of a manufacturer’s name. 

The biggest compartment holds many small glass jars. Tiny mason jars you’d bought at a flea market. All different colors, all labeled with white circular stickers. 

Wanda sits up in her stool at the sight, pulls the caboodle toward herself and sifts through the jars. She removes three of the jars and looks at you with widened eyes. “You’re insane.” 

You shrug and take the grinder when she hands it to you. “I like being organized.” 

“You should see her room,” Bucky says as he shuts his bedroom door behind him, shoes in hand. He smiles at the two of you, beard freshly trimmed to just barely above stubble and eyes a bright blue. “Most organized mess I’ve ever seen.”

You nod, tearing a bit of the sour diesel bud apart to place carefully between the metal teeth in the topmost chamber. You smile at her from your spot atop the counter, legs folded and back pressed against the shelves behind you. “There’s a method to my madness, Wan. Hand me a toothpick.” 

She complies and removes a blue jar without a label. “What’s in this one?” 

“Blue dream. Jar’s blue and I ran out of stickers.” There’s a click as the lid is magnetically snapped back onto the grinder. You twist it to the left twice, then to the right once. “You picking her up or meeting her there?” 

Bucky, leant against the wall as he slips his shoes on, looks up. “What says ‘This is a real date, not a hookup’?” 

“Going to dinner and not having sex after.” 

He replies with a dry laugh and narrowed eyes. “Which of the two options— picking her up or meeting there— says that?” 

“Picking her up.” You tear the stem off the bottom of the bud and place it as a barrier over the hole in the pipe’s bowl. “Might be too late to tell her that now, though.” 

“Already told her I’d pick her up. I was just making sure I did the right thing.” You see his lips spread into a self-satisfied smirk when you finish filling the bowl. “Looks like I did.” 

You smile back, though sarcastically. “Girls like a little humility in the guys they date, you know.” 

“She’s liked me for three years now,” he says. He pulls on a jacket and pats every pocket on him to make sure he’s got his wallet and keys. “She knows what she’s herself getting into.” 

“Bucky, baby, I live with you and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.” 

Wanda snorts a laugh at that, taking the pipe and a bright pink lighter from you. 

Bucky’s eyes fall into a glare. “So normal first dates don’t end in sex?” 

“No, they don’t. Most people actually wait until after the third date. It’s, like, in the dating manual for successful relationships.” 

“Huh,” he breathes. He takes his phone when you remove it from the charger to pass it to him, smiling up at you. “Looks like we were doomed from the start.”

“Maybe.” You watch as Wanda exhales a steady stream of opaque smoke punctuated by a soft cough. You slide her bottle of water to her. “Or maybe we’re the exception to the rule. Apart, we should follow normal date conventions. But together, we were too hot to wait that long.” 

Wanda hands you the pipe and lighter. “What happened to humility?” 

Before sparking the lighter, you answer, “I’m not dating a girl.” 

Your next inhale, once you’ve adequately charred the top layer of pot, burns in your throat and you hold it in your chest. You smile at Bucky when he shoots you a sly grin, lips in a cirlce as you exhale. “Have fun. Don’t order the tiramisu. They skimp on the espresso.” 

He nods once and straightens his jacket. You watch as he unlocks the door, opens it, and steps through with a simple wave. Your eyes remain on the door even after it shuts. 

It isn’t until Wanda’s fingers brush yours that you break your stare. “What?” the question is nearly barked when she offers you a look of something eerily similar pity. 

“Nothing! You just— You look a little lovelorn.”

Your features crumple. “Ew. No, I don’t. I look amazing, you look lovelorn.” 

“Okay, Queen of the land Defensiva,” she mutters once she’s exhaled. “I’m just saying. You were staring at that door like you want to take it home to meet your mother.” 

“Maybe I do. It’s a nice color. I picked the yellow out myself.” 

“Nat told me about that night at the bar. About how Bucky flirted with that Connie chick right in front of you.” She watches as you take a hit and your head lolls back against the shelves. “That must have sucked.” 

“It did.” You trace the bumps on the ceiling and sigh. “But it’s okay. Larger picture, broad scheme of things. It’s okay.” 

“What’s that mean?” 

A shrug. You take a sip from your own bottle of water. “We’re both okay. We’re both moving on, we’re still able to be friends and roommates. I can sit here and watch him go on dates with her if that’s what it takes. A little pain for the larger cause.” 

There’s a beat of silence as Wanda takes a long drag. You break it as you muse, “Do we talk about this shit too much?” 

“Yeah, maybe. Should we order a pizza?” 

--

CHAPTER 5: ARE YOU OVERCOMPENSATING?

[millennial94meets-world]

A GENERATION: QUARANTINED.

Is it coming to you live if I’m just chilling in my apartment and taking my time blogging about the new way of life many generations are having to endure without a FaceTime selfie update? Maybe not. Who cares. 

You do. That’s why you’re reading this. Because for many of you, this is day 9 or 15 of quarantine depending on where you are in the country, and you are SO bored that you ended up in a rabbit hole that led you here. Welcome. I could use some more followers just like you could use something to do for the next ten minutes. 

For many millennials and introverts alike, nothing has changed. Nada. We are doing the same things we have been doing: avoiding human contact, jumping into rabbit holes out of boredom on social media platforms, eating take out from DoorDash, and binge watching our faves on popular platforms. So to the rest of the world...we send the warmest welcome. 

The difference? Now we are being asked to do it. 

It’s easier to stay home when you WANT to hide, but it’s a little different for some of us to stay home when you’re TOLD to hide, hence why many people are taking those cheap flights to anywhere without caution, putting bar nights on their social media stories without a care to rebel, and trying not to hit their heads against walls as they are stuck indoors with family they would otherwise optionally see occasionally. Praying for you. 

Anyways. While everyone is stuck indoors and sharing their hourly updates of how nothing has changed, or how they are continuing to innovate their new, and hopefully temporary, “norms”, I thought I could also share a few tips on how to stay positive (oh God, no, not for COVID-19), be productive working at home, still be productive if you are temporarily/indefinitely laid off, or have trouble getting through that to-do list you have been making for 5 years (don’t be ashamed, we all have one). 

Tip #1: Stay Positive. 

I know, I know. That looks more like: StAy pOsITivE, but hear me out. Wake up every morning and set one positive intention; whether it’s limiting your social media scrolling, getting a nice long yoga practice in, getting through a few chapters of a good book, turning the garage into a real gym (no, that treadmill being weighted down by your air-drying laundry does NOT count, Becky), getting a good handle on your [new] online classes, or checking up on your grandparents because #quarantinecheck . Keeping a good positive mental attitude is good for the longevity of this quarantine. This isn’t going to last forever, and it helps to make sure that even if the Corona virus doesn’t infect your immune system, that you don’t let it infect your mental health. It’s also going to help you achieve the rest of this list. 

Tip #2: Productively Working From Home.

Say good-bye to cubicles and awkward coffee breaks in the break room with that guy from IT that has a crush on you that you hardly know, and say hello to a much more hostile work environment depending on the adult and child population in your home. You’re about to find out just how much pressure you can take with that deadline. Breathe. I am not an expert on kids because I don’t have any, so I won’t pretend to be. If you’re looking on advice on how to wrangle those little devils, you’re in the wrong place, sis. For everyone else, get up like you would every morning, eh, maybe like an hour more of sleeping in, but get up, get dressed and put some concealer on or whatever. Make some coffee and find the dog/cat/rabbit/hamster leash you threw in the back of the coat closet because you and Fluffy are going for a productive brainstorming walk. Yep. You’re taking the dog, or the cat, or the rabbit, or the hamster (or whatever poor fluffy adorable creature that you never take for some productive exercise) to work from now until this sh*t is over. Make it a 10-15 minute walk (depending the type of pet) and set some productive work intentions. Make a list on your phone. When you come back, set up a creative desk area if you don’t already have one. I use one end of my dining room table by folding one of my favorite patterned scarves in half and laying down as a foundation for mental separation where the cats are NOT allowed to lay. Place some candles from your room or living room on your desk for some “office ambiance”, put up a standing picture frame if you like, notepad and pens, and maybe some cute paper weights? Whatever floats your boat. Start by checking your emails or whatever you would normally do to start the workday at the office, and just keep the ball rolling from there. Set a lunch break, and stay out of the kitchen until then (unless you, like, actually need to get a snack)! We all know what too many snacks lead to....(I’m not saying don’t eat what you want, by all means necessary, snack your PANTS OFF, but save them for after work because we are trying to get sh*t done, okay?)....anyways. If you start feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list, take a break and call your Nana or your mom or dad and chat to check in for like 15 minutes. Talk about your day with them, then get back to it. It helps to get some social interaction, especially because you would be getting that at work with your co-workers. Make sure that you set a solid time to end your “workday” and try to stick to it! You got this!

