Frequently Asked Questions

Place and Time is a venue-first dating and social app. Instead of swiping through profiles, you pick a real place — a bar, a restaurant, a coffee shop — and see who else wants to go there. When you match, you get an automatic date proposal at that venue, inside its real opening hours. No endless messaging. Real places, real people.

Traditional dating apps go: see a profile → match → message → plan → maybe meet. Place and Time flips that: pick a venue → see who's interested → match → automatic date proposal → show up. The venue comes first, not the person. This means every match already has a plan.

We're building it properly in Chicago first, and we have not set a date. We would rather say nothing than promise something we might miss. Join the waitlist and you will hear from us before anyone else.

Place and Time is free to download and use. For venues: listing is free for our launch partners through 2027. After that we may charge for the guests we send — and if we ever do, you will have 60 days' notice and a running count of exactly what we are counting, visible in your dashboard from day one.

Chicago, and only Chicago. We start in the neighborhoods we already have spots in — Logan Square, Wicker Park, Lincoln Park, Bucktown, Pilsen, West Loop, Lakeview, River North and Hyde Park. Other cities come after Chicago works, and we haven't picked one.

Browse real Chicago venues on the app. When you find a spot you like, express interest. You'll see other singles who are also interested in that venue. If you match with someone, Place and Time automatically proposes a date at that venue — day, time, and place. No chat purgatory.

We only show you people you could actually meet — someone whose free time overlaps with yours at a spot you have both picked, while that spot is open. It is better to show you five people you can genuinely get a date with than fifty you cannot. If your list feels thin, adding a spot or widening your availability opens it up.

No — and you couldn't have a long one even if you wanted to. Chat opens once you've both confirmed the plan, and it's capped: five messages each, 140 characters apiece. A second five unlocks around the date itself, from three hours before until three hours after, for the thing that actually needs saying on the night — "running ten minutes late, I'm on the Brown Line." That's the whole allowance, and it's small on purpose.

You confirm the plan first, so if you never confirm it the date is cancelled with notice instead of left hanging. If you don't turn up, the other person can say so, and repeated no-shows affect your standing. Checking in is how you protect yourself from being blamed for a night you did turn up to — and how you check in depends on the venue. See the next question.

It depends on the place, because check-in is the venue's choice, not ours. Some have a printed code on the table. Some let your phone confirm you're at the address. Some show a rotating code on a screen at the bar. And plenty have nothing at all — the date happens exactly the same way, we just never learn who arrived. The methods aren't equal, so here's the honest version: the phone one and the screen one are strong enough to shut down a false no-show claim outright. A printed code won't stop the claim, because a photo of a sticker travels, but it still protects your standing. No check-in protects neither. We'd rather say that than pretend every bar in Chicago can do the same thing.

Within narrower limits than most apps. Exactly two things filter your list: gender and orientation, and an age range that has to work both ways — you're inside theirs and they're inside yours. That's it. Everything else is practical rather than preferential: the spots you've both picked, and whether your free time actually overlaps while one of those spots is open. Shared interests move people up your list. They never take anyone off it.

Double dating lets you and a friend create a duo profile together. Your duo matches with another duo, and all four of you go on a double date at a real venue. It's dating with your built-in wingperson.

When you sign up, choose the Double Dating profile type and invite a friend with a short code. Your friend downloads the app, claims the code, and your duo goes out under both your names.

Yes — both people in a duo need their own account. This is by design: it means your duo partner has also set their preferences, confirmed their profile, and is genuinely in. No ghost plus-ones.

Everyone else looking for a double date. Duos aren't filtered by gender, orientation or age, and they don't filter anyone else by those either. A double date is four people at a table, not a resolved romantic match, and any combination of them is a real evening out — sometimes the outcome is four friends. You see each other. Whether you say yes is up to you.

No. Anyone can create a duo. There's no arrangement with any school, no student sign-up, and nothing in the app that knows or cares where you study.

Activity Buddy is for when you want somewhere to go and someone to go with, and you're not looking for a date. Same spot, same free evening, nobody reading anything into it.

No. Activity Buddy applies no gender or orientation filter at all. What decides who you see is the spots you've both picked and when you're both free. Shared interests move people up your list; they never take anyone off it.

The same places every other kind of plan uses — the bars, restaurants and coffee shops on our list, plus the odd outing like the zoo. We don't run classes, leagues or events, and we don't organize the activity itself. We get two people to the same place at the same time. The rest is yours.

Absolutely. Activity Buddy is perfect for newcomers. Pick the things you love doing, find people who do them too, and meet up at a real place. Instant social circle.

The structure does most of it. Every date happens at a vetted, public venue and never at a private address, so nobody has to hand over where they live. Both people confirm the plan before it's a plan. The chat is capped, so nobody can wear you down by message. And you can report or block from inside the app. What we won't do is promise you a safe evening — no app can, and one that says otherwise is selling you something.

No. There's no verification anyone has to pass to be here, and no profile you see has been checked against an identity document. Photo verification exists and it's optional: send a selfie, a person here compares it to your photos, and if it matches your profile says so. That confirms the photos are of you. It confirms nothing else — not your name, not your age, not who you are. Anyone telling you a dating app has verified the person across the table is overselling what verification can do.

Someone here reads every listing before it goes live, and a venue with no opening hours can't be booked at all. That's a review of the listing, not an inspection of the room — and we'd rather say so than let it sound like more than it is.

Yes. Reporting is built into the app, for a person or for a venue. A human here reads every report and acts on it, up to and including a permanent ban. We are not going to put a response time on this page until we can stand behind the number.

Double dating has safety built into its DNA — you're never alone on a first date. You always have your friend with you. It's the "bring your bestie" approach to safer dating.

Free for our launch partners through 2027. After that we may charge for the guests we send you, and if we ever do you get 60 days' notice first. We are counting those guests from your first day — not to bill you, but so that the number is already in your dashboard, already checkable, and not something that appears for the first time on an invoice.

Guests we sent you, per month: how many were booked in and how many turned up. Your dashboard shows the running count and the free allowance it is measured against, from the first day, at a price of zero. We count guests, never names — the count cannot be traced back to a person, and it cannot be matched against another venue's.

Completely. You set your opening hours in the app and we never propose a date outside them, including last seating so nobody is sat down ten minutes before you close. You can block off specific days too, for a holiday or a private event.

Add your place in the app: name, address, hours, a photo and a couple of lines about the room. Someone here reads every listing before it goes live, because we will not send people somewhere we have not looked at. If anything needs changing we will tell you what.

Yes. You can give someone access to everything your business runs, or to one venue only. Floor staff get the day’s bookings; managers also get your numbers and what people said. You add people with a short code rather than an email invite.

Nothing you would not do anyway — greet them and give them a table. There is no special setup and nothing to connect to your till. Check-in is entirely your choice: nothing at all, a printed code on the table, letting the guest's phone confirm it is at your address, or a rotating code on a screen at the bar. Nothing is the default, and a venue that picks it is not penalized — dates still happen there, we simply never learn who arrived.

You see the rating and the words, grouped by week. You do not see who wrote it, and neither does anyone else. A venue with two bookings that night could otherwise work out exactly which couple left a bad one.