Deke Farrow/[email protected] a strip mall on Lakewood Avenue at Briggsmore in Modesto, a shopper can buy insurance, do laundry, visit a salon, get a snack at Quik Stop and, now, make another quick stop – for fun, romance and possibly true love.In a previously empty storefront there, Robert Richardson has opened the Within Reach speed-dating cafe. Why invest in the overhead of running a brick-and-mortar business rather than stay mobile, like many speed-dating services?We have encouraged many of our friends to attend the Lock and Key Events and one of our best friends is still dating a woman he met at the Oxygen Lounge last Fall.It's a great way to meet singles in a fun, comfortable environment.To provide a better experience to a broader group of people, Richardson said.Most speed-dating services rent out space in bars or nightclubs, he said, but many singles don’t feel comfortable in those locales, or won’t go to them for religious reasons.

We say yes to a very few - limiting it to locales that are at once casually hip and wonderfully flirty.We are the only organization to routinely screen daters we feel may not be a good fit for our clients.If we meet a dater we don't think you'll fancy meeting, we'll say 'No thank you' so you don't have to.A fabulous way to visit or re-visit some of the best the city has to offer.As a reporter for LA Talk said, “ I walked through the venue without even noticing the tables of daters; Speed LA events are so chic and low key you might just walk right by.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Much like a private club, not every dater is for us.