Restaurant.comReviews 866

I've used them for years. I'll skip the obvious stuff and give the bits that may not be obvious.

The fact that their coupons never expire is great. That means that you have to keep track of them and exchange them, but if you persevere, once you have a pool of coupons you can stop buying any and just move around your credits.

Always check that the restaurant will accept the coupon in advance. I can't tell you how many times I have found a neat restaurant, bought and printed a coupon, and headed there during its stated business hours to find a vacant building (the restaurant failed a year ago), or been told by a sneering host that "they don't take those things any more". I'm not a restaurant, but I've heard they pressure the restaurants pretty hard, and it is a better deal for the consumer than for the restaurant past the early days where the restaurant is new and needs to promote.

Their web site is terrible. In theory it is well-thought out, but is often too slow to use, or just buggy. If it works, great, it can do almost anything to help you organize your coupons or find restaurants. Open one window there, another with Yelp, and go research your area for bargains.

Watch the fine print. Holidays, no way. If it says you have to spend $50 to use a $25 coupon, does that include what you spent on your drinks? Probably not. Watch if it only for dinner, or doesn't apply for specials. Read the restrictions very carefully, And watch your bill, in some cases they add the tip in, and if you aren't careful you can tip twice.

But overall, if you are careful and methodical, it's great.

I received a $50 restaurant.com gift card when I signed up for a membership at BJ's Wholesale Club (Jan 2016). Don't waste your money and time. Unable to redeem anything. Aggravating and frustrating website. This is one of the worst promotional scams I have ever seen. If you try to redeem a certificate the waitress/restaurant look at you like your crazy. They don't know anything about this. You have a discount your trying to claim on your mobile device?... DENIED! I'm cutting my card in half and throwing it away. I've got better things to do.

First off it is extremely hard to use a coupon. There are so many restrictions that make it hard to use the coupons it is not worth it. Then to add insult to injury, we got a coupon for 10 Street live in Kenilworth NJ and the we got there and asked about the coupon the manager politely said that they no longer took Restaurant.com coupons and had asked them to take them off the web site several months ago and they refused. So buyer beware, do use them they stink. Brian

My mother gave me $125 "worth" of these "gift certificates" as a Christmas gift. It's the WORST gift I have EVER receive in my entire life. My poor mother was duped into thinking that these are "same as cash" like what a normal gift certificate should be. These are NOT gift certificates! First, hardly any places accept these things, and if they do, you probably don't want to be eating there! If you are lucky enough to find a place to use one of these sinister things, you have to jump through hoops to use it. I spent one and a half days trying to use it the first time. Extremely frustrating. Log in credentials didn't work, no customer service, etc... When you are finally able to log in, you have to go to the site from your house (not very convenient if you're out in town!), 'convert' a gift card number into a redeemable coupon at a particular restaurant, get a confirmation, then print off the piece of paper for that particular restaurant, then go to the restaurant - which are all out of the way restaurants anyway! It's not like you can use this for a dinner and a movie. You have to plan your entire night around using one of these stupid things. I only used one of the $25 cards and threw the rest in the garbage. I went to a horrible, overpriced and empty Japanese restaurant, they had a minimum purchase of $50 required in order to use a $25 card - and $25 is the max you can use at one time. Therefore, my total was about $60 plus a $15 tip for a grand total of $75... I got $25 off and had to pay $50 out of my own pocket. Not exactly saving money in my book. I was still very hungry when I left the restaurant. These would make a great stocking stuffer if you want to play a mean joke on somebody.

Maybe I have just been lucky, but I have NEVER had a problem using my certificates. Accessing your account and certificates is a little clunky at first, but I have always received helpful customer service to figure things out. The money my family has saved over the years eating out is in the thousands! Plus when we go out to dinner with other people and we have a certificate, we share the discount and we all get to enjoy the $50.00 taken off the bill, so win win! I have encountered a few places that have restrictions like "only valid Sun-Thurs", so I just don't buy those unless I know I will be eating out mid week. You do need to READ the details. All in all, I give it 5 stars. I really hope all the negative reviews don't shut this business down, it really is legit.

