Lunch hours can be a crazy thing, especially if you work in a fast-paced office in downtown Toronto. Before working as a Stay-at-Home-Entrepreneur, I did the Go Train mad-dash to and from Union Station, and it was always the beginning and end of the daily rush. I’ve been told that this rush and virtual strain to the mind-body-soul is a uniquely Toronto thing, at least for Canadians (I can imagine New York is just as keyed up as we are.) We Torontonians have places to go, people to see, like yesterday darn it, we’re perpetually late just by the standards and demands we and our bosses place on ourselves. In fact, I know quite a few people that skip lunch altogether, just because they can’t find enough time, and that’s just not healthy. Well, there’s good news for those working downtown, with an app that shaves some of the time it takes to grab your lunch. ‘Cause there’s nothing worse than spending more time in line instead of enjoying your lunch break as you should. Also? Keep reading, ’cause this post includes a fab discount code for your first lunch and even a giveaway for a few free lunches, awesome right?
Grabb The App Now
Meet Grabb, the Android and iOS app that helps you order and pay for your lunch easily before heading to the restaurant/cafe/fast-food joint for pickup. I’m a big fan of HERO Certified Burgers, which is where I tested the app, but they have a great list of fab partnered locations to grab food at anytime, including:
- Fresh Off the Boat (delicious and unique seafood)
- Aroma Espresso Bar (local favourite cafe/coffee shop)
- Buna’s Kitchen (modern European gourmet quick serve cafe)
- The Chickery (authentic fast casual chicken)
- What a Bagel (great for a quick lunch!)
- Brioche Doree (Parisian style cafe)
- Market Street Catch (another great seafood restaurant, located near St. Lawrence Market)
- Mean Bao (steamed buns filled with deliciously marinated pork or other meats/veggies)
Download the free app to see all the locations available near you on their easy to use map!
https://instagram.com/p/2WS9YMKuxL
Look how truly easy it is to order the food you want, with a few swipes and button touches your order will be complete in less than a minute, and without having the cashier get your order wrong! You know, I had this one difficult moment when trying to order an iced coffee at one of our favourite coffee shops (without use of any app.) When it was finally my turn at the cash register, I kept asking for a “medium iced coffee” and somehow that continuously translated as “medium iced latte” to the cashier no matter how many times I repeated the order to her (FIVE… maybe even six attempts just to get that iced coffee I was in the mood for.) She actually got ticked at me in the end for “changing” my order to “medium iced coffee” while she tried to take my money, lol. An app like Grabb makes for less human error.
Have you ever been to Bacon Nation? I haven’t, but must admit, I gotta go try either that Pig Mac Burger or The Notorious P.I.G. One added bonus about this app though, is that I wouldn’t actually have to utter words like “Pig Mac” or “Nortorious P.I.G.” just to get the burger I want, LOL. I’m all for fun named burgers, but sometimes its a mouthful, when you’re hungry.
I surprised Jay with lunch last week. I knew he’d have a little extra time to enjoy a meal out of the office, so decided that I’d get him to join me for lunch while I tested the app, and was pleasantly surprised that this app is versatile enough that I can order more than one meal at a time. So if its your turn to grab lunch for the office, you can rack up the entire order all at once with Grabb. We ordered our meal while on our walk to the restaurant and had our exact order ready by the time we got there.
The app gives you a bit of heads up on how long you’ll have to wait for your order (whether they’re currently in a lunch-rush, or if they’ve got nothing better to do than make your order,) and also how far in line you are compared to other Grabb users that are waiting for their orders too. At the moment, I’m always in first in line, ’cause the Grabb app is so new, but I’m kinda looking forward to see myself second in line. It’ll mean that Grabb is getting more popular, which would be great to see!
The #GrabbLunch Special
As promised, there is a special discount code for my special readers, like you! Use “geekwithstyle” on your first order at get 25% off your meal on Grabb! That’s like a free drink or dessert, heh. 🙂
And Grabb also wants to give one of you lucky readers a few free meals from your choice of their partnered restaurants.
Good luck! 🙂
18 Responses
This sounds great! I’d love to have lunch ready to pick up and then enjoy the sunshine at lunch!
I’ve waited 2 hours for cold wrong food. There comes a point when you NEVER go back
OMG!!! That’s the best app ever!! Can you tell that I love food?! I’m going to download it today for sure! This is great for when you are on vacation too!
This is an amazing app! Perfect for those “where do you want to eat” “wherever you want” moments with the husband.
So fun! I go to Toronto often – I will download this for future Toronto lunches 🙂
My horror story was 2 weeks ago. After waiting seemingly forever in line, I finally ordered a cafe mocha to go. Everyone else got their orders around me and I was completely forgotten. They were trying to give me a chicken sandwich (I told them it’s not mine) and when I asked for my mocha, she asked who took my order. He’d disappeared by this point and I didn’t read his name tag? It was such a mess for something that should’ve been really simple.
How handy!! Will use this for sure!
Thanks for the info! Should be interesting to see how they stack up with the new Uber meal offering.
My horror story involves my family waiting for an order for over 2 hours, and because of the lateness, we missed our scheduled movie as well after that, not a pleasant experience.
I stood in line for at least 20 minutes at a local take out food place for my favourite meal, only to find out when I finally got to the front of the line that they had just sold the last portion of my choice to the person before me in line !
A recent bad experience of mines was when I had e-gift card to this place and I left my wallet in the office. After standing in line for so long, got my pita and tried to pay, they did not accept the e-gift card. I was so angry!
Recently I went to get lunch and the person was so rude . Customer service is so important but some people just don’t get it.
My horror story. Ordered 4 pizzas for a birthday party for my son. They brought me someone else’s pizzas! I don’t know how they messed it up but not one of the pizza’s were right.
Nothing crazy but ordered two burgers with the boyfriend. Took the order home and the whole order was wrong 🙁
I once ordered food that arrived cold AND to top it off, they did not leave out the peanuts when I requested them to. I had to throw the whole thing out, and walked across the street to get some pizza. Tired, hungry, broke…never again.
I once ordered from the Swiss Chalet next door to my work, literally down the stairs and into the building next door. It took two hours to get to me, and they didn’t even offer me any compensation! It was cold and gross too.
well i went to a well known restaurant for lunch and they have pre packed meals. when you pay for it, they offer to warm it up. I opened the container and saw a thin white line, I figured it was from the cheese since it probably melted. I continue to eat, i get halfway through the meal and there was a short curly hair. I stopped and put my utensils in the container and walked up to the cashier and told them what I found and pointed it out. His face was in shock and quickly apologized and told me to get another one. at that point i didn’t want to eat anymore and told him that i would decline. he told me that the offer be honoured the next time i decided to visit. now that was a few months ago, I still haven’t returned.
oh here’s another one, similar but a different restaurant. I’ll make this one shorter. I ordered pho to go and they had the noodles and chicken separated from the broth. i opened the container of noodles and there was 2 dead bees inside. i told the restaurant what i found and then they gave me 2 new orders of pho. i didn’t want to eat at that point and gave it to my co-workers
The worse was getting hair in my food!