Tip #3:  Being Productive “Working From Home”.

This one is for everyone who has been told that their places of employment have been shutdown temporarily or indefinitely by the government or city officials due to risk of exposure. Set an alarm for the morning for like 9 am or 10:30 am, and get drink some water (we know you had more than a glass of wine last night, and quite frankly...same). Make some coffee or tea to-go, and strap the pup/kitty/bunny up for a walk! We are all going to get some Vitamin D and fresh air ladies and gents. While on your walk, set some daily intentions to do some school work, start a blog (hehe..), take care of any adult-responsibilities that you have been putting off because you just haven’t had time during the week to do it (your banks are still doing drive-thru extended services, so no excuses), make a chore list, make a plan of invading your local grocery store [during business hours] in hopes of finding [not hoarding] lost treasures like toilet paper, conference calling your project buddies from class so you can knock out that B+ even in quarantine because we all know the policy in the syllabus doesn’t even protect you from a worldwide quarantine, or you can take the time you need to take care of your unemployment status! You can still do so many things under these trying times. Start something new for your self or cross off some serious adulting moves. Take this time to meditate,  learn about the “joy” of meal-prepping (don’t do this one, it’s miserable), finish that weird painting you started with the girls during a poorly timed wine and paint night at your place (remember? There were snacks and more bottles than canvases and you guys got too drunk and a few brush strokes in you stopped and started to Instagram-stalk your exes and their current girlfriends?? Yeah. You remember), YouTube some yoga routines to start flowing for some MUCH needed positive stress-relief, clean the hell out of your kitchen AND closet (you know you need to donate the sh*t you don’t wear anymore. It’s just taking up space, Jen), or start doing some morning or evening runs with your dog. Take this quarantining time to start new and positive habits that you have been thinking about picking up lately but have been too busy to do so. YOU HAVE PLENTY OF TIME NOW. 

Here’s mine, I started a self-care regiment of taking super reds and greens when I get up in morning and go to bed at night, and I started getting up earlier to take my dog out to play fetch while I drink my morning coffee (I don’t run for sh*t, f**k that). Start with something small like I did. If I can do it, you can do it. 

Tip #4: Do Your “To-Dos”.

Seriously. Find that list. Make that list. Slap it on the dining room table and give it a good talking-to. Tell it about how you’re not taking anymore of its bullsh*t, and this ends this week. PROJECT YOUR FEELINGS. Then get to it. Maybe drink some coffee first? Idk. Whatever gets you going. Keep in mind a few things though:

1. It’s okay if you only do one thing today because you can take the rest of the week or the rest of the quarantine to finish it. Nobody is judging you, but you, sis (A good life mantra).

2. You are the boss of the list, not the other way around. Take charge, sis. 

3. You don’t even have to go in order from top to bottom. Maybe start with the easiest and most convenient things to do at home, and then work your way out. Or alternate between easy and more challenging if you want to make it more fun. The point is: go at your own pace, this isn’t a race. You know what they say about things that rhyme *insert enthusiastic smile and eyebrow raise here*.  

4. Do not, and I cannot stress this enough, do NOT judge yourself for how long any item has been on the list. What matters is today, and your motivation to take on these tasks. So pop some headphones in, and go get em’ tiger. 

Remember, 2020 is NOT cancelled. It’s just postponed for some self-healing. I hope this helps, and that everyone who reads it can find something that they will take away and put into motion in the weeks to come. Speaking of weeks to come, I am now out of wine, so I have to add a trip to the store to my to-do list lol.

 Happy Quarantining guys!!

[alifeasvivid]

Argh. Okay. I gotta vent for a second because I am fucking terrified.

The tendency toward making members of society more and more introverted, more and more isolated, more and more misanthropic, more and more socially anxious worries the ever-loving fuck out of me.

You can have anything you want ordered to your house and there are very few instances in which you even have to interact with the delivery person.

“Social” media is a misnomer because all anyone does on FB or twitter is curate their own life and see how it compares to the lives of their friends, family, and everyone else in the world. That’s not real, meaningful human interaction.

However it got started, there’s a pervasive feeling now that if you have introverted tendencies, there is nothing you can do to work toward still being able to interact wtih people and whatever misanthropic behavior you display is “just how you are” because you’re an “introvert.”

The same goes for social anxiety. Everyone says they have social anxiety and everyone else just echoes back “same” or “mood” like there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Here’s a thing I have learned: every part of your personality is under your control. You can change who you are and how you think by questioning who you’ve been and what you think. Never assume essentialism--there’s no part of your emotional or mental self that can’t be changed, modified, or managed differently if you don’t like it.  

I have moderate to severe bipolar disorder. No one knows this unless I explicitly tell them and they are always surprised... and I can promise you, it used to be way more obvious.

We live in a strange time. At certain times, it seems scary with people banding together under dangerous, genocidal, fascist ideas. At other times, it seems that many other people are uniting for the cause of defeating those ideas and in the name of cooperation and empathy in unprecedented ways. 

But fascism and capitalism won’t go down that easily. So we have all of these new things in the name of convenience (and yes, they are very convenient): self-checkout at supermarkets, food delivery like doordash and grubhub, Amaz*n for everything else. Many jobs can be done remotely/from home and a lot of those jobs pay really well. Any one of these things on its own is fine. The trend of pushing us all to stop seeing each other face to face, toward losing the full experience of someone’s physical presence and body language, their voice, and their facial expressions, worries me.

I love computers, I love the internet, I’m always excited to see the ways in which technology develops and how it can be used to help people. This is not “dang kids not even looking up from their smart telephones ever.” This isn’t “technology bad, fire scary.”

What scares me is this societally-encouraged, self-enforced isolation. 

Everyone complains about how annoying it is to have to deal with other people. I’m on the front lines of that: I work retail. Customers annoy sales associates and sales associates annoy customers.

How can we unite and stand up for our collective interests when we feel like we can’t even talk to each other? How can we even know if we have collective interests if we can’t step into someone else’s life and engage with them and let them engage with us? How can we even be human, a species which has thrived due to its adaptability and innate talent for cooperation, if we can’t adapt and can’t cooperate?

I’m not trying to come across as apocalyptic here and I’m definitely not trying to bash introverts or people who have social anxiety. There’s nothing wrong with being private and reserved, but I think making any one characteristic the one that defines you is not a good idea and I see people doing that with introversion. Social anxiety is a problem that can absolutely be overcome, it’s extremely difficult, but it is defintely not impossible. And if you are working to manage your anxiety, that’s awesome! I’m so proud and I would love to hear about it.

I don’t think self-check out and uber eats and smartphones are the end of human civilization, but I do think that the fact that it’s so easy to avoid people more often is causing a lot of pain and loneliness... and I hate seeing anyone in pain... and I hate being lonely.

[onemansbaddatinglife]

