Restaurant.com is offering a 60% off coupon. You can buy gift certificates for your local restaurants at discount prices + 60% off. You also get a $10 gift certificate with every $25 gift certificate

Expires 07/20/09

1. Go to Restaurant.com (http://www.spoofee.com/r.php?site=restaurant)

2. Enter a zip code to shop.

3. Click Add to Cart for the certificates you'd like.

4. Click "Check Out" and enter code KITCHEN for 60% off. Click "Recalculate Total" to apply your savings.

These "Gift Certificates" are bogus. What they really are are "Coupons". A $25 "Gift Cerificate" on this site is typically a coupon for "$25 off a purchase of $50 or more" with restrictions.

We've found that the service tends to stink, because the server knows they're getting an 18% gratuity regardless. The last time we used a restaurant.com GC, our server was completely stoned at 11 a.m. in the morning.

We've found that the service tends to stink, because the server knows they're getting an 18% gratuity regardless. The last time we used a restaurant.com GC, our server was completely stoned at 11 a.m. in the morning.

How does your server know they're getting an 18% gratuity? You're free to tip whatever you want. I highly doubt there are very many servers who would purposely give you poor service because you come in with a with a coupon. I worked as a waiter in a busy restaurant in college, and I couldn't imagine giving someone poor service because they had a coupon.

I bet your server would have been stoned no matter how you paid. It's not like he went out back to toke up when you told him you would be using a restaurant.com certificate. It seems odd that you would attribute your poor service to restaurant.com and not the actual restaurant you visited. :confused:

How does your server know they're getting an 18% gratuity? You're free to tip whatever you want. I highly doubt there are very many servers who would purposely give you poor service because you come in with a with a coupon. I worked as a waiter in a busy restaurant in college, and I couldn't imagine giving someone poor service because they had a coupon.

I bet your server would have been stoned no matter how you paid. It's not like he went out back to toke up when you told him you would be using a restaurant.com certificate. It seems odd that you would attribute your poor service to restaurant.com and not the actual restaurant you visited. :confused:


18% is added into your check prior to it being delivered to your table! I have noticed that some places "forget" to do this & you are free to tip whatever... but others tack that on there right away! That is one of the MANY "terms & conditions"! I rarely use restaurant.com anymore since their minimum purchase has changed... it is not as good of a deal.

As a past server, I Would never give bad service knowing my tip in advance... but you never know what people will do :)

18% is added into your check prior to it being delivered to your table! I have noticed that some places "forget" to do this & you are free to tip whatever... but others tack that on there right away! That is one of the MANY "terms & conditions"! I rarely use restaurant.com anymore since their minimum purchase has changed... it is not as good of a deal.


Are you saying that the customer is not permitted to add additional gratuity on top of the automatic 18%? What would be the purpose of that? There's certainly no way they can stop you from leaving cash on the table.

How does your server know they're getting an 18% gratuity? You're free to tip whatever you want. I highly doubt there are very many servers who would purposely give you poor service because you come in with a with a coupon. I worked as a waiter in a busy restaurant in college, and I couldn't imagine giving someone poor service because they had a coupon.

I bet your server would have been stoned no matter how you paid. It's not like he went out back to toke up when you told him you would be using a restaurant.com certificate. It seems odd that you would attribute your poor service to restaurant.com and not the actual restaurant you visited. :confused:

The certificate said to present it to the server prior to ordering (if memory serves). He was a college student at 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning. He was stoned well in advance of our entrance.

The certificate said to present it to the server prior to ordering (if memory serves). He was a college student at 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning. He was stoned well in advance of our entrance.

:doh: sounds like you should have switched tables to start with :stoned:

I've always announced my coupon after the food has been served and I'm done eating.

I always leave a tip on what the original price of the meal would have been and have never had the tip put on the bill by the server.

