Restaurant Discounts

I first started "couponing" with restaurants about a year and a half ago when I suddenly found myself unemployed. I was looking for cheap entertainment ideas and my group of friends loves to eat out! But eating out is very expensive (unless you stick to the dollar menu at Mcdonalds but that doesn't really fit in with my goals for fitness!). So, I found creative ways to cut that restaurant tab! Here are my top favorites.

1. www.restaurant.com: this website sells $25 gift certificates to certain restaurants for anywhere from $1 to $10. They advertise that it's $10 but at least once a month, many times more often than that, they have a discount code that brings it down to $2 or $3. I've seen it go as low as a dollar. For the most part, they're not chain restaurants (here in the Springs, Ted's Montana Grill is the only exception). But a lot of the more expensive restaurants are on the website. Briarhurst Manor and Mona Lisa Fondue for example. I've tried most of the restaurants in the Springs and a couple of favorites are on there. Tomo Sushi, Nosh, and Bhan Thai are regularly visited in my family. The bad thing about this website is there are a lot of stipulations. Most restaurants say you need to spend at least $10 more than the gift certificate, sometimes double it. So basically it's just a 50% off coupon. But hey, that's not too shabby!

2. Restaurant E-Clubs: Most chain restaurants now have an online club you can subscribe to and get deals and free food from. Some of my favorites have been Mimi's Cafe, Perkins Restaurants, Noodles and Company, and P.F. Chang's. If you join no others, join these. All but P.F. Chang's gives you a completely free meal when you sign up. P.F. Changs gives you a 10% discount each time you go. And if you have more than one email account, you can sign up multiple times (don't tell my mom that I'm recommending this. She's already yelled at me because she thinks that's cheating!).

3. Free (or cheap) food events: Usually the Gazette (here in the Springs) or one of the grocery websites will alert me to special restaurant events that are happening throughout the city. To find one in your area if you don't live in the Springs, go to www.becentsable.com for a listing in your city. For example: the Mike Boyle Radio Show hosts events called the Boyle Lunch Club and he gives substantial discounts to area restaurants. My family attended the lunch at L and L Hawaiian Barbeque a couple weekends ago to get lunch for half off.

So there's some ideas to get you started. Anybody know of any other restaurant price cutting ideas?