Have you noticed some better restaurant shops no longer have mystery shops?

There are several nice restaurant shops I could count on doing before Covid. Now, I don't see them being shopped. The restaurants are still there. Have some companies dropped mystery shopping?

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Some of the ones I have noticed are Ale House, Capital Grille, Tap 42, Seasons 52, Pincho Factory, Cheesecake Factory, Hillstone, Blaze Pizza, Fogo de Chao, Olive Garden, and Haagen-Dazs.

BLAZE stopped shopping a couple years before COVID. it had nothing to do with COVID. I remember doing CHEESECAKE FACTORY shops, but those probably have been gone for 10 years or they move to a MSC I was unware of.

Some of the clients listed by FrugalCat were all done by the SAME MSC (3 letter acronym). They were longer, more complicated reports than they needed to be.

I have not seen any for Mimi's and only one for Texas Roadhouse. None for Little Caesars

The Blaze Pizza reports were ridiculous. They wanted to know the exact time you got to and passed certain points, than they wanted you to figure out the amount of time between each station, when you just gave them the times. I stopped doing them. No other pizza shop did this.

I am sure some of the restaurants will be back once they are back to normal. At least where I live restaurants could only serve vaccinated people indoors until a few days ago. They are short staffed also in many restaurants. It does not make a lot of sense to me for restaurants to spend money on a mystery shop program when they are having so many interruptions in service for one reason or another...Shortages of staff and even of certain foods and shortages of customers come to mind.

Yes, the pizza reports for Blaze were completely out of control. However, nearly all of the reports for this particular MSC were out of control. I stopped taking assignments for them several years ago. Plus they think they can just reimburse you and NOT pay you for the work. And there are people who jump all over that. I can find other fast casual shops that will pay me as well as reimburse me.

@FrugalCat wrote:

Some of the ones I have noticed are Ale House, Capital Grille, Tap 42, Seasons 52, Pincho Factory, Cheesecake Factory, Hillstone, Blaze Pizza, Fogo de Chao, Olive Garden, and Haagen-Dazs.

Mmmm yes. Those were the good ol’ days for me.

Add on the many chain steakhouses too behind Capital Grille.

Things aren’t the same anymore, but that’s not so much of a bad thing.

Shopping the Greater Denver Area, Colorado Springs and in-between in Colorado. 33 year old male and willing to travel!

The restaurant options really seemed to dry up with Covid regulations.

@johnb974 wrote:

I have not seen any for Mimi's and only one for Texas Roadhouse. None for Little Caesars

Little Caesar's is on an app as far as I have seen -and not with the large company that did them before - as far as I can see.

@johnb974 wrote:

I have not seen any for Mimi's and only one for Texas Roadhouse. None for Little Caesars

Either they switched msc or there are none in your state but ive seen Texas roadhouse and lil caesars this year.

A wonderful steakhouse with several locations in NJ called Roots, has disappeared. We are now full paying customers since my husband loved the place and prices are up there with the best of the best.

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@SunshineQT wrote:

@johnb974 wrote:

I have not seen any for Mimi's and only one for Texas Roadhouse. None for Little Caesars
Either they switched msc or there are none in your state but ive seen Texas roadhouse and lil caesars this year.

I have not seen Little Caesars in a long time

I loved Hillstone but they stopped way before Covid… unless they moved to an msc that I’m not aware of.

I haven't seen El Pollo Loco or Applebee's since the pandemic. There are some other ones that are hit or miss. I haven't seen any Arby's in months, though I know there are some in other cities. Del Taco also makes an appearance but only once in a blue moon.

Tap 42 is still shopped and Little Caesars was shopped until the end of the last year.

We love Hillstone too! What a great fine dining restaurant. Haven't seen that job for many, many years. We go every so often still.

@LindaM wrote:

I loved Hillstone but they stopped way before Covid… unless they moved to an msc that I’m not aware of.

The restaurants I use to shop, Mimi's and El Torito's are still open, but haven't seen any shops for them since the start of the pandemic, is 2020. I wish we could go back to those days of a lock down and $600 a week.

@johnb974 wrote:

The restaurants I use to shop, Mimi's and El Torito's are still open, but haven't seen any shops for them since the start of the pandemic, is 2020. I wish we could go back to those days of a lock down and $600 a week.

You haven’t seen El Torito?

I’m in CA and have seen them with two MSCs fairly consistently. Good luck with Mimi’s as I have no idea.

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