November 29th 2020 - Twist and Turns of life

So starting this story out, I’ve been seeing “Christian Girl” for awhile. On and off. After a few months of seeing each other she admitted to falling in love with me. However she didn’t want to ‘be with me’. Which hurt but I stuck around hoping she’d change her mind.  A few weeks ago while prodding her to understand why she would say she’s in love with me but wouldn’t be with me, she explained that she doesn’t feel like I’d make a good father. A bit of background, my father passed away when I was 6, and I’ve spent most of my life dreaming of being a father one day. Maybe it sounds stupid, but I desperately want to be the father to my kids that my dad wasn’t given the chance to be. Don’t get me wrong, he was an amazing dad, but he was taken too early on and didn’t get to watch us grow up. So that’s always sort of been my goal. Anyways. I last saw Christian girl, who my friend group now refers to as “Simba” (Read August 2nd) on November 24th. She came to my house after everyone left for work and while I was working from home. We spent a few hours snuggling, kissing, and whatever else ended up happening. On Wednesday she sent me a text “Missu” and sent me a selfie of her in bed. Something seemed off though. So I sent her a text saying good morning and trying to talk to her. No reply. As the day went on I’d send a few more text, but never receiving replies. On Friday, November 27th, I called her phone at like 5am. Usually she woke up early for work and would text me so I figured she’d be awake. She answered and acted weird. I asked why she had ghosted me and she danced around the question for awhile. After an hour of talking she admitted that the next day she started talking to her exboyfriend from college’s best friend that tried getting with her after she had split with her ex. (This would’ve been like, 10ish years ago). She said she “doesn’t like talking to multiple people at a time and felt like he’d be better for her” or some bullshit. I spent the next day or so extremely depressed because I foolishly thought she was going to get over the drama and finally officially be with me. My mistake. So Saturday night comes around. Another girl I had matched with and casually texted with told me she had just gotten home from Ohio (drove) and had some edibles for me. She said if I’d like, I can come over and get them and stay the night with her.  Since I’m heartbroken and wanting to get over Simba, I agreed. I drove an hour out to Denton, Texas and went to her apartment. She sat across the room from me for a few minutes which was odd, then got a call from her sister asking her to pick up her (sisters) kids from their dad because she (the sister) was still at work. The girl asked me if I wanted to come, and then said “errr wait you probably shouldn’t. I don’t want my sister to find out I’m talking to someone and tell my family and make things weird.” Then asked if I’d stay at her apartment until she returned. I figured since I just drove an hour in a wild ass storm (if you’re from Texas, you know how crazy our ‘storms’ get) that, yeah fuck it. So I laid on her bed and scrolled through my phone and waited for her to return. After half an hour the girl texted me again that her sister needed her to babysit the kids and that she’d be gone awhile and asked if we could just reschedule. I was pissed that I drove all that way to basically get ditched and told to leave. So I told her don’t worry about rescheduling, we can text and see where things go from there. Then proceeded to drive an hour home. Once I got home, another girl I had been casually texting said that she was free tonight and wanted to see me. I was iffy at first because I had just dealt with one girl I really like ghosting me, and another girl I was trying to see inviting me over then bailing and texting me to leave. But I said whatever fuck it and went. So now I’m driving another hour, in the same big ass storm, to the opposite side of Dallas, Texas to a city called “Terrell”. I go to a Holiday inn, check in and get a room, and go upstairs. The girl comes in and she’s a bit awkward, but its whatever. We snuggle for a bit, then she goes into the restroom to shower and ‘freshen up’. While she’s in the shower, I order some Applebees because the restaurant was so close you could see it out of our window. When she comes out of the bathroom, we snuggle for a bit more and wait for my order.. After over an hour of waiting, we decide to say fuck it and start making out. We eventually fuck and after, I check my food status because I was like “where the fuck is my food?” Doordash finally tells me “yeah we can’t find anyone to deliver. Do you want a refund or we can give you $36 “Doordash credit”. (The food I had ordered was like, $41). So I’m annoyed and ask for the refund which apparently takes 5-7 business days. Annoyed, I ask the girl if she’d like anything from Whataburger or if she’d like to come with and she declined. She said she was exhausted and wanted to sleep. I put my clothes and shoes on and walk out. As I walk down the hallway, I notice another girl, looked to be about 16, sitting outside of her door with her head in her arms. Something felt a bit off so as I approached (headed for the elevator), I asked if she was okay. She looked up and smiled and said “yeah I’m just fighting with some friends.” I noticed she had some tear spots on her dark red shirt. So I said “Okay.” and kept walking. I pressed the elevator button around the corner and waited. As I waited, I couldn’t help but to feel bad for the poor girl. So I leaned around the corner and said “Hey, I’m gonna go get food.. did you want anything?..” at which point her face lit up and she said she’d appreciate that as she hasn’t eaten. I walked over an exchanged numbers with her so she could text me what she wanted. I texted her a little bit on my way to Whataburger, and found out she was from a neighboring town, and we made small talk. When I got back to the hotel I walked up to her and handed her a drink and a bag of food she had requested. She thanked me and I made sure to let her know that if she needed anything, she could text me. I proceeded back to my room, and ate. I couldn’t get her out of my head, so I sent her another text and asked if she had been kicked out of the room. She replied she had. I offered to rent her a room for the night. However she said that her friends came out after I went into my room (I guess because they heard me talking to her) and let her back in. I told her that regardless, if she needed anything, text me asap and I’ll help out.  She never texted me. --- Despite the shit week I had, and the fucked up way the night had started out, I feel good about what happened. If Simba hadn’t ghosted me, again, and if the other chick hadn’t changed her mind and asked me to leave, I wouldn’t have met up with this other chick, in another city, and wouldn’t had been there for the girl crying in the hotel hall. And even though I didn’t do anything insane for the girl, the fact I was willing to stop and check on someone and buy them food, despite them being a stranger, sits warmly in my heart. We live in an age where so many people would’ve seen a crying chick and walked by thinking “That’s not my business”, or would’ve asked if she was okay, but would’ve accepted “yes I’m fine” as a valid response. Even though we all know that “yes I’m fine” is a reflex response because we’ve learned over years that sometimes it doesn’t matter how you feel, no one cares. But I promise you sometimes people do care, and not doing anything to help will eat away at them. I didn’t do anything spectacular for the girl. In fact, I’m aware I was at the hotel sort of being a douchebag by seeing multiple chicks in one night after being ghosted by another chick I was seeing. Regardless, I saw someone that needed a friend and I wanted to make sure I could help in whatever manner the girl felt comfortable accepting help. Give your heart but keep your head. 

[easyfoodnetwork]

Your Reservation Has Been Cancelled

How apps like OpenTable, Tock, and Resy are pivoting to keep themselves — and restaurants — afloat in a world without bookings

Gregory and Daisy Ryan opened Bell’s, a 35-seat French bistro in Los Alamos, California, in 2018. The pair had worked in restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin before returning to Daisy’s hometown. The couple had several choices when it came to online reservation booking platforms and ultimately went with Tock, a system that they say worked so well, the restaurant didn’t even need a phone. “I didn’t want to have people sitting at the bar and listen to me explain something that someone can find on the internet,” says Gregory Ryan. “I didn’t want that to ruin someone’s experience.” During a typical dinner service pre-COVID-19, about 80 percent of guests had reservations.

Because of its location, in a small town near California’s central coast wine country, Bell’s wasn’t beholden to the early occupancy reduction mandates, and later closures, that happened so quickly in major cities like New York and San Francisco in response to the spread of COVID-19. “It wasn’t until the second week of March that we knew something was on its way — but we didn’t know what it looked like yet,” Gregory Ryan says. He tried to figure out a way to use Tock to accommodate takeout instead of reservations and events in an effort to stay open. Plus, the restaurant didn’t ever offer takeout before. “Not because we think we’re too good for it, or anything,” he says. “Because we only have two [chefs] on the line.”

But before he could figure out a technical solution on his own, he says, Tock contacted him offering a new online ordering system he could implement quickly. When he first considered takeout, Gregory Ryan says, “I was like, ‘Oh, shit, am I going to have to get a phone?’ My staff was like, ‘No, absolutely not.’” Today, Bell’s remains phone-free.

“We opened a restaurant for certain reasons,” he says. He didn’t ever expect takeout to be his business’s lifeline.

Since the spread of COVID-19 began forcing restaurants across the country to cease dining room operations, there’s been much talk about its effect on both individual restaurants and the industry as a whole. But what about the industries that support it? Reservation services like Tock, OpenTable, Yelp, and Resy are big business, and make their money by charging restaurants to use the software. Diners use them to book available tables, and restaurants also use them to manage their dining rooms’ floor plan and record notes about customers. It’s how the host knows where to seat you when you show up for your 8 p.m. booking.

Plans vary, but a restaurant can expect to pay at least several hundred dollars per month for a basic plan that includes both reservations and table management. Prices go up from there depending on additional features like custom messaging, ticketed events, or, in OpenTable’s case, the number of people it brings in the door. OpenTable collects a per-diner commission fee on each reservation it facilitates, and busy restaurants can expect a monthly bill that easily stretches into thousands of dollars.

Of all the brands, OpenTable is the largest reservations service in the U.S. In mid-March, as the national rollout of dining restrictions was just beginning, the company released year-over-year data that showed a 45 percent diner reduction in Seattle, 40 percent in San Francisco, 30 percent in New York, and 25 percent in London, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Ten days later, on March 23, every market listed on OpenTable’s COVID-19-inspired state of the industry dashboard showed a 95 to 100 percent reduction in bookings. That is: There were essentially zero reservations booked at the nearly 60,000 restaurants the company supports worldwide.

In response to the slowdown, OpenTable and its competitors have been forced to pivot as quickly as the restaurants they serve. All fairly quickly suspended most fees they charge restaurants to use their software. They’ve also proactively begun making changes to their apps and website to reflect the realities of the restaurant business today, offering both temporary and permanent solutions for restaurants that saw their operations upended overnight.

OpenTable added a grocery feature, allowing shoppers to reserve a shopping time slot at a store the same way they’d book a seating time at a restaurant. According to Andrea Johnston, OpenTable’s chief operating officer, the idea came from an OpenTable advisory board member — a restaurateur himself — who noticed that many restaurants were operating as small grocers to stay open. So far, in OpenTable’s hometown of San Francisco, just a handful of businesses offer the service, but Johnston says the company is actively onboarding several large regional grocery chains, with more to come. She confirmed that the service is free for all grocery stores and restaurants-turned-grocers, whether or not they’ve worked with OpenTable in the past.

“I hope that the world won’t continue to need a product that supports grocery store reservations.”

