Beyond Savored: Find the Best Restaurant Daily Deal and Flash Sale Sites for Restaurants San Francisco
Save On Your Restaurant Bill Without Playing Diner Dash
Eating out has become an undeniable part of the American lifestyle. With more moms and dads working, the home cooked dinner is not exactly the unshakeable family tradition it once was. Studies show that, on average, Americans eat at a restaurant over 3 times a week.
Yet eating out gets expensive, and times are undeniably tight.
All the innovation that has fed the flood of daily deal sites like Groupon and flash sale sites like Gilt Group or Rue La La is also working its way into the restaurant world.
Read on to see how to secure dining deals in the San Francisco Bay Area. This also includes tips on how to find deals in any neighborhood using the Internet, so people living in St. Louis may even find nuggets of use to them, too.
Yummy Restaurant Deals
More and more restaurants are getting in on the deal making game, using social media and technology to reach customers and bring them in to eat with sweet deals.
The number one tip to secure deals and promos at your personal favorite restaurants is to follow those places on Facebook and Twitter. Most restaurants now tweet occasional deals to their faithful, and the same goes for Facebook.
There also are plenty of deals that will come to you, so long as you sign up for the offering. Here's a list of some active in the San Francisco Bay Area.
BLACKBOARD EATS: Every week, a different restaurant offers a special deal — usually 30% off the bill, less any alcohol. All they ask is that you tip your server based on the price of the full bill. So say your bill was $100. A Blackboard Eats promo means you only pay $70, though your tip amount should be on the un-discounted $100. Get it? The genius of Blackboard Eats is that you do not need to pay for the deal in advance, so you are not out any money at all if you fail to make it to the restaurant. Most coupons must be used within a month of being offered.
OPEN TABLE SPOTLIGHT: No company has deeper restaurant connections than OpenTable. After all, their technology accounts for almost every single online reservation in the Bay Area. Recently, recognizing the success of Groupon, OpenTable started offering its Spotlight. Every week, and only in certain cities, there's a different deal at a top restaurant. In San Francisco, for example, diners may pay $50 to get a $100 credit at a restaurant like Prospect. For some top restaurants, only a limited number of deals are available.
SAVORED: This venture capital-backed start-up is taking on OpenTable, though it works more like Blackboard Eats. Savored, which started life as Village Vines, makes your reservation with the restaurant for you, and it charges the user a processing fee for the deal rather than taking a cut from the restaurant. On the plus side, the 30% off deal from Village Vines includes a discount on the entire bill. The discount is good on booze, and it is good for big groups, too.
General Deal Sites That Sometimes Serve Up Restaurants
- Grub Street: This weekly newsletter lists happy hour deals and restaurant specials. It's easy to sign up to receive it.
- Yelp
- Groupon
- Gilt City San Francisco
- Living Social