@vloglady wrote:
Okay, here we go. I too love the restaurant jobs, especially the fine dining ones. Have done loads for Coyle and ACL. Always looking for more. We too have our favorites. I don't find Coyle tiresome. We have our little system and have it down pat. We did the PF Changs one, that I found a bit difficult because it was so short. I was used to writing more. We're in the NYC area.
As far as reimbursements go, just give me enough to get the required items. The fee is a bonus. I look upon it as a little road trip. I don't have to cook, we get out of the house, can go the the nearest Dollar Tree or shopping center. A different area. Reimbursement of tolls would be nice. We loved the Brazilian Steak House job. Get me out of the house, pay me to eat and we'll do a great job on the report. I don't do it to pay the bills, but just for a nice evening out.
Any companies besides Coyle and ACL that do fine dining?
BARE International has a number of hotel "fine dining" shops, vloglady. I have done them a few times. I've never felt the reimbursement gave me enough to get what I wanted (but you can probably order the mid-tier meals), but the locations are quite nice. One restaurant I did had a window seat view that literally overlooked the beach in front of us. I actually enjoyed that shop a lot. I would do that one again.
The restaurants are usually inside of nice hotels in various cities and the reimbursement is for a dinner for two. I had to pay for valet tip out of pocket, though. It was only $3.00, but when you're poor, it matters.
ACL is hit or miss for me. I only do one shop for them consistently, due to the short report. The problem with ACL for me is that their reports have so many sub-comment sections. Their questions tend to be quirky too. With other restaurant shops, you tend to have a generic report that asks mostly the same things with just a sprinkle of unique restaurant-specific questions. That makes learning them easier. I feel like with ACL you have lots more of those quirky questions. I'll sometimes forget to make the observation.
I will say this. I respect ACL the most of any MSC, because they have a disclosure form. I really love that you can admit mistakes upfront and they encourage it. This contrasts with a few other MSCs I've worked for where they encouraged me to leave out things on purpose or submit things without being sure if they were accurate or not. It felt shady shady!
Try BARE if you don't already do their hotel fine dining shops!
Maybe one day when I'm retired or have a more secure fixed income stream, I could learn to enjoy these shops. When you're shopping to try to make money or reimbursements that "count" (i.e., grocery shops), having to take half a day to do one of these for just a free meal doesn't seem worth it. I'm sometimes out mileage and parking expenses too. But, I'm in a different financial/economic situation.
Good luck to you!
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2018 07:52PM by shoptastic.