How Mastro Pricing Works (And Why It's Actually a Life Upgrade)

The Evening I Finally Escaped the Supermarket Maze

It was 8:15 PM on a Wednesday, and I was standing in the middle of the fancy supermarket we have around, holding a bag of overpriced tomatoes and questioning all my life choices.

Not because of the tomatoes (though 3,200 drams seemed steep even for organic). But because this was the fourth time that week I'd found myself rushing through the market after work, grabbing whatever looked decent for yet another "let's see what I can make with random ingredients" dinner.

You know that feeling, right? When you're stuck in traffic on Baghramyan Avenue until 7 PM, and the thought of stopping at SAS or Yerevan City to figure out dinner makes you want to order from Glovo instead. When "What are we eating?" becomes the question that your family asks every single day at 7-8 PM, and you honestly have no idea.

That's when my colleague Sona showed me a photo on her phone. Her kitchen counter looked like something from a cooking show – a beautiful box, perfectly organized ingredients laid out, and her toddler son actually helping instead of disappearing to his room.

"Started using mastro two months ago," she said during our lunch break at work. "Honestly, it's changed everything about our evenings."

The Thing About Food Delivery in Yerevan (That Everyone Knows But Nobody Talks About)

Here's what I thought mastro would be: another expensive service for families who have their financial lives completely sorted.

Here's what it actually was: a time machine that gave me back my evenings and my sanity.

See, when you subscribe to Mastro, you're not really buying meal kits. You're buying something much more valuable in our crazy Yerevan lifestyle – you're buying freedom from that daily PM panic of what to cook, go last-minute shopping, etc.

Sona was absolutely right. Within three weeks, something fundamental shifted in our household. Wednesday rolled around, and instead of that familiar dread about grocery shopping, I felt... calm. My mastro box had arrived that morning. The ingredients were perfectly portioned, the recipe was in Armenian and English, and for the first time in months, I actually looked forward to cooking.

The Real Math (In Armenian Drams, Obviously)

Let's talk money – but in numbers that actually make sense for our reality.

Before Mastro, here's what my weekly food spending looked like:

• Sunday at SAS Supermarket: 18,000 drams (half of which would go bad by Friday)
• Tuesday Glovo order because I "forgot" to defrost the meat: 7,500 drams
• Thursday dinner at Dargett or Tavern Yerevan because I was too tired: 12,000 drams for two people
• Random trips to the corner shop for "just milk and bread": 4,000 drams

Total: Around 41,500 drams per week, plus at least 5 hours of my life spent on food-related stress, shopping, and driving around Yerevan looking for parking.

With mastro? I pay between 28,000-38,000 drams per week (depending on meals and portions), and I get:

• Zero food waste (everything is perfectly measured)
• Zero decision fatigue after long workdays
• Zero emergency takeout orders
• Zero time spent in Yerevan traffic going to markets
• Zero arguments with my husband about "what should we eat?"

But here's the real game-changer – I also get my Wednesday evenings back. And my mental energy. And genuine enjoyment from cooking, which I hadn't felt since my grandmother taught me her dolma recipe years ago.

How It Actually Works (Simple, Finally)

The pricing structure is refreshingly straightforward:

Choose your meals: 3, 4, or 5 dinners per week Choose your family size: portions for 2 or 4 people

The longer you commit, the more you save – but here's what sold me: you can pause, skip weeks, or cancel anytime. Perfect for our unpredictable schedules, family visits, or when you're traveling to the regions.

We tried the 4-week plan (best value) and saved enough drams. Every box arrives with exactly what you need: pre-measured ingredients, easy-to-follow recipe cards (in Armenian and English!), and even those specialty spices that usually cost a fortune at small shops in the center.

The Changes I Didn't Expect

Four months in, the transformation went way beyond just dinner.

We started eating together at our dining table instead of everyone grabbing plates and watching TV. My husband, who used to survive on lavash and cheese when I worked late, started sending me photos of his cooking experiments. Our monthly grocery bill dropped by 35%, and instead of throwing away spoiled vegetables every week, our trash barely had any food waste.

But the biggest change? My relationship with cooking has completely transformed.

Food stopped being a source of daily stress and became something I genuinely enjoyed again. I started looking forward to Friday evenings because I knew I'd be making that incredible ishkhan (trout) with herbs. I stopped checking Instagram while eating because the food was actually delicious enough to deserve my attention.

Your Wednesday Evening Could Look Different Too

I'm not promising mastro will solve all of life's problems. It won't make the traffic on Mesrop Mashtots Avenue disappear or stop your boss from calling after work hours or make your mother-in-law stop giving cooking advice.

But it will give you one less thing to worry about. One less decision to make when your decision-making energy is already exhausted from a full day. One more hour to spend on something that actually matters to you, whether that's helping kids with homework, calling your parents, or just enjoying a cup of coffee in peace.

That Wednesday evening at the supermarket feels like a different lifetime. These days, my Wednesday evenings look completely different: I'm in my kitchen, Armenian folk music playing softly from my phone, teaching my son how to properly chop greens while something that smells amazing simmers on the stove.

The overpriced tomatoes have been replaced by perfectly fresh ingredients delivered to my door. The stress has been replaced by laughter and family conversations. And that constant low-level anxiety about dinner?

That's been replaced by something I'd almost forgotten existed: genuine joy in preparing a good meal, shared with people I love, on a random Wednesday evening in Yerevan.

Ready to transform your evenings? Start your mastro subscription today and discover what happens when dinner stops being a daily problem and starts being the highlight of your day.

Pricing starts at 28,000 drams per week | Free delivery across Yerevan | Pause or cancel anytime