Restaurant.com: An Alternative To Groupon For Dining Out?
I read an article the other day that listed some alternatives to Groupon for local daily deals. For discounts at restaurants, Restaurant.com was suggested. Rosa and I don’t get many Groupon restaurant deals that appeal to us anymore, so I was interested in what Restaurant.com had to offer. I checked the Restaurant.com deals for my zip code. Here is what I found out:
- On the surface, the deals look great. Most offer several denominations of restaurant-specific gift certificates at a discount, ranging from a face value of $10 to $100. The one I liked was the $25 gift certificate at a cost of $10. That’s a 60% discount. But then I looked at the conditions the restaurant applied to the use of the gift certificate. Most restaurants required a minimum purchase of $35 and the automatic addition of an 18% gratuity before the application of the gift certificate. Suddenly my 60% discount dropped to 43%. Rosa and I normally tip 15% with more added for exceptional service, but I resent having 18% automatically tacked on to the bill.
- I liked the number and selection of restaurants, 13 within 15 miles of my house.
- I liked the fact that I could check for deals by going to the website instead of waiting for deals to arrive in my email inbox.
- The gift certificates do not expire. Another plus for the Restaurant.com product.
- If a restaurant goes out of business or a new owner does not honor the gift certificate, Restaurant.com will issue a Restaurant.com gift certificate of equal face value to be redeemed for another restaurant-specific gift certificate.
- As with Groupon offers, the entire amount of the gift certificate must be used on the same visit.
- Gift certificates may not be combined with any other offers or discounts. Restaurant specials are usually excluded, as well.
At this time, Restaurant.com does not offer a good value for us. Here’s why. Rosa and I rarely spend in excess of $30.00 on a meal and that includes drinks, tax, and a 15% tip. The minimum $35.00 purchase plus the 18% gratuity adds up to $41.30 plus tax. If we apply the $25.00 gift certificate purchased for $10.00, that reduces the cost by a net $15.00 to $26.30. We save little or nothing over what we would have normally spent on a meal. That’s not a good deal for us. To have value, a deal would have to produce a result that was less than what we would normally spend for an item, in this case, a meal.
Yes, we would have gotten $35.00 worth of food for $20.00, but if we don’t normally spend that much on dining out, where is the savings?
Now, if we were entertaining another couple at our expense, the $35.00 minimum wouldn’t come into play, and the Restaurant.com gift certificate would be a good deal for us. If the price of dining out continues to increase, and it will, then we will have to re-visit Restaurant.com. However, I suspect as prices go up, so will the dollar value of the minimum purchase.
I reviewed deals for restaurants in my zip code only. Restaurant.com does offer some advantages over Groupon. I suggest that you check out Restaurant.com for yourself and see if the deals for your geographic area are good values for you.
K.C. Knouse is the author of True Prosperity: Your Guide to a Cash-Based Lifestyle, Double-Dome Publications, 224 pages
The key to getting deals with restaurant.com is to wait for the 80% off(or better!) coupon code to use at the restaurant.com site. Then you are paying $2 for the $10 certificate that buys $25 of food. Yes, the site and restrictions are a hassle, and only so many certificates can be printed monthly for a given restaurant. It’s worth reading others’ experiences before trying to use these coupons, but it does work sometimes. Slickdeals.net is a good place to find out about the coupon codes and also read how people have used them or had problems using them.
Thank you for your detailed comment and helpful advice. In fact, yesterday Rosa came across one of those discount codes for Restaurant.com you talk about in your comment for a $25.00 gift certificate for $3.00. She purchased two gift certificates, one each for two different restaurants. As you point out, that’s a deal that gives us the value we look for. I’ll check out the slickdeals.net site.
[...] couple of months ago, I wrote that the Restaurant.com $25 gift certificates were not a good value for Rosa and me, because the [...]