Find Your Soulmate Over All-You-Can Eat Guac

Bar Bombón’s Matchmaking and Margaritas event series gives singles a chance to meet out in the wild rather than on an app.

       Listen to the audio edition here:

We trust the little piece of black glass in our pockets with so much of our lives. It commands our calendars, gives us directions, lets us know the weather, reminds us who directed that movie or wrote that book that everyone is talking about. We use it to make our reservations, to buy our gifts, to pay our bills, to amuse and entertain us in the increasingly rare moments when nothing else is vying for our attention, and for years now, it has been the way that we meet people. It’s how we get dates. It’s how we fall in love.

But recently, that’s been changing. Everyone is getting tired of swiping. Or, if not everyone, then at least enough people that the trend toward turning the dating apps off has made the national news. Forbes has written about dating app dissatisfaction, quoting figures that claim more than 70 percent of all demographic groups (from boomers to millennials) are experiencing burnout from digital dating, with millennials having the highest rate of app exhaustion at a whopping 80 percent. The Atlantic has talked about the fall-off in dating app satisfaction (if not overall usage), citing a Pew Research Center survey showing only about half of users claiming positive experiences on the apps, and saying, “Even the big dating apps seem aware that they are facing a crisis of public enthusiasm.” And the folks at Axios took it a step further, digging into what has been replacing dating apps since this trend began.

Know what they found? In-person events have become the new go-to.

On Eventbrite alone, singles events (of myriad description, from fancy private matchmaking dinners to heavy metal speed dating) have doubled between 2022 and 2025. In 2024, they saw a 30 percent jump in events, couple with an 85 percent increase in attendance year-over-year, which is an absolutely ginormous number. Here in Philly, there’s been the phone-less, dining-with-strangers Free Association dinner-slash-social-experiments at Mission Taqueria, overflow crowds for the Anti-Valentine’s Day party at Doom, Pitch-A-Friend events (where you’ve got three minutes to pitch your single friend to a room full of other singles) that happen regularly at bars and breweries all over town. Honestly, I just don’t even know where people find the time.

But because this is most definitely a thing now — this flipping over the phone and looking up at the world around us, and the people in it — I would be remiss if I didn’t let y’all know that this move toward in-person, face-to-face, meeting-in-meatspace events is an option for you, too. Because while I’ve always felt that there are few better places on the face of this Earth to meet fascinating humans than at pretty much any bar in Philly, the crew at Bar Bombón are making it even easier by providing four things necessary for smoothing this kind of structured social interaction with strangers: A space, drinks, guacamole, and a little bit of expert guidance.

For a new event series that they’re calling “Matchmaking and Margaritas,” Bar Bombón is providing the first three, and turning to partners at modern matchmaking firm Three Day Rule to cover the fourth. TDR does a lot — everything from professional photography and personality screening to individual date-coaching and nationwide searches for that perfect match. Here, they’re doing a shorthand version of the same, providing brief screenings, curating matches, and shepherding the event to make sure it all feels easy and stress-free.

The first event happened last night, but there are two more events coming up: June 15th and July 13th (both Mondays). Each will run from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Bar Bombón. The June 15th event will be their LGBTQ+ Pride Month edition, but all of them will include margaritas, chips and guacamole, and an opportunity to “create meaningful connections in a vibrant, low-pressure setting.”

Sounds nice, right? And the team from Three Day Rule will be there to screen candidates, facilitate introductions, and provide matchmaking support to everyone who shows up. So it’s not exactly the kind of spontaneous meet-cute you see in all the movies, but it’s probably got a higher potential success rate than hoping to find your soulmate in line for cheesesteaks at 3 a.m.

Or maybe not. Again, this is still Philly. And I gotta think that a lot of love stories in this city started exactly that way.

Two things to keep in mind: First, these are ticketed events. Getting in will run you $32, but that includes one complimentary margarita, help from the TDR team on-site, and all the guacamole you can eat. So even if you don’t find the love of your life, there’s still all-you-can-eat guacamole. And that ain’t all bad.

Second, they’re limiting the number of tickets available to keep this an intentional and cozy environment. So if you’re ready to put down the phone and go meet some other humans IRL, check out Bar Bombón’s Eventbrite page.

Which, of course, you’ll probably end up doing on your phone. But one problem at a time, okay? Find love first. A healthier relationship with technology can come later.