K. P. Seattle

I got introduced to Restaurant.com through one of my credit cards. They gave monthly $25 credits for a while. Then for some reason they stopped issuing / associating with the discounted, Restaurant.com. I got $75.00 worth of certificates, to patronize my local eateries. I was looking at getting a few hundred $ worth of wine gift baskets. Then I thought that I would just try out the certificates first.
Out of the four restaurants that my certificates represented... NONE accepted the Restaurant.com "pieces of paper".
One of the restaurants stated that they had not authorized restaurant.com to issue any type of certificates to their business. Another time, a sandwich shop that I have been going to for years came up on Restaurant.com, when I asked about the certificates, the owner said that he had never heard of them.

It's like they go onto yellowpages.com and pull names of restaurants "outta a hat" and issue certificates for them.

NOW, I know why my credit card company stopped promoting them.
Luckily I didn't loose any money, because they were all gifts. Just the extra $$ that I spent at the first restaurant, that I probably wouldn't have eaten at, had I not had the certificate.

Either way... the consumer is the one left footing the "BILL"!

RT
Philly, PA

I purchased 2 giftcards from this website and have spent three months emailing abck and forth with their "custoimer service" reps just to change the password on my account. I reset the password months ago and the new password on my account never worked, nor has the multiple "internal passwords" assigned and offered to me from the customer service. If you experience any difficulty with the website in general, do not expect a response for over a week, and it will be an auto-generated message.

This website is a waste of time and money and I will never use it again.

So you see all these bad reviews of Restaurant.com. I took advantage of a great deal.
100 - $50 cards for $500 from Citi Easy Deals. That $4500 of free food
Just avoid these assumptions:
1) It's not off any restaurant. Get a Visa Gift Card if you want that. Enjoy your fees.
2) It's not a free meal. It's up to half off the total bill. You can use the remainder elsewhere.
3) It's one use per restaurant per month. Not getting 1/2 price sushi every weekend. Goto a different restaurant tomorrow.
4) You have to log into the app to find the card to redeem. Yes it shows your name. Got to log in anyway. That bugs me! Lose one Star.
5) Let the server tap the screen to redeem.
You will hit one of these the first time through. After that it's discount city.
Got my food budget in line through some hard times.

I get restaurant.com coupons all the time. I love the site. Groupon does not even offer any discounts where I live but restaurant.com is everywhere. I use it also when I travel. There are a lot of great restaurant out there I never would have known about them if it was not for the web site. The secret to the site is to buy the restaurant.com gift card on ebay at a fraction of the cost and then use it on their web site to get the restaurant coupon. Also with Groupon you have to pay in advance but with restaurant.com there is no money up front and if I don't use the coupon or the very rare chance the restaurant don't take it yes this has happened twice to me then I just exchange it for another coupon for some place else. I have gotten so I only eat someplace if I can get half off. They now have an app for the phone and the tablet so you can just do it on the move now and don't have to print out the coupons.

I think the biggest problem people are having is they dont know how to use the web site. And maybe people are selling the gift card number more then once. I have started just getting a coupon for a resturant right after i enter in the gift card number for the whole amount of the gift card then later on i can trade the coupon in for the coupons i want that way no one can ever use your gift card because it will be used.

First thing you need to do is make a name and password for the site. So many questions when people have not even been on the site yet then you click on my account at the top. After that you should see redeem a code at the top. Click on that and enter in a code from the gift card. After that go to my account again and on the left side under my orders you will see gift cards. Click on that and your gift card will show up and then you can redeem it. Also you can view used gift card. Now after you click redeem you enter in a zip code for where you want to go. Then find the restaurant you want. I would call the restaurant before you purchase it to make sure they take it. Once an owner said no he didn't and his wife was standing next to him and said yes they do she had signed up for it but had not told him he then told her he had just turned away a costumer earlier in the day because he did not know.

I know that I am one person, with a normally calm disposition. However, when wronged I will go out of my way to let my story be known and try to stop people from patronizing that business.

That being said, restaurant.com is now dead to me. I had received a $50 gift card after the purchase of a new car. I have had the card for a few months, and had opened an account and entered the card information at that time. I went to use the account yesterday, and saw the gift card was not listed. I tried to reenter it, and was unsuccessful.

I called customer service, and was informed that the card was accessed on a different account, not used, but cannot be used by me. Wrong answer.

In short, all I would like is what is mine. A $50 gift card to try. Short of that, my mission will be to tell anyone within ear shot that restaurant.com is a company that does not deserve your time or money.