I have posted about this before, but there are more restaurants offering coupons now. And you can get a $25 gift certificate for $2 if you use the code ENTREE by November 12. (And they constantly offer 50-70-80% discounts to people on their email list, so you should never pay the "full" $10 price.)
Check out the list of 23 Howard County restaurants -- heavy on the "bar and grill" but including some unusual places like Iron Bridge Wine Company, La Palapa, Hidden Treasure, and the Elkridge Furnace Inn. They're also accepted at Cuba de Ayer in Burtonsville and both new Japanese steakhouses -- Maruha in Columbia and Ginza of Tokyo next to the Applied Physics Lab on Johns Hopkins Road.
(Update: Read the comments below. Several people, including Alex of the Technology & MSG blog and Kate of the CupcakeRN blog, talk about some hiccups with using the certificates. Brandon left a comment on another post about issues at Frisco Grille so call ahead if you have any questions. Agussman left a comment about buying gift certificates instead of specific restaurant coupons.)
my boyfriend bought a restaurant.com certificate to the rumor mill a while back, a very good deal!
ReplyDeletebe careful -- some places have stopped accepting them. rumor mill has a sign saying they no longer take them.
ReplyDeleteI echo what the previous poster said. I tried to use a gift certificate at Frisco Grille recently and they have stopped accepting them saying there was a dispute with Restaurant.com over the terms.
ReplyDeleteI'd recommend asking before ordering just to be sure, as it's an unwelcome surprise once you get to the bill.
Similar to Brandon's experience, when I went to Egyptian Pizza I was informed after the meal that they had changed the terms and won't honor the coupon without a larger purchase. I hate mentioning coupons ahead of time, since I suspect that I'll get lesser service.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I'm surprised, really. A lot of these restaurants use the service to get people in the door, but the discounts cut into their margin in a major way. And that's before any fees to enroll in the program.
Make sure you check with the restaurant before ordering.
luckily we used it already, *phew* now i'm wondering if the certificate i have to zapatas will still be honored...if not, does anyone know if restaurant.com is offering an exchange for another certificate?
ReplyDeleteWe've used restaurant.com certificates twice, once at the Stained Glass Pub in Jessup an once at Jillian's in Ellicott City, and everything was fine.
ReplyDeleteHere's a tip for restaurant.com: Instead of buying certificates to a specific restaurant, buy gift certificates to restaurant.com. You can still use the discount code to get them cheap and they don't expire. When you want to go to a participating restaurant, you can call ahead to confirm then cash in the gift certificate for a certificate to that restaurant.
ReplyDeleteI've done this a couple of times without a hitch.
I was just wondering about this. Thanks for posting about it. And thanks for the link.
ReplyDeletei had no problems using a $25 certificate to ironbridge wine and cuba de ayer
ReplyDelete