There’s a restaurant category on the Feed Me app called “Safe Breakup Venues.” People see it and they chuckle, but they don’t always know what it means. What makes it onto our Safe Breakup Venues list? Here’s how we curate it.
Since Feed Me works with the Yelp API, we need to pull our categories from Yelp’s search terms. That can be limiting, but it can also be hilarious. Yelp doesn’t have a “Safe Breakup Venues” category, so we combine all the types of places where we’d like to a) be broken up with or b) break up with someone from what’s available.
That categories includes:
Dive bars, coffee shops, airport lounges, diners, delis, dinner theatres, hotdogs, food courts, chicken wings, poutineries, raw food, soba, pizza, pita, donairs and donut.
Think about those. A dive bar is safe, because you’re probably not going to see anyone you know and it’s going to be cheap, so there’s no investment in the non-lasting relationship.
Coffee shops are casual, so you’re not waiting forever for a bill while you stare awkwardly off into the distance post-breakup (or while somebody cries).
Airport lounges, because you definitely want the breakup to happen before the vacation, rather than spoiling your two weeks in Puerto Vallarta. And think of all the money you’ll save on margaritas when two-for-one means two-for-you!
Diners, delis, food courts, pitas, donuts, hotdogs, donairs, pizza places, poutineries and other fast food type places are all like coffee shops in that they’re cheap and you can leave quickly if necessary. Food courts especially offer the option of slipping away to the washroom and never coming back. (Shame on you.) Tim Hortons? As long as it’s not one on the side of the highway, you’re all good. Besides, everyone (except Google) knows that sprinkles make heartbreak easier.
We added soba on a bit of a whim. It’s really just there to make you realize that it could have been worse. You could have been broken up with at a Dunkin Donuts. Or during a seven-course meal at a Joël Robuchon restaurant. Now the question is: which of those is an easier pill to swallow?
To everyone who loves the BBQ wings at Next Door Pub in NDG and the Tandoori wings at Sparrow in Montreal as much as some of my friends, I’m sorry for any misunderstanding about the chicken wings category. They’re in there for a very different reason: if you’re breaking up with someone or being broken up with, well, at least you get chicken wings. Comfort food for the win.