Johnston says she’s also encouraging partner restaurants to update their profiles to reflect current operations, including delivery, takeout, gift cards, and fundraisers, which are then displayed in the OpenTable app. The company is waiving gift card fees through June; previously, restaurants paid $25 per month to sell gift cards through the OpenTable system. And at this point more than 1,500 restaurants have added their fundraising efforts to their listings, Johnston says.

OpenTable had already added a delivery category to its app in 2019. Listings are in partnership with companies like Uber Eats and Caviar, which each charge their own fees on top of the booking service. In the last month or so, clicks on delivery options within the app have grown 172 percent.

A reservations app probably isn’t the first stop for a diner looking to support local restaurants right now, and in response, these companies have had to modify their marketing strategies. To diners, OpenTable, Tock, and Resy have all begun sending emails with lists of partner restaurants open for delivery or takeout. To restaurants, they’re sending a steady stream of news, ideas, and tactical information to survive. OpenTable has launched a dedicated restaurant resource center to share news and product information related to the coronavirus pandemic, and hosts a weekly webinar series for restaurants. Resy, too, just announced a new industry-focused podcast in partnership with the Welcome Conference.

“It has been nice to see that for the most part they’ve been doing what they can to support us — obviously knowing that supporting us supports them in the long run,” says Gina Buck, general manager of Concord Hill, a small Brooklyn restaurant that uses OpenTable. The restaurant remains open for takeout, serving food and cocktails seven days per week from noon until 10 p.m.

Speaking from the middle of her new busy workday fielding, packaging, and distributing to-go orders, Buck says she isn’t sure what more reservations services could offer to help. “I think the normal before this has completely died and will never exist again,” she says. “We’re able to stay open. We’re doing okay. It’s just two of us — we can’t afford to bring anyone else in at the moment, but we are getting through this.”

OpenTable competitor Resy has also shifted its strategy to support eating at home. Instead of reservations, diners can order takeout food directly through its app and website. They select a meal option, choose a pickup time, and pay, all through the Resy platform.

Greg Lutes is chef-owner of 3rd Cousin, one of the handful of restaurants in San Francisco that’s currently offering takeout via Resy. “It’s useful, but there’s not much volume in it,” he says, noting that they’ve sold “a few meals” through the platform. He also signed up with Uber Eats and DoorDash for the first time, but says most customers just call orders in to the restaurant directly.

When a customer books a pickup on Resy, it’s communicated to the restaurant the same way a reservation would be: in an app that’s meant for a front-of-house staffer to manage. Lutes was recently surprised by a customer who showed up at the restaurant to pick up a family meal he had only just ordered. Even so, he plans to continue offering takeout through Resy, and isn’t worried about accepting orders from multiple sources. “We need all the revenue we can get,” he says. Resy has also modified the format of the restaurant pages on its website to allow operators to link to outside initiatives, like fundraisers. “It’s so that customers can see all of the preferred ways that their favorite restaurants are asking for support,” says Resy co-founder and CEO Ben Leventhal.

Tock went a step further, building out an entirely new product — in a week.

While all the big booking services have adjusted their functionality to meet the moment, reservations and event ticketing service Tock, used by more than 3,000 restaurants worldwide, went a step further, building out an entirely new product — in a week. Tock To Go launched March 16 for existing and new Tock customers. It allows customers to reserve and purchase restaurant meals for pickup or delivery and charges the restaurant a fee of 3 percent per order. (Tock has waived its regular monthly fees.) “We cannot operate without doing that,” says Nick Kokonas, Tock’s co-founder and CEO, who’s also the co-owner of Chicago’s Alinea Group restaurants.

Tock’s To Go system has allowed restaurants to sell completely new, exclusive-to-takeout offerings, something that’s proven useful for the kind of fine dining and higher-end establishments that Tock has become known for. In New York, Dan Barber’s Blue Hill restaurants are offering takeaway boxes of various goods at both the Manhattan and Tarrytown locations. Customers can select from a variety of options, including stews and purees, garden vegetables, grass-fed beef, dry-aged pheasant, bread, and even a sommelier-selected bottle of wine to accompany a diner’s selections.

In San Francisco, Tosca Cafe recently reopened under new ownership in the midst of the pandemic by selling family-style dinners — shrimp alfredo, spaghetti alla Norma — to go on Tock, and in LA, sister restaurants Bestia and Bavel are both offering weekly changing menus that have sold out within days of being listed on Tock. Proceeds go to maintain employee health care, and chef-owner Ori Menashe says if demand remains high, he may even be able to re-hire some staff to keep up.

Kokonas says that Tock currently supports close to 400 restaurants offering takeout across the U.S., Europe, and Australia, with another 650 in some stage of onboarding. One month in, the company already processes nearly $1 million in to-go sales per day. On one weekday earlier this month, restaurants on the platform sold 11,700 orders for nearly 40,000 meals.

“Tock is not just a booking system,” says Kokonas, “it’s a sales engine ... and it links and leverages, meaningfully and transparently, to the largest networks — search and social media.”

At Bell’s, Gregory Ryan uses social channels to promote the restaurant’s current offerings on Tock To Go, including kits for making the restaurant’s popular egg salad sandwich at home, and other a la carte offerings, like CSA-style produce boxes. Ryan likes that Tock’s system of pre-ordering gives restaurant staff some idea of what to expect each day. It also helps him know how much of which ingredients and supplies to purchase.

“That’s why takeout is always tough, because you’re never really sure when something’s going to come,” he says. “But if you’re able to wake up in the morning and know, ‘We have seven takeout orders, six chicken dinners tonight, and an egg salad,’ you’re at least working toward something. As those continue to populate [throughout the day] you’re a little bit better able to handle the information.”

He’s also happy that it’s allowed him to continue to keep 11 of his employees on payroll, though he says everyone has taken “a little bit of a haircut” on their paychecks. (Ryan and his wife stopped paying themselves completely.)

Still, even with new measures in place, not all booking platforms are pivoting as gracefully. So far, Yelp is the only major reservations provider to announce a reduction in staff, laying off or furloughing 2,100 of its approximately 6,000 employees. OpenTable’s Johnston says for them, anything related to a layoff would be “an absolute last resort.” At Tock, Kokonas says he will be hiring soon. “We never really stopped,” he says. “The only tricky part to bringing on new employees is training... We will figure that out.”

As they work to support restaurants, executives at reservations companies are asking the same questions as chefs and restaurateurs: How long will this last? Will anyone even want to come and sit down for a meal in a few weeks? “Restaurants are going to reopen at some point with occupancy restrictions, extra and important safety measures, and lower demand,” says Kokonas. “Yet — and this is very important — the fixed costs of rent and utilities remain the same, and the business model was built with high demand in mind.”

Leventhal indicates that Resy would likely continue to support its expanded initiatives in the future, but stops short of confirming any product changes. “This is without a doubt a reset moment for the industry,” he says. “Evolution, innovation, and creativity are going to be crucial for restaurants, and the tech platforms that support them, to survive in a post-COVID world.”

Tock To Go is now a permanent part of Tock’s functionality moving forward, built directly into the product’s dashboard. It’s an acknowledgement that the industry isn’t going to go back to “normal” anytime soon, and much about the future of the industry is unknown. “Will there be a market for $35 takeout meals in 2022? Who knows?” says Kokonas.

For OpenTable, Johnston says the company will continue to offer new options as long as restaurants need them. “I hope that the world won’t continue to need a product that supports grocery store reservations,” she says, “but we will keep it free and available as long as necessary.”

Disclosure: Resy’s Ben Leventhal was one of the co-founders of Eater, but is no longer involved in its operations.

Kristen Hawley writes about restaurant operations, technology, and the future of the business from San Francisco. She’s the founder of Expedite, a restaurant technology newsletter that’s existed, in some form, for the last seven years.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2VrjjGv https://ift.tt/34TS7Dq

How apps like OpenTable, Tock, and Resy are pivoting to keep themselves — and restaurants — afloat in a world without bookings

Gregory and Daisy Ryan opened Bell’s, a 35-seat French bistro in Los Alamos, California, in 2018. The pair had worked in restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin before returning to Daisy’s hometown. The couple had several choices when it came to online reservation booking platforms and ultimately went with Tock, a system that they say worked so well, the restaurant didn’t even need a phone. “I didn’t want to have people sitting at the bar and listen to me explain something that someone can find on the internet,” says Gregory Ryan. “I didn’t want that to ruin someone’s experience.” During a typical dinner service pre-COVID-19, about 80 percent of guests had reservations.

