At first look this seems like a great deal! But after purchasing several certificates for local restaurants, we discovered some had already closed or had massive restrictions. Once we showed our certificate to one place, our service became practically nonexistent! IMO, at least in our area, it seems restaurants who sign up with this company are already on their way out of business...maybe a last ditch effort? Either way, I would never recommend or purchase from them again, as even at $10 for a $25 certificate there's a high chance you'll lose your $10 and spend way more effort than it's worth.
DevilClick -
Tuesday, June 24th 2008 5:51 PM
A good-looking but excruciating unreliable website awaits you when you point your browser to restaurant.com. If you need to get your certificates by a certain day, plan on spending about 3 days of hit or miss connections to get into the site and actually printing them once you've made a purchase. I've never had a problem making an actual purchase, just printing the purchased certs.
chadlavin -
Thursday, February 28th 2008 6:38 AM
I bought a "certificate" for a fairly expensive restaurant in town. When the bill came, the server refused to accept it. I called restaurant.com to complain, and they said it was between us and the restaurant. I called the restaurant, and they said to read the fine print which says something like acceptance of the certificate is solely at the discretion of the restaurant. So in other words, a certificate from restaurant.com is precisely worthless -- equivalent to asking your server or manager if you could have a discount, at which point they can arbitrarily decide whether to give it to you or not. A shocking -- SHOCKING -- business model.
elove8469 -
Friday, December 28th 2007 2:06 PM
I love this site! It's great especially if you are traveling, you can try out new foods and new resturants at the same time, plus save money too. Highly recommended.
happysaver -
Thursday, October 25th 2007 5:29 PM
Here are the rules about restaurant.com certificates I've set for myself:
1) Read all the restrictions and make sure you are fine with them.
2) If you would never (under no circumstances) go to a particular restaurant without certificate, you should not get a certificate either.
3) If you want the restaurant to keep offering the certificates, don't just go with a minimum purchase and tip well.
There is one thing one should realize when using restaurant.com certificates. No matter how much or how little you pay for a certificate, the actual establishment never gets a penny of that money. That is to say from restaurant's perspective "certificate" is in fact nothing but a "discount coupon." There must be a reason why restaurant is willing to give such a big discount. It does not always mean that the restaurant is bad, it could be that the place has just opened and is trying to grow its market share, or that it does not get as many customers on weeknights as on weekends... Also it makes perfect sense that restaurants are only willing to accept one certificate at a time, and only once a month (even though they can hardly check) since they want not only your business but also their profit. I've bought and used at least three dozen of these certificates at various places. There was only one instance when a restaurant owner refused to accept a certificate, and couple of restaurants closed down before I could use a certificate. (One can only blame restaurant.com for not removing the listings and/or not notifying me themselves, but I never had problem having these bad certificates exchanged.)
princessdiary -
Sunday, September 9th 2007 6:19 AM
Okay, the certificates are fine if you know that you can only visit the place once a month and that they usually have a minimum purchase. You're also expected to tip on the full bill. My issue with this website is that it is SLOW, and I'm not sure if it's just me or the website. I've been spending at least an hour on this site just to load a few pages and review a few things.
basketco -
Saturday, July 21st 2007 10:56 AM
So far I have used two certificates and had no problems. Both restaurants accepted the certificates with no problem. I purchased one for a restaurant and happened to be driving by and saw that they had closed. I thought this would just be my tough luck and lo and behold I received an unexpected, and unsolicited, email from restaurant.com stating that they noticed I had an unused certificate to a restaurant that no longer participated. They provided instructions on how to exchange it for credit for another certificate. So far, I have been very pleased.
MISTERCHEAP -
Sunday, July 15th 2007 6:20 PM
As long as you carefully read the fine print on the certificate, you'll be fine.
1) You can view the menu of the establishment before buying to see if the selections are suitable to your tastes
2) You should add the tip on the full bill so the server is not penalized.
3) Have tried some excellent restaurants through restaurant.com and been very pleased overall.
4) They accept PAYPAL which I find convenient, especially if I have a PAYPAL balance to use up.
mikeydrun -
Wednesday, June 27th 2007 4:59 PM
I agree with most comments that the deals are really good. However, there is a catch (at least with the ones I bought).
I saw a 60% off sale and with fat cash kicking in 10% off final checkout, I thought how could I lose! I purchased 4 $10 GCs to two separate restaurants. I was thinking $80 worth of food for only $9.00! However, the GCs I printed out stipulated: ONLY ONE CERTIFICATE PER REDEMPTION and ONLY ONE REDEMPTION PER PARTY. This counts even if the party is seated at separate tables and/or receives more than one check. So be wise about what you buy. I now have to go to these restaurants at least 4 times. I may just go once or twice and give away the gift certificate to the next person in line behind me!
rcbdyndns -
Monday, March 5th 2007 1:55 PM
So far I've not had any bad experiences with restaurant.com. Confirmation emails are sent immediately, although you don't need them if you check out with CC, you can print the so called gift certificate or coupon immediately after checking out.
I bought my first on a Saturday night, expecting to use it the next Sunday at 11:00 am, only to find out that the kitchen there was not open on Sundays (yet). So I would suggest calling ahead to make sure if you're making plans. (Found another that was open, and used the deal).
This is really a great deal, especially near the end of the month where restaurant.com might offer 50-60% off. I got 2 $25 deals for $4 bucks with the discount code from fatwallet. And if you're going somewhere anyway, it's a good idea to check whether the restaurant you're going to is offering anything. My my sister visited my mother last weekend, mentioned where they were going, happened to be on restaurant.com and I bought a $25 for $10 for them. They were very happy. Their restaurant was well aware of the deal.
(7.1 out of 10)
