Too Good To Go grows from 40 to 440 restaurants in Minneapolis

With food costs on the rise, a mobile app gaining popularity in Minneapolis offers a way for consumers to get food that might otherwise go to waste at a steep discount.
Too Good To Go partners with restaurants, grocery stores, and other local businesses to help them sell surplus food. Users can purchase a bag of food through the app for a flat fee – typically between $5 and $10 – and have a window of time in which to pick it up. Everything on Too Good to Go is sold at one-third of the retail cost, and it is “perfectly good food,” said Sarah Soteroff, the head of public relations for Too Good To Go North America.
When Too Good To Go first launched in the Twin Cities in 2023, there were about 40 or so local businesses on board, according to Soteroff. As of February 2025, that number is now 440, with about 17,000 users in the metro area.
In Minneapolis, items sold on the app range from bags of pastries and produce to sushi rolls, full meals, and even a bottle or two of wine a liquor store may be struggling to sell. Businesses can also offer “surprise bags,” which means users will not know exactly what they might be getting until they pick it up.
“Say something happens like you get a canceled order and you made a hundred extra muffins that day. [Businesses] can put those directly on the app,” Soteroff said.
Too Good To Go measures its impact by the number of bags sold, with each bag representing one meal that was saved from a landfill. To date, over 400 million meals have been saved through Too Good To Go, with over 104,000 saved in Minneapolis alone, Soteroff said.
At Gigi’s Cafe on 36th Street, manager Laura Stigen uses the Too Good To Go app to sell day-old baked goods. She lists bags for $6 and each contains exactly six pastries – an $18 value, said Stigen, although exactly what you get depends on what was leftover at the end of the previous day, if anything. Gigi’s keeps $5 of every sale through the app, with the remaining $1 going to Too Good To Go, according to Stigen.
Gigi’s has been partnering with Too Good To Go since it launched. Stigen said Gigi’s always strives to be a low to no waste establishment. Before joining the app, the cafe would donate leftover bakery items – and still does. But she saw the app as an opportunity to reach new customers.
“We were looking for ways to get new people through the building,” she said. “I was like, how can we reach a larger network and get new folks into our space?”
But actually securing a bag on Too Good To Go is no easy feat. Most days, Gigi’s has only one bag for sale, and it typically gets snapped up quickly, Stigen said. Depending on when you check the app, pickings might be slim with many popular bags already sold out.
If you are struggling to find available bags near you, Soteroff recommends familiarizing yourself with when certain businesses typically list items and checking the app around that time.
Soteroff said they are always encouraging more restaurants and stores in Minneapolis to start using Too Good to Go. But the low inventory could also mean businesses are getting better about reducing the amount of surplus food they have, which is a good thing, she said.
“Our goal is to get every bag that is put on the app to be sold because if it doesn’t that means we’re actually contributing to more food waste,” she said.