Restaurant.comReviews 866

Review of Restaurant.com. There is no deal for the consumer here for the most part. Spent $10 for a $25 certificate. I had to spend at least $35 for the dinner... but of course due to the restaurant's menu prices I had to spend $45... then had to pay a high NY tax rate on that... and tip of 18% was automatically added to $45 bucks dinner for two (for practically no service)... and for cheap Mexican food. Where is the deal? Perhaps if you are spending 50 on steak and lobster it would have been worth it, but then again... for 2 dinner's I would have had to spend $100... so buyer BEWARE!

If you are familiar with the term "bait and switch" or would like a perfect example or education of it then buy a coupon from restaurant.com. I did!
Not at all as described-not even close. When I called for a refund within 10min after they charged( I paid through paypal) and was instantly offered a $100.00 coupon, it was like the rep had a script! I refused it by stating the last thing I wanted to do was continue doing business with a company whose first transaction was fraudulent!
Currently involved in a PayPal dispute after Restaurant.com responded with they do not refund fees!
Paypal has already decided I was delt with fraudulently, however my money has yet to be refunded.
STAY AWAY!

Currently Restaurant.com has a Class Action Lawsuit pending in the State of Florida (March 17,2011) for signing up companies that don't even exist or are Out-Of-Business and listing them on their webpages for consumers to purchase their certificates. Merchants complained in several States because restaurant.com is selling more certificates then the merchant agreed to, Instead of having a 90-Day expiration on each certificate, Restaurant.com changed the expiration to "Never Expires" on certificates without the knowledge to merchants and if the merchants refused to accept the coupons they could be sued for $17,000 by restaurant.com. Merchants would attempt to call or write to cancel contracts and instead Restaurant.com would state they never received their contract cancellation and would continue to sell certificates.

I will say that all of the rules are included with each purchase and I usually read everything before I sign up for things online. With that being said, the merchants that I know that have signed up don't like it very much and the deal isn't that great after they tack on the minimum order, the mandatory 18% gratuity, and tax. I bought a few certificates for a restaurant I frequent with my son and was told that they will accept the one I presented this time but I couldn't redeem others. When I got home I called the restaurant.com customer service and let them know that I had 3 certificates that would not be honored and they immediately credited me back for the unused certificates. The customer service was good... the deals are not so good. Just be sure to read the rules and decide from there what you want to do.

I bought the savings certificate from restaurant.com for Viiolas in Quincy.!
$10 for a $25 certificate. The comments were all fantastic. When our party of 3 arrived we were told they did not have the veal, beef, or chicken listed on the menu. (hadn't been delivered that day). Turns out they are going out of business. We were told this after our arrival. The wonderful waitress accepted our certificate (Thank you), but shame on restaurant.com for not using due dilligence in restaurant reviews. I wonder who on the staff of restaurrants.com actually verified all those comments of excellence.

The website does not show all restrictions before purchasing a restaurant certificate, and the restrictions that are shown are not consistent - this makes it deceptive because it leads you to believe "Dine In ONLY" applies to certain restaurants but not others. Only after you purchase does the requirement show up on the certificate. Restaurant.com leaves you hanging - they say, well that is part of the "General Requirements". Then be consistent on the search result page!

After speaking with two restaurants in my area who got involved with restaurant.com here are some very negative highlights: For small businesses this is a very expensive deal to participate in ie: to attract new customers through greater exposure and price incentives. It does not preclude existing customers from super-clearance pricing nor does it take into account any of the product's minimal or major daily market price increases. Lenghthy expiration dates and profit at -0 to just meeting overhead for the businesses involved is a recipe for disaster. Can these small businesses dependent on tourist $ afford to be involved with this deal? Don't be surprised when a restaurant shuts the door on your coupon to save themselves.

I received an email from my cell phone company telling me that if I switched to paperless bills they would give me $25 for restaurant.com. Great! I switched and went to the site to redeem my certificate and take my wife out to eat. Worst business ever.

