Mikki’s Soul Food Café in the Brays Oaks District is often referred to as a place “where you can taste the love.”

If you’ve got the Too Good To Go app on your mobile device, you can taste that love for about a third of the usual price.

Many Houston-area food businesses have joined this mobile app, which has earned honors for its “cultural impact” by helping customers buy discounted food that would otherwise go to waste.

Mikki’s is among them. So is local halal restaurant Esmetu LLC, located behind the Turkish Cultural Center at 9301 W. Bellfort Ave.

The app makes money by charging set annual fees to participating food purveyors.

Here’s how it works:

Once you download the app, set your location and browse participating businesses in your area. A searchable map lets you look for specific restaurants. You can mark favorites and turn on notifications to get immediate alerts when those businesses offer “surprise bags.”

Click on the offers that interest you and check the pick-up window information, because you must collect your prepaid items during a defined time—usually just before closing (though not always).

Tap “reserve” to snag your bag. When you arrive to pick it up, a staff member will ask you to show your app and swipe to confirm pickup.

At some locations, staff will have your bag ready for you to grab and go. At others, you might choose from several plain bags waiting for pickup. It can feel like a game of chance—hence the “surprise bag” name.

For people who can’t decide what to order or who want to try something new, the app takes the decision-making out of it. What’s in the bag is completely up to the business owner.

Often, these bags sell for about a third of the regular price of the items inside, while the app helps reduce food waste and supports local food outlets.

On a recent evening, we used the Too Good To Go app to pick up a surprise bag from Mikki’s and found the portions in the discount bag just as hearty as those served cafeteria-style inside the restaurant.

For $9.99, we received a heaping container of the regularly more-than-$30 oxtails with two sides, plus extra collard greens and cornbread.

The price was lower, but the quality was top-notch.

Mikki’s original recipes come from the late Jeanette Williams and are tried and true. More than two decades ago, Williams took her soul food and Southern-style catering operation into a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 10500 W. Bellfort. After she died in 2019, her children, Craig and Jeanelle, kept the restaurant going and have since expanded to two additional locations.

Williams wouldn’t have known about the Too Good to Go app, as it didn’t launch in the U.S. until 2020, but we like knowing that the food made from her recipes isn’t going to waste.

Check out which Brays Oaks District establishments are offering up surprise bags today: https://www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us 

— Dorothy Puch Lillig