I always got the impression that the server figured we were going to be saving so much money that maybe we could afford to leave a very generous tip :noidea: As I usually would do :greed:

In for 2 10$ gift certificate for Empanada Man for 1.60 ea
Wow , thanks

How does your server know they're getting an 18% gratuity? You're free to tip whatever you want. I highly doubt there are very many servers who would purposely give you poor service because you come in with a with a coupon. I worked as a waiter in a busy restaurant in college, and I couldn't imagine giving someone poor service because they had a coupon.

I bet your server would have been stoned no matter how you paid. It's not like he went out back to toke up when you told him you would be using a restaurant.com certificate. It seems odd that you would attribute your poor service to restaurant.com and not the actual restaurant you visited. :confused:

I totally agree. You tip whatever you want. Nothing at all if you want. I used many of this coupons with no problems, well, once a restaurant did not honor it and that sucked. Emailed restaurant.com and they gave me a refund.
BTW, I always tip 15% of the total before the coupon.

These "Gift Certificates" are bogus. What they really are are "Coupons". A $25 "Gift Cerificate" on this site is typically a coupon for "$25 off a purchase of $50 or more" with restrictions.
Yes, there is the fine line. I bought a 10$ off 20$ for 1.60 for a restaurant that I was going to go anyway because Empanada man rules.
If I get something in the vicinity of 25$ I end up paying only 16.60.

The certificate said to present it to the server prior to ordering (if memory serves). He was a college student at 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning. He was stoned well in advance of our entrance.

He somehow knew you were coming and had a roofie before.

These "Gift Certificates" are bogus. What they really are are "Coupons". A $25 "Gift Cerificate" on this site is typically a coupon for "$25 off a purchase of $50 or more" with restrictions.

Ill agree to an extent --- while they arent bogus, nothing (well rarely anything) is free -- they should be looked at as coupons instead of gift certificates.

your paying 4 dollars to receive a savings of 25 (though in most cases you do have to spend 50)

In some cases restaurant.com offers up to 80% off of their prices (2$ for a 25$ coupon)

I want people to know that the restaurant redeeming the certificates receives no money at all from this promotion --- just the benefit of advertisement --- so it costs them in most cases 50%(read below) of your bill just to get you in the door - when you factor in a food cost of 35-40% plus the added cost of running the business (labor, utilities, insurance etc..) believe me, your restaurant is MAYBE breaking even on the 50 dollar tab.

Id say about 80 percent of the time the coupon dinners are just the minimum purchase amount (50$) to make the coupon valid --- of that 80% about half them are less than the purchase amount and we have to strong arm the customer into spending the stated 50$ minimum(getting a dessert, appetizer etc..), and about a quarter of the time the customer wants to use additional promotions stacked with the coupon.

Moving forward, about 10% of the time the check is 75 or so bucks, and the last 10% the check may be over 100$.

The reason servers may be slow/bad to service is that they get probably 3 of those coupons per day, and the people who use them are in most cases very thrifty with their money, hence buying the coupon in the first place. Very thrifty = equals a money shot that their tip will not only be poor, but will be poor on the discounted amount. Theres nothing like working up a 50 dollar check, discounting 25$ of it, and then getting a 3 dollar tip.

As said this isnt all the time, but its the majority, and its enough for the server to remember.

many restaurant owners have removed their places from the site for the sole fact of the promotions were doing more harm than good. Sure it was great to get new clientele in, but what they were seeing was the majority of the clientele coming in time after time using the coupons and not reading the terms ---

So management would routinely have to deal with customers who would get mad because ----

The coupons were only good for one use every 30 days...
The coupons were good for one party, meaning you cant use two of them at the same time.
Minimum purchases are always fun.
Coupons were not good on friday saturday, the days where most restaurants need to make their money to survive.
Its also tough to have to discipline otherwise good employees when you understand their frustration.

so more often than not you would be dealing with people getting mad because you werent bending over backwards for them...

Youd have to give the place away just to see a customer leave happy and have said customer not give bad reviews to friends/family ...

Then you have to deal with the same customer and the same scenario the next week...

So, in removing themselves from the website, the less than desirable customers stopped coming in, and they are able to focus more on the 20% of the customers who came in regardless of the coupon.

It sucks, but a few bad apples ruin the bunch.