Because of its location, in a small town near California’s central coast wine country, Bell’s wasn’t beholden to the early occupancy reduction mandates, and later closures, that happened so quickly in major cities like New York and San Francisco in response to the spread of COVID-19. “It wasn’t until the second week of March that we knew something was on its way — but we didn’t know what it looked like yet,” Gregory Ryan says. He tried to figure out a way to use Tock to accommodate takeout instead of reservations and events in an effort to stay open. Plus, the restaurant didn’t ever offer takeout before. “Not because we think we’re too good for it, or anything,” he says. “Because we only have two [chefs] on the line.”

But before he could figure out a technical solution on his own, he says, Tock contacted him offering a new online ordering system he could implement quickly. When he first considered takeout, Gregory Ryan says, “I was like, ‘Oh, shit, am I going to have to get a phone?’ My staff was like, ‘No, absolutely not.’” Today, Bell’s remains phone-free.

“We opened a restaurant for certain reasons,” he says. He didn’t ever expect takeout to be his business’s lifeline.

Since the spread of COVID-19 began forcing restaurants across the country to cease dining room operations, there’s been much talk about its effect on both individual restaurants and the industry as a whole. But what about the industries that support it? Reservation services like Tock, OpenTable, Yelp, and Resy are big business, and make their money by charging restaurants to use the software. Diners use them to book available tables, and restaurants also use them to manage their dining rooms’ floor plan and record notes about customers. It’s how the host knows where to seat you when you show up for your 8 p.m. booking.

Plans vary, but a restaurant can expect to pay at least several hundred dollars per month for a basic plan that includes both reservations and table management. Prices go up from there depending on additional features like custom messaging, ticketed events, or, in OpenTable’s case, the number of people it brings in the door. OpenTable collects a per-diner commission fee on each reservation it facilitates, and busy restaurants can expect a monthly bill that easily stretches into thousands of dollars.

Of all the brands, OpenTable is the largest reservations service in the U.S. In mid-March, as the national rollout of dining restrictions was just beginning, the company released year-over-year data that showed a 45 percent diner reduction in Seattle, 40 percent in San Francisco, 30 percent in New York, and 25 percent in London, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Ten days later, on March 23, every market listed on OpenTable’s COVID-19-inspired state of the industry dashboard showed a 95 to 100 percent reduction in bookings. That is: There were essentially zero reservations booked at the nearly 60,000 restaurants the company supports worldwide.

In response to the slowdown, OpenTable and its competitors have been forced to pivot as quickly as the restaurants they serve. All fairly quickly suspended most fees they charge restaurants to use their software. They’ve also proactively begun making changes to their apps and website to reflect the realities of the restaurant business today, offering both temporary and permanent solutions for restaurants that saw their operations upended overnight.

OpenTable added a grocery feature, allowing shoppers to reserve a shopping time slot at a store the same way they’d book a seating time at a restaurant. According to Andrea Johnston, OpenTable’s chief operating officer, the idea came from an OpenTable advisory board member — a restaurateur himself — who noticed that many restaurants were operating as small grocers to stay open. So far, in OpenTable’s hometown of San Francisco, just a handful of businesses offer the service, but Johnston says the company is actively onboarding several large regional grocery chains, with more to come. She confirmed that the service is free for all grocery stores and restaurants-turned-grocers, whether or not they’ve worked with OpenTable in the past.

“I hope that the world won’t continue to need a product that supports grocery store reservations.”

Johnston says she’s also encouraging partner restaurants to update their profiles to reflect current operations, including delivery, takeout, gift cards, and fundraisers, which are then displayed in the OpenTable app. The company is waiving gift card fees through June; previously, restaurants paid $25 per month to sell gift cards through the OpenTable system. And at this point more than 1,500 restaurants have added their fundraising efforts to their listings, Johnston says.

OpenTable had already added a delivery category to its app in 2019. Listings are in partnership with companies like Uber Eats and Caviar, which each charge their own fees on top of the booking service. In the last month or so, clicks on delivery options within the app have grown 172 percent.

A reservations app probably isn’t the first stop for a diner looking to support local restaurants right now, and in response, these companies have had to modify their marketing strategies. To diners, OpenTable, Tock, and Resy have all begun sending emails with lists of partner restaurants open for delivery or takeout. To restaurants, they’re sending a steady stream of news, ideas, and tactical information to survive. OpenTable has launched a dedicated restaurant resource center to share news and product information related to the coronavirus pandemic, and hosts a weekly webinar series for restaurants. Resy, too, just announced a new industry-focused podcast in partnership with the Welcome Conference.

“It has been nice to see that for the most part they’ve been doing what they can to support us — obviously knowing that supporting us supports them in the long run,” says Gina Buck, general manager of Concord Hill, a small Brooklyn restaurant that uses OpenTable. The restaurant remains open for takeout, serving food and cocktails seven days per week from noon until 10 p.m.

Speaking from the middle of her new busy workday fielding, packaging, and distributing to-go orders, Buck says she isn’t sure what more reservations services could offer to help. “I think the normal before this has completely died and will never exist again,” she says. “We’re able to stay open. We’re doing okay. It’s just two of us — we can’t afford to bring anyone else in at the moment, but we are getting through this.”

OpenTable competitor Resy has also shifted its strategy to support eating at home. Instead of reservations, diners can order takeout food directly through its app and website. They select a meal option, choose a pickup time, and pay, all through the Resy platform.

Greg Lutes is chef-owner of 3rd Cousin, one of the handful of restaurants in San Francisco that’s currently offering takeout via Resy. “It’s useful, but there’s not much volume in it,” he says, noting that they’ve sold “a few meals” through the platform. He also signed up with Uber Eats and DoorDash for the first time, but says most customers just call orders in to the restaurant directly.

When a customer books a pickup on Resy, it’s communicated to the restaurant the same way a reservation would be: in an app that’s meant for a front-of-house staffer to manage. Lutes was recently surprised by a customer who showed up at the restaurant to pick up a family meal he had only just ordered. Even so, he plans to continue offering takeout through Resy, and isn’t worried about accepting orders from multiple sources. “We need all the revenue we can get,” he says. Resy has also modified the format of the restaurant pages on its website to allow operators to link to outside initiatives, like fundraisers. “It’s so that customers can see all of the preferred ways that their favorite restaurants are asking for support,” says Resy co-founder and CEO Ben Leventhal.

Tock went a step further, building out an entirely new product — in a week.

While all the big booking services have adjusted their functionality to meet the moment, reservations and event ticketing service Tock, used by more than 3,000 restaurants worldwide, went a step further, building out an entirely new product — in a week. Tock To Go launched March 16 for existing and new Tock customers. It allows customers to reserve and purchase restaurant meals for pickup or delivery and charges the restaurant a fee of 3 percent per order. (Tock has waived its regular monthly fees.) “We cannot operate without doing that,” says Nick Kokonas, Tock’s co-founder and CEO, who’s also the co-owner of Chicago’s Alinea Group restaurants.

Tock’s To Go system has allowed restaurants to sell completely new, exclusive-to-takeout offerings, something that’s proven useful for the kind of fine dining and higher-end establishments that Tock has become known for. In New York, Dan Barber’s Blue Hill restaurants are offering takeaway boxes of various goods at both the Manhattan and Tarrytown locations. Customers can select from a variety of options, including stews and purees, garden vegetables, grass-fed beef, dry-aged pheasant, bread, and even a sommelier-selected bottle of wine to accompany a diner’s selections.

In San Francisco, Tosca Cafe recently reopened under new ownership in the midst of the pandemic by selling family-style dinners — shrimp alfredo, spaghetti alla Norma — to go on Tock, and in LA, sister restaurants Bestia and Bavel are both offering weekly changing menus that have sold out within days of being listed on Tock. Proceeds go to maintain employee health care, and chef-owner Ori Menashe says if demand remains high, he may even be able to re-hire some staff to keep up.

Kokonas says that Tock currently supports close to 400 restaurants offering takeout across the U.S., Europe, and Australia, with another 650 in some stage of onboarding. One month in, the company already processes nearly $1 million in to-go sales per day. On one weekday earlier this month, restaurants on the platform sold 11,700 orders for nearly 40,000 meals.

“Tock is not just a booking system,” says Kokonas, “it’s a sales engine ... and it links and leverages, meaningfully and transparently, to the largest networks — search and social media.”

At Bell’s, Gregory Ryan uses social channels to promote the restaurant’s current offerings on Tock To Go, including kits for making the restaurant’s popular egg salad sandwich at home, and other a la carte offerings, like CSA-style produce boxes. Ryan likes that Tock’s system of pre-ordering gives restaurant staff some idea of what to expect each day. It also helps him know how much of which ingredients and supplies to purchase.

“That’s why takeout is always tough, because you’re never really sure when something’s going to come,” he says. “But if you’re able to wake up in the morning and know, ‘We have seven takeout orders, six chicken dinners tonight, and an egg salad,’ you’re at least working toward something. As those continue to populate [throughout the day] you’re a little bit better able to handle the information.”