You have to make minimum purchases when you buy the gift certificate on line... then when you get to the restaurant you can only use the money you paid to get the certificate on certain items and even then you can only use it if you spend a certain previous set amount, always more than the certificate you already purchased. Done Waste Your Time.

My wife and I received a $100 restaurant.com gift card as part of a wedding present. The thought of $100 to be used at a plethora of restaurants excited us both. Of course, I found out one evening when my wife and I wanted to enjoy a meal at a good restaurant that: a.) the $100 "gift card" has to be used to purchase "gift certificates" on the website, which are then printed-off. B.) Only a few restaurants in my area even participate. C.) The stipulations on the gift certificates for the restaurants in my area that do participate severely limit the possibility of receiving a good deal (must purchase a certain entree; not usable for purchases below $50; not applicable on weekends; must purchase two entrees...).
I have only used half of my credit ($50) as the experience with that was too frustrating to make it worthwhile to pursue any more "gift certificates." For anyone considering giving restaurant.com "gift cards" to a friend or relative, be aware that it might not be such a great gift after all. Restaurant.com must make tons of money by applying so many limitations to the use of their supposed gift certificates!

I bought a $25 gift certificate that stated a minimum purchase of $20 along with a couple of other restrictions. After I completed my transaction, I went to print it, and it stated I had to have a minimum purchase of $50! Now that is FALSE ADVERTISING and HIGHWAY ROBBERY! I know they will not give me my money back now, but it was only $4 so it isn't a huge deal. Just know to run the other direction when dealing with restaurant.com (HUGE SCAM)

Avoid restaurant.com (RDC) at all costs. They are the parasites of the food industry as they benefit from, but do not provide any benefit to the restaurants, which is the textbook definition of a PARASITE. Also all should be educated on them. They are the only "VOUCHER/CERTIFICATE" sellers that do not split revenue of the sales with the merchants. There "agreement" is for 1 year in which they will sell as many vouchers as they possibly can with no limit. To cancel with them it is a 90 day cancellation process?!?! They also claim that expiration of the vouchers is governed by state to state laws, yet they print on all vouchers "NO EXPIRATION". That is why there are so many complaints of people still bringing in the vouchers 3-5 years after the restaurants have cancelled with RDC. Common sense should let everyone know that if any business has a product that is being offered up at 50% off, it is just a matter of time before that business will be out of business. It also looks like Jack R. On this site is clueless as to just how much of a cheapskate he is, trying to have everyone get "gift certificates for free". He probably gives "gift certificates" to friends for birthdays, Christmas etc. at no cost to him, WOW! Cheap Cheap Cheap.

The value is great, but however they are dealing with their restaurant clients must be awful because our coupons have been refused as many times as accepted. Each time the coupon was refused, the restaurant owner/manager refused to explain what exactly caused them to dislike the company, but eagerly told us they had a very bad experience and wouldn't deal with them ever again or accept coupons out in circulation. It had to be bad because refusing the coupon reflects just as badly on the restaurant.

The overwhelming majority of the restaurants offered are not very good: bad service, bad food, over priced.

Restaurant.com doesn't care. If they did, they would not offer such horrible places and would have some sort of standard to not have such awful places on their site.

Restaurant.com does not offer any refunds, only credit for exchanges. Their website does not offer you enough information about the restaurant, only boiler plate descriptions ex: "For good times and great food, come to XXX".

I made the mistake of buying several certificates and after trying the first few, decided to research the remainder through Yelp.com and found ALL OF THEM RATED AS 3 STARS OR LESS! On Yelp, anything with less than 3 stars is bad. I've NEVER found any places on restaurants.com that had 4 stars and certainly not 5 stars (highest rating).

And again, Restaurant.com will NOT PROVIDE ANY REFUNDS, only exchanges to more mediocre restaurants in their listings!

SO, if you want to save money and don't mind bad food and bad service, then by all means, use restaurant.com