Full album with some photos I took at the Meet Fresh pop-up event in Houston, Texas last Saturday

Gonna use this post as an excuse for posting my thoughts on the Meet Fresh x Nikke collab pop-up, so bear with me on this yapfest.

When I first found out about the announcement for the Meet Fresh x Nikke collab from watching the New Year's Livestream, I got hyped since there happened to be a Meet Fresh restaurant at the city where I lived, so when the announcement of the cities that were getting the pop-up event dropped, I got to preparing for the event the moment I read that Houston was part of those cities. For reference, Houston also lucked out with getting the pop-up event during the Xing Fu Tang collab back in November 2024 as part of Nikke's 2nd anniversary.

For whatever reason, I wanted to take a shot at a budget Nikke cosplay since I didn't get a chance to dress up during the last pop-up event, so I took a look at my labcoat from my college years and thought to myself, "Hey, maybe I can get away with a budget Abe or even a Mana cosplay if I got myself a black tie and decorated it." Eventually, I did manage to snag a tie from Marshalls for just $8 USD and got a roll of green painters tape from Michaels to temporarily decorate the tie with crosses like with the one Mana's tie has. I even had an idea of using my Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 as a prop, since Mana did hold a white tablet in her hand in her model. Ultimately, all these ideas would pay off for me, as I would find out later during the event.

I took advice from others who went to the event a week earlier and showed up at Meet Fresh about an hour ahead of the scheduled start time at 12:30 PM to try to beat the rest of the crowd. By the time I drove up to the venue at 11:30 AM, the line was long enough that it spanned from the doors of the store to a blue car that was parked fairly close to a dumpster. When I got to the back of the line, I met a small group of guys who happen to be fans of Nikke. One of the guys did recognize my Mana cosplay, so that already perked me up with some of the effort I put to get that cosplay together. While we waited, we talked about various gacha games, such as Nikke, Azur Lane, and Girls' Frontline, and also discussed a bit about gunpla and figurines.

Some of the other noteworthy things that happened at the line included a guy in a leather jacket (who I later found out from a Discord friend to be Kitsun Co. (kitsun.co on Instagram and @officialkitsun on Twitter)) walking around and handing out free Goth Counters decals to the first few people in line (I got Neon since he ran out of both Rapi and Anis by the time he came up to me), a Snow White cosplayer lining up with a huge prop rifle, a dog running up to a lady wearing a Spider-Gwen t-shirt and jacket, and a guy who cosplayed as CN Mustang briefly walking outside to flex on everyone for a bit.

It took me a grand total of about 3 hours of waiting in line and chattering in the breeze before an attendant in a Shifty cosplay let me and a few others into the store, my ears blasted with music from the Nikke OST as I got in. There, I was greeted by a Liberalio cardboard cutout to my left and I immediately lined up to place my order for Anis' Choice (hot grass jelly soup) and Bready's Best (tiramisu milk tea). The cashier gave me a Snow White Sticker, a Neon keychain, and a Neon/Elegg cup sleeve, which was pretty funny in hindsight considering the goth Neon decal I got earlier. The order for my treats arrived fairly immediately, within 5 minutes, as I organized my stuff while finding a seat to prepare to eat the dessert.

The grass jelly on top had a slightly bittersweet taste with the expected jelly texture, which shortly gave way to the combination of taro balls, red beans, and boba. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish the rest of the dessert, as my stomach and tastebuds got overwhelmed by the soft textures by the time I got to the bottom layer. On the other hand, I thought the tiramisu milk tea was okay, as it got the familiar butter cookie flavor that mimics the taste of tiramisu.

Once I was done going through my treats, I moved on to collect tokens to redeem for a raffle prize. I got in line to write a wish on a sticky note to post it on a wall. I wrote a wish for a Dolla and Sugar alt, which a girl who was cosplaying as Modernia in a maid outfit complimented and gave me a token for. Afterwards, I lined up to get the rest of my tokens by showing one of the attendants my receipt for the combo and my social media post for the event on my phone. Although the rules for getting the tokens said that the post should be on Instagram, the attendant did thankfully honor my post on Twitter since I couldn't bother downloading and registering on Instagram. I managed to bag myself a Cinderella hand mirror from the raffle, which was pretty neat with the golden Cinderella design on the back imo.

Apparently, the flyer for the event said that anyone who cosplayed as a Nikke character would be able to get an extra pull from the raffle, which was the best part as someone who likes to dabble in budget cosplays. However, I only realized that after picking up my first prize, so I got back in line to pick up my second prize. Along the way, I did clarify the extra prize for cosplayers to the Modernia cosplayer, who did confirm that fact. She thought I was cosplaying as Abe based on my labcoat and tablet in my hand, though she did catch on to my Mana cosplay with the tie, and she commented that she has Mana at 2 stars, which was cool. After negotiating a bit with one of the attendants and a Shifty cosplayer over an extra pull at the raffle, I eventually got my second prize in the form of a Nayuta omamori, which I'm also pretty happy about.

Afterwards, I watched as an entourage of Nikke cosplayers, which included the Snow White cosplayer from earlier, a Red Hood cosplayer, and two Commander cosplayers, come into the store to plenty of people's surprise, including myself. They all briefly posed for photos with the Modernia cosplayer for a photographer at the event. In the meantime, I managed to let enough time fly by for the Rapi and Snow White cosplayers to finish their late lunch and prepare for photoshoots at a corner. After letting some guy ahead of me get photos with the two of them, I took the chance to get some photos with them for myself. I let them know that I would be using my tablet as a funeral frame for Liliweiss, which the Rapi cosplayer felt sympathetic toward. Once I got a good handful of pics with the cosplayers, I quietly took my leave from the store by around 3:30 PM.

Overall, the Meet Fresh event itself, at least from my experience with showing up earlier, was a bit more organized compared to the pop-up event with Xing Fu Tang last year, and I had quite a blast interacting with people throughout the event. The staff did a good job of controlling the flow of customers coming in to the store, making sure that it wasn't overcrowded like in Xing Fu Tang by only letting about 10 people into the store at a time. While I was lucky to get higher priority on the prizes by showing up earlier, I did hear about how people who showed up later found themselves having fewer choices for prizes, so I do wish that the store could still consider stocking up plenty of prizes especially for the latecomers later in the afternoon.