He’s also happy that it’s allowed him to continue to keep 11 of his employees on payroll, though he says everyone has taken “a little bit of a haircut” on their paychecks. (Ryan and his wife stopped paying themselves completely.)

Still, even with new measures in place, not all booking platforms are pivoting as gracefully. So far, Yelp is the only major reservations provider to announce a reduction in staff, laying off or furloughing 2,100 of its approximately 6,000 employees. OpenTable’s Johnston says for them, anything related to a layoff would be “an absolute last resort.” At Tock, Kokonas says he will be hiring soon. “We never really stopped,” he says. “The only tricky part to bringing on new employees is training... We will figure that out.”

As they work to support restaurants, executives at reservations companies are asking the same questions as chefs and restaurateurs: How long will this last? Will anyone even want to come and sit down for a meal in a few weeks? “Restaurants are going to reopen at some point with occupancy restrictions, extra and important safety measures, and lower demand,” says Kokonas. “Yet — and this is very important — the fixed costs of rent and utilities remain the same, and the business model was built with high demand in mind.”

Leventhal indicates that Resy would likely continue to support its expanded initiatives in the future, but stops short of confirming any product changes. “This is without a doubt a reset moment for the industry,” he says. “Evolution, innovation, and creativity are going to be crucial for restaurants, and the tech platforms that support them, to survive in a post-COVID world.”

Tock To Go is now a permanent part of Tock’s functionality moving forward, built directly into the product’s dashboard. It’s an acknowledgement that the industry isn’t going to go back to “normal” anytime soon, and much about the future of the industry is unknown. “Will there be a market for $35 takeout meals in 2022? Who knows?” says Kokonas.

For OpenTable, Johnston says the company will continue to offer new options as long as restaurants need them. “I hope that the world won’t continue to need a product that supports grocery store reservations,” she says, “but we will keep it free and available as long as necessary.”

Disclosure: Resy’s Ben Leventhal was one of the co-founders of Eater, but is no longer involved in its operations.

Kristen Hawley writes about restaurant operations, technology, and the future of the business from San Francisco. She’s the founder of Expedite, a restaurant technology newsletter that’s existed, in some form, for the last seven years.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2VrjjGv via Blogger https://ift.tt/34VEbc1

[topicprinter]

Hey /r/Entrepreneur! Its Rich, maker of Failory, a website where I weekly interview entrepreneurs (failed and successful ones). Today we published an interview with Bruno, the CEO of Trackin, a startup that releases technology for companies to start a food delivery business. He rapidly built the MVP, acquired $25,000 from the 3 best French entrepreneurs, and started with different marketing campaigns. Today, Tracking is making +$167,000/month!Here are the main points:Idea: Bruno was CTO of a catering company and found one of their main pain points was the delivery and finding out where the food was.Development: They spent a few months building an MVP.Marketing: Online marketing (SEO, AdWords, blog, content creation), direct sales and product growth.Mistakes: Bruno has commited huge mistake when hiring the team.Revenue: $167,000/monthProfit: They became profitable two years ago. But Bruno reinvests everything in the business so in that sense there is no actual profit. Learn from idea to monetization, including mistakes and obstacles, how did he achieve it!Hi Bruno! What's your background, and what are you currently working on?Hi Failory!I have a master degree in Computer Science, and I’ve learned how to code and use computers when I was 12. I released my first website when I was 14 years old. At that time XHTML was fancy and JavaScript was the ENEMY. I was also leading a couple of video game teams that were at the top of the French scene.Even though I’m a ‘tech guy’, I’ve also always been a people person, which allowed me to build products while creating direct relationships with people who needed them and acquire skills that some techies might not have.I’m currently the CEO of Trackin, which has released the technology for any company to start a food delivery business within a day, and MobyDish, which is our main focus today. MobyDish is a full-catering online service for companies of 10 to 1000+ people. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I’ve always been an entrepreneur. As a kid, I was a student of a private school, and hanging out with kids that received money from their parents. In order to have the same level of life than them and not be left behind, I would find out what students would need, and just make it happen!Before my work on Trackin, I was CTO of another catering company. One of our main pain points was the delivery and find out where the food was. It really makes you look bad to not be able to answer such question when the order size is worth $1k+. I quickly realized that it was a worldwide problem. Even the big brands like Pizza Hut didn’t know what was going on with their drivers as soon as they left a restaurant. I looked up online and didn’t find any technology to streamline deliveries, so I just went ahead, quit my job, my visa, my girlfriend, and life in San Francisco. I went back to France and started to work on the tech!Then long story short, I showed it around the world to different restaurants after a few months and an MVP, then I launched it, got some interesting growth and joined Y-Combinator.Being half French and half Italian, I really care about food, and I couldn’t keep seeing people having bad experiences towards it. It definitely made sense to come up with technology so that people stop being scared to order food online and wait for hours without any news from the restaurant.Also, as a people person, I do care a lot about user experience and making people happy. With MobyDish, it is the perfect opportunity to have a huge impact on the food space and to connect people together, the right way.The idea is not just to feed people but to create such a great and easy experience, that we’ll democratize catering like Airbnb democratized renting apartments from individuals, globally. How did you build Trackin?I will always remember the first days working on Trackin. Looking for the right name, right domain, right design. I spent about 3 days working of the first version on the logo, and my computer crashed...my work on Photoshop was all gone before I got a chance to save it...Worst day of my life at that time, and first lesson learned...Save your work ALL THE TIME.I pitched the idea to a few people and a friend decided to join the journey as a backend engineer/DevOps while I’d take care of the rest.After a few months building the MVP, I’ve traveled to meet with restaurants, collect data and improve our tech and features. The first time I tried to show the product to restaurants, I was petrified. I felt like my baby, ideas and product were about to be judged for the first time. Fortunately, people liked it.Then, in order to scale, I needed to find money to hire some people. We won some French national contests, got money from the government, loans, banks, and other European awards that gave us enough to hire people.Unfortunately, my friend decided to leave the startup to focus on his full-time job instead of Trackin.With all the excitement around us and my knowledge of the food space, I decided to take over his role as well and kept working on Trackin as a solo founder. After six months of improvements, and a couple of press release, I closed our first paying customer (which wasn’t even a restaurant but an alcohol delivery company at night) and things became real. I officially incorporated the company and hired interns to get things going. Dealing with inquiries, marketing, and sales.The first version looked okay, but pretty bad for my current standard, and the new generation of employees was able to use it pretty easily. I’ve always enjoyed showing the product to someone and just stare at how the person would interact with it, where he would struggle, what kind of questions he would have...at that time there weren’t yet online tools to record the online experience and stream it back at you ;)I will always remember how I was answering to calls from my first customers at 2 am. I would be pushing code and new Android apps based on their problems the minute we’d hang up to keep them happy (like connectivity issues, UX, etc.).Our first pricing model was to charge per driver tracked on the platform, kind of salesforce charges for number of seats, but it didn’t make sense for restaurants. Then we decided to charge per deliveries. We felt like it was easier to convert restaurants this way because if they were just launching or were small, we were helping them grow faster, at a lower cost. If they were already established, they would pay more because they use us more and would improve their service, brand, and efficiency.When I’ve started, I knew nothing about sales processes, but I’ve learned by talking to people with more experience than me. Then I started to execute. We grew 10x in 4 months and I got lucky enough to sit down with Michael Seibel in my city (Lyon, France). After having dinner with him and sharing my story, he invited me to apply to YC.I didn’t think twice to jump on the opportunity, rented