i find the lower reimbursed ones do require less. i've done one of their lower end concept restaurants ($50 for lunch or dinner, up to you) and it took <1hr to complete.
the "FINE dining" was the one where it took me over 3hours to complete. Unfortunately for me, I went during lunch and so the reimbursed amount was only $60 (which was not enough to cover my ultimate bill) while the work was still very much the same (minus a visit to the bar).
Therefore, if you ever see any shops that are $x for lunch / $xxx for dinner, definitely do not do the lunch one and do the dinner one. lunch will be 95% of the work for less than half the reimbursement.
edit to add: all this is predicated on you being a strong writer and observant diner. I didn't time everything down to the millisecond. Just took screencaps from my phone when things were happening and took a mental tally of how long things took. if you hate writing, this isn't the assignment for you.
for me personally, i much rather prefer doing coyle's shops vs. doing the normal stuff. besides coyle, i did one store visit and one fast food shop. while the store visit was ok, for $10 fee, it wasn't enough value for my time. the fast food one was beyond terrible and all the photos had to be taken landscape (which was like a pain in the ass when going through drive thru and trying to take a photo of the dumpster area). plus, i am not a fast food diner on the regular. again, not worth my time. $150 for a pleasant dinner which i don't count as work and then 2-3 hours of work afterwards? worth it to me--at least for now. plus, i'm hopeful my report writing will speed up. i did not experience multiple editorial re-writes. got 100 on both my assignments so far.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2021 09:56PM by asleep.