a house in San Jose, left my life in France, sold my furniture, gave up on my lease, prepared my employees, and moved back to California...Then I went through the program, learned a ton, fundraised enough to survive and then started to work on MobyDish. Which were your marketing strategies to grow your business?I’d say there are not many secrets to growth. Combining techniques and doing it the right way by paying attention to details and knowing what you do is key.I’ve always been good at multitasking, and quick growth, to me, means combining many channels, then focus on the ones that work for your business.My main idea though as always trying to create a strong brand, and it has a lot to do with growth. People need to be emotionally attached to what I create. Long term, it decreases marketing costs, increases retention and organic growth.Online Marketing (SEO, Adwords, Blog, Content creation)Find out who your target is, what keywords they’re looking for when they have the pain points you’re trying to solve.Address these pain points through blog articles, short sentences for SEO and ads, etc. Establish your credibility by sending these in newsletters or on social media.Direct sales:Almost everything can be automated or outsourced nowadays. But when I started I did learn by doing all of it myself. Although I hadn’t realized how important it was to start with a good list of leads. Talking to salespeople I quickly came up with ideas on how to automate SDR, Follow up and Sales pitch.Constant email tweaks, A/B testing and looking at opening rates/conversion rate is key.Product growth:Just think about ways your users can recommend you or add gamification for stickiness and make your users feel great about your product. Then when you make them feel great, invite them to talk about your product to someone else! I always use the Candy crush example. People love playing it because they feel great about themselves when they’re playing it. It’s fairly easy but challenging sometimes, and most and foremost, you get animations and congratulations for almost everything you’re doing. The game keeps praising your actions!I also like to make others laugh or feel good about themselves so the notifications in Trackin are pretty funny and different from what you would read in standard SAAS.Getting a sense of self-improvement, especially regarding sales was amazing. Finding the right introductory sentence to get to talk to a manager and by-pass employees, being aware of what to answer based on questions, being able to read people concerns, see their reactions to the features we knew they would love...were all great feelings.Today with MobyDish, I love to hear customers from Silicon Valley (used to deal with the best products) how they enjoy working with us VS companies like Doordash, Caviar or others. Because these companies have raised millions and are hundreds, when we’re super small, profitable and mainly backed by angels, and still being the company they like most. Another funny fact is that some of the biggest VCs in Silicon Valley that have invested in these food companies, are using MobyDish to feed themselves :) What were the biggest challenges you faced and obstacles you overcame?Deciding to leave the life I’ve built in San Francisco to start Trackin was already a big step. I am an entrepreneur and wanted to get back to that life, but this time it meant giving up on a visa, job, life, friends, cheap place etc.Then getting back to France, it was hard for people to understand my ambitions, I kept hearing that I should start “slowly and not aim too high and slow down on international expansion”Follow your guts when you hear people telling you that it’s not the right thing to do and how to approach things is tough, because some people will be right about some aspects of your business, but some people will be wrong...so how do you know which one to listen to?Deciding to keep working on this adventure alone was another big challenge, and it has been since then. Getting into YC, talking to investors, managing your company...you are expected to do as well as other companies, even though you’re alone. I’ll always remember Michael Seibel during the program explaining to the batch how solo founders are supposed to be “superheroes” because expectations are at least the same and nobody will help out. Although I feel very fortunate, because looking back, I have learned so much about everything related to creating and growing a business: management, sales, hiring, marketing, accounting, technology, customer support, scalability, fundraising etc. There are days I wish I had more time to be a normal CEO, but overall, it’s a huge chance to be able to lead a growing company by yourself, because the amount of new skills you get is extremely valuable and will help you not only in your business life but also in your personal life. Everything becomes so easy!The last biggest challenge I had to face was being in the food space. We came late in the game and humans are not really objectives...After some bad investments were made, and after some companies failed, (mainly because of lack of business models and leadership), food suddenly became a ‘bad’ market. Which forced me to build a business sustainable and profitable right away instead of taking the VC shortcut.But at the end of the day, it made us stronger and we have solid foundations to scale! Which are your greatest disadvantages?I guess my last paragraph above answers this question.Being a solo founder, in the food space in the most expensive city of the world is not ‘ideal’ facing some of the most founded companies in that space.Luckily for us, things are doing great! :) During the process of building & growing Trackin, which were the worst mistakes you committed?I’ve made huge hiring mistakes, multiple times, always ended well though, because I don’t think like you win anything by fighting with people for your ego. And I kept people for too long in the team when I knew they weren’t performing.We also made mistakes regarding our first targets with Trackin: we wanted to build the product for chains, but started talking to small businesses, so developed features based on their feedback, then realized chains were making more sense as target, but needed different features and had longer sales cycles. After trying to sell to chains and talking to experimented investors, I realized that to build a solid business I should sell to small businesses. A lot of them. Chains would ask for custom features and would take tons of time to make decisions, payments etc. Plus, they would represent a high percentage of your revenue and losing one of them could be meaning laying of people.Another mistake I’ve made was spending too much time to get money from government, loans, and contests. This is honestly all bullshit. It’s not because you’re winning contests that customers will show up, love your product and pay you. Contests are only good to have press articles and to get some credibility but it’s not a long-term strategy. This is still a common mistake made by entrepreneurs. The money helped me start hiring people, but the paperwork needed for it and still needed today wasn’t worth it.Keeping people too long in your team when you know they are creating problems or not performing the way you want is also a big mistake. I’ve tried to help and change too many people, at some point you can’t help everybody and need to hire people that will bring great things since day 1, especially in a startup. Then in a big corporation, you can do the opposite.Last but not least, as a co-founder of a company before Trackin, I’ve built the product with my engineers and my CEO without actually talking to the market. We thought we knew what people wanted when we actually didn’t.We spent almost a year building a product that didn’t make any sense to the market we targeted and closed almost as soon after we “launched”. Apart from mistakes, what are other sources of learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting?I think that learning from books is a great start, although it’s not always easy to remember everything and apply it in your life. If the book tells you to do one thing when a situation shows up, and if your emotions are taking over your brain or you just simply can’t remember what it was, then you’ll make the same mistakes again. Having some kind of routine to digest new lessons learned and what to do based on a specific situation is very important.I like to plan ahead and have a vision of what I want to do with my company long term, but it’s also very important to set shorter term goals, that will take you there and try to reach them. You’ll face new challenges that you will have to solve. Being highly focused on solving these problems one at a time, one after another and cut the distractions, will allow you to reach your main goal, then the next one and so on.As you’re facing these problems, you can then look for answers in books or ask people that have been through similar issues.Then looking back, you’ll realize how far you’ve gone.You can get to smart people from networks of entrepreneurs, incubators, alumnis of your school, or just shoot an email to someone you really want to talk to. Explain why you’re asking for his/her help. Entrepreneurs who started from scratch usually enjoy sharing their knowledge and experiences. Where can we go to learn more?You can learn more about Mobydish here. You can visit Tracking here, but we’re not accepting new customers at the moment. And one day, I’ll have time again to share all my knowledge on my website! Original interview published at https://www.failory.com/mistakes/trackin

[easyfoodnetwork]

How apps like OpenTable, Tock, and Resy are pivoting to keep themselves — and restaurants — afloat in a world without bookings Gregory and Daisy Ryan opened Bell’s, a 35-seat French bistro in Los Alamos, California, in 2018. The pair had worked in restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin before returning to Daisy’s hometown. The couple had several choices when it came to online reservation booking platforms and ultimately went with Tock, a system that they say worked so well, the restaurant didn’t even need a phone. “I didn’t want to have people sitting at the bar and listen to me explain something that someone can find on the internet,” says Gregory Ryan. “I didn’t want that to ruin someone’s experience.” During a typical dinner service pre-COVID-19, about 80 percent of guests had reservations. Because of its location, in a small town near California’s central coast wine country, Bell’s wasn’t beholden to the early occupancy reduction mandates, and later closures, that happened so quickly in major cities like New York and San Francisco in response to the spread of COVID-19. “It wasn’t until the second week of March that we knew something was on its way — but we didn’t know what it looked like yet,” Gregory Ryan says. He tried to figure out a way to use Tock to accommodate takeout instead of reservations and events in an effort to stay open. Plus, the restaurant didn’t ever offer takeout before. “Not because we think we’re too good for it, or anything,” he says. “Because we only have two [chefs] on the line.” But before he could figure out a technical solution on his own, he says, Tock contacted him offering a new online ordering system he could implement quickly. When he first considered takeout, Gregory Ryan says, “I was like, ‘Oh, shit, am I going to have to get a phone?’ My staff was like, ‘No, absolutely not.’” Today, Bell’s remains phone-free. “We opened a restaurant for certain reasons,” he says. He didn’t ever expect takeout to be his business’s lifeline. Since the spread of COVID-19 began forcing restaurants across the country to cease dining room operations, there’s been much talk about its effect on both individual restaurants and the industry as a whole. But what about the industries that support it? Reservation services like Tock, OpenTable, Yelp, and Resy are big business, and make their money by charging restaurants to use the software. Diners use them to book available tables, and restaurants also use them to manage their dining rooms’ floor plan and record notes about customers. It’s how the host knows where to seat you when you show up for your 8 p.m. booking. Plans vary, but a restaurant can expect to pay at least several hundred dollars per month for a basic plan that includes both reservations and table management. Prices go up from there depending on additional features like custom messaging, ticketed events, or, in OpenTable’s case, the number of people it brings in the door. OpenTable collects a per-diner commission fee on each reservation it facilitates, and busy restaurants can expect a monthly bill that easily stretches into thousands of dollars. Of all the brands, OpenTable is the largest reservations service in the U.S. In mid-March, as the national rollout of dining restrictions was just beginning, the company released year-over-year data that showed a 45 percent diner reduction in Seattle, 40 percent in San Francisco, 30 percent in New York, and 25 percent in London, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Ten days later, on March 23, every market listed on OpenTable’s COVID-19-inspired state of the industry dashboard showed a 95 to 100 percent reduction in bookings. That is: There were essentially zero reservations booked at the nearly 60,000 restaurants the company supports worldwide. In response to the slowdown, OpenTable and its competitors have been forced to pivot as quickly as the restaurants they serve. All fairly quickly suspended most fees they charge restaurants to use their software. They’ve also proactively begun making changes to their apps and website to reflect the realities of the restaurant business today, offering both temporary and permanent solutions for restaurants that saw their operations upended overnight. OpenTable added a grocery feature, allowing shoppers to reserve a shopping time slot at a store the same way they’d book a seating time at a restaurant. According to Andrea Johnston, OpenTable’s chief operating officer, the idea came from an OpenTable advisory board member — a restaurateur himself — who noticed that many restaurants were operating as small grocers to stay open. So far, in OpenTable’s hometown of San Francisco, just a handful of businesses offer the service, but Johnston says the company is actively onboarding several large regional grocery chains, with more to come. She confirmed that the service is free for all grocery stores and restaurants-turned-grocers, whether or not they’ve worked with OpenTable in the past. “I hope that the world won’t continue to need a product that supports grocery store reservations.” Johnston says she’s also encouraging partner restaurants to update their profiles to reflect current operations, including delivery, takeout, gift cards, and fundraisers, which are then displayed in the OpenTable app. The company is waiving gift card fees through June; previously, restaurants paid $25 per month to sell gift cards through the OpenTable system. And at this point more than 1,500 restaurants have added their fundraising efforts to their listings, Johnston says. OpenTable had already added a delivery category to its app in 2019. Listings are in partnership with companies like Uber Eats and Caviar, which each charge their own fees on top of the booking service. In the last month or so, clicks on delivery options within the app have grown 172 percent. A reservations app probably isn’t the first stop for a diner looking to support local restaurants right now, and in response, these companies have had to modify their marketing strategies. To diners, OpenTable, Tock, and Resy have all begun sending emails with lists of partner restaurants open for delivery or takeout. To restaurants, they’re sending a steady stream of news, ideas, and tactical information to survive. OpenTable has launched a dedicated restaurant resource center to share news and product information related to the coronavirus pandemic, and hosts a weekly webinar series for restaurants. Resy, too, just announced a new industry-focused podcast in partnership with the Welcome Conference. “It has been nice to see that for the most part they’ve been doing what they can to support us — obviously knowing that supporting us supports them in the long run,” says Gina Buck, general manager of Concord Hill, a small Brooklyn restaurant that uses OpenTable. The restaurant remains open for takeout, serving food and cocktails seven days per week from noon until 10 p.m. Speaking from the middle of her new busy workday fielding, packaging, and distributing to-go orders, Buck says she isn’t sure what more reservations services could offer to help. “I think the normal before this has completely died and will never exist again,” she says. “We’re able to stay open. We’re doing okay. It’s just two of us — we can’t afford to bring anyone else in at the moment, but we are getting through this.” OpenTable competitor Resy has also shifted its strategy to support eating at home. Instead of reservations, diners can order takeout food directly through its app and website. They select a meal option, choose a pickup time, and pay, all through the Resy platform. Greg Lutes is chef-owner of 3rd Cousin, one of the handful of restaurants in San Francisco that’s currently offering takeout via Resy. “It’s useful, but there’s not much volume in it,” he says, noting that they’ve sold “a few meals” through the platform. He also signed up with Uber Eats and DoorDash for the first time, but says most customers just call orders in to the restaurant directly. When a customer books a pickup on Resy, it’s communicated to the restaurant the same way a reservation would be: in an app that’s meant for a front-of-house staffer to manage. Lutes was recently surprised by a customer who showed up at the restaurant to pick up a family meal he had only just ordered. Even so, he plans to continue offering takeout through Resy, and isn’t worried about accepting orders from multiple sources. “We need all the revenue we can get,” he says. Resy has also modified the format of the restaurant pages on its website to allow operators to link to outside initiatives, like fundraisers. “It’s so that customers can see all of the preferred ways that their favorite restaurants are asking for support,” says Resy co-founder and CEO Ben Leventhal. Tock went a step further, building out an entirely new product — in a week. While all the big booking services have adjusted their functionality to meet the moment, reservations and event ticketing service Tock, used by more than 3,000 restaurants worldwide, went a step further, building out an entirely new product — in a week. Tock To Go launched March 16 for existing and new Tock customers. It allows customers to reserve and purchase restaurant meals for pickup or delivery and charges the restaurant a fee of 3 percent per order. (Tock has waived its regular monthly fees.) “We cannot operate without doing that,” says Nick Kokonas, Tock’s co-founder and CEO, who’s also the co-owner of Chicago’s Alinea Group restaurants. Tock’s To Go system has allowed restaurants to sell completely new, exclusive-to-takeout offerings, something that’s proven useful for the kind of fine dining and higher-end establishments that Tock has become known for. In New York, Dan Barber’s Blue Hill restaurants are offering takeaway boxes of various goods at both the Manhattan and Tarrytown locations. Customers can select from a variety of options, including stews and purees, garden vegetables, grass-fed beef, dry-aged pheasant, bread, and even a sommelier-selected bottle of wine to accompany a diner’s selections. In San Francisco, Tosca Cafe recently reopened under new ownership in the midst of the pandemic by selling family-style dinners — shrimp alfredo, spaghetti alla Norma — to go on Tock, and in LA, sister restaurants Bestia and Bavel are both offering weekly changing menus that have sold out within days of being listed on Tock. Proceeds go to maintain employee health care, and chef-owner Ori Menashe says if demand remains high, he may even be able to re-hire some staff to keep up. Kokonas says that Tock currently supports close to 400 restaurants offering takeout across the U.S., Europe, and Australia, with another 650 in some stage of onboarding. One month in, the company already processes nearly $1 million in to-go sales per day. On one weekday earlier this month, restaurants on the platform sold 11,700 orders for nearly 40,000 meals. “Tock is not just a booking system,” says Kokonas, “it’s a sales engine ... and it links and leverages, meaningfully and transparently, to the largest networks — search and social media.” At Bell’s, Gregory Ryan uses social channels to promote the restaurant’s current offerings on Tock To Go, including kits for making the restaurant’s popular egg salad sandwich at home, and other a la carte offerings, like CSA-style produce boxes. Ryan likes that Tock’s system of pre-ordering gives restaurant staff some idea of what to expect each day. It also helps him know how much of which ingredients and supplies to purchase. “That’s why takeout is always tough, because you’re never really sure when something’s going to come,” he says. “But if you’re able to wake up in the morning and know, ‘We have seven takeout orders, six chicken dinners tonight, and an egg salad,’ you’re at least working toward something. As those continue to populate [throughout the day] you’re a little bit better able to handle the information.” He’s also happy that it’s allowed him to continue to keep 11 of his employees on payroll, though he says everyone has taken “a little bit of a haircut” on their paychecks. (Ryan and his wife stopped paying themselves completely.) Still, even with new measures in place, not all booking platforms are pivoting as gracefully. So far, Yelp is the only major reservations provider to announce a reduction in staff, laying off or furloughing 2,100 of its approximately 6,000 employees. OpenTable’s Johnston says for them, anything related to a layoff would be “an absolute last resort.” At Tock, Kokonas says he will be hiring soon. “We never really stopped,” he says. “The only tricky part to bringing on new employees is training... We will figure that out.” As they work to support restaurants, executives at reservations companies are asking the same questions as chefs and restaurateurs: How long will this last? Will anyone even want to come and sit down for a meal in a few weeks? “Restaurants are going to reopen at some point with occupancy restrictions, extra and important safety measures, and lower demand,” says Kokonas. “Yet — and this is very important — the fixed costs of rent and utilities remain the same, and the business model was built with high demand in mind.” Leventhal indicates that Resy would likely continue to support its expanded initiatives in the future, but stops short of confirming any product changes. “This is without a doubt a reset moment for the industry,” he says. “Evolution, innovation, and creativity are going to be crucial for restaurants, and the tech platforms that support them, to survive in a post-COVID world.” Tock To Go is now a permanent part of Tock’s functionality moving forward, built directly into the product’s dashboard. It’s an acknowledgement that the industry isn’t going to go back to “normal” anytime soon, and much about the future of the industry is unknown. “Will there be a market for $35 takeout meals in 2022? Who knows?” says Kokonas. For OpenTable, Johnston says the company will continue to offer new options as long as restaurants need them. “I hope that the world won’t continue to need a product that supports grocery store reservations,” she says, “but we will keep it free and available as long as necessary.” Disclosure: Resy’s Ben Leventhal was one of the co-founders of Eater, but is no longer involved in its operations. Kristen Hawley writes about restaurant operations, technology, and the future of the business from San Francisco. She’s the founder of Expedite, a restaurant technology newsletter that’s existed, in some form, for the last seven years. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2VrjjGv

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