The Brazilian place was Texas De Brazil, down on Houston St.
The wing place is Wing Station on Culebra and Tetzel. The Groupon isn’t exactly as I described it (literary license and all that), but if you’re interested, there’s still 14 hours left to buy, from the time of this post. The variant I bought was $11 for $24 worth of food.
Other current (to be redeemed) Groupons in my list…
Nosh, on Austin Hwy in Terrell Heights: $7 for $14 meal for two. (There’s still 1 day, 14 hours left to buy on this one)
2 more Red Robin’s ($7 for $14 worth of food, must be redeemed during lunch)
Silo Elevated Cuisine and Bar, $20 for $40 worth of food. If I go Sunday through Thursday, we also get a $15 gift card for Nosh (above), so it really is $20 for $55 worth of food.
Marble Slab Creamery: $5 for $10 worth of ice cream @ La Cantera (I have two of these).
Last week I used a $20 for $45 food and games for Game Stop Pizza. Honestly, next time I do such a thing, I’ll just go to Dave 'n Buster’s, thank you. Pizza was OK, games were rather lame, not very many of them (about $20) and expensive - my 9yo ran through the $25 card in about 15 minutes, playing a bunch of prize-giveaways @ $1 each.
Nope. I don’t worry about that at all, and I’ve never had a server eye the Groupon with distaste, and if they did, I wouldn’t care - it’s not up to them how I spend my money. (We do tip on what would have been the full amount.)
I like going to new places with Groupons, but I do limit the locations. We have a Groupon right now that is at a location that I didn’t realize it was, and we’ll have to go out of our way to use that one. Ptooey.
You get an email in your inbox letting you know about the current deals. You go to Groupon’s website to check out the details, then you purchase the Groupon with your credit card if you’re interested. You then print out the Groupon and present it when you want to redeem it. You can also use them with an iPhone rather than printing them out, but I don’t have an iPhone so I can’t tell you about that.
Speaking of Amazon, they’ve launched their own version of this, called Amazon Local or something like that.
I’m kicking myself for not jumping on the Whole Foods deal, we don’t shop there all that often but at Thanksgiving time, we definitely make a trip or three there.
Groupon has a very generous refund policy. If you contact them and say that you can’t take the Samurai lessons or travel to the out-of-the-way restaurant, they will refund you.
I do find it difficult to keep up with all of the similar deal sites and I kind of wonder when we’ll reach the crest of that bubble.
In the meantime, though, I have coupons for 2 different restaurants and some rock-climbing classes.
I know this isn’t helpful but from an outsider’s standpoint it was absolutely hilarious :p.
I loved them in the beginning and was on the waiting list for my city (so I was there from its inception) but lately the offers have all been for massages and teeth whiteners and supershitty restaurants. Blerg.
we have groupons here too (work the same way as they do in the states)
I’ve picked up a few of them now.
food - good (as long as its a place you really really want to go, not something you’re taking because its a bargain). food is food. the waiter knows you have a coupon but the chef usually doesnt so the quality will be the same as full price.
hair cuts etc - bad. you’ll usually get a junior doing the job. ask my daughter who ended up with fire engine red hair instead of mahogany brown.
activities/sports - good. theyre usually start up places trying to get some word of mouth publicity.
hotels - ok. remember that you will be at the end of the list as far as room choice etc - thats fair enough though as full paying guests should get priority. there are usually lots of strings attached as well so read the fine print in regards to cancellations, block out dates etc
Conceptually, it’s great. The reality is… at least for Southern California, it sucks. And it’s not just Groupon. Living Social, LATimes Deals, dealfind, they all blow. In the 4 months or so since I signed up I’ve purchased one item - 2 movie tickets for $4. Everything else is crap I have no use for… botox injections, spa treatments, salon treatments, yoga classes, microderm abrasions. Restaurant coupons are maybe once a week, if that. And then, maybe once a month the restaurant is close enough to be worth the trip.
Let’s open up today’s mailbox, shall we…
[ul]
[li]1 month of Pilates (Living Social) - nope[/li][li]A 1 hour hot air balloon flight (LA TImes) - ok that could be fun[/li][li]Indian food (amazon local) - yummm- oh wait, it’s 20 miles away. I’ll spend more on gas getting there than I’ll save[/li][li]Highlights for my hair (Groupon) - pass[/li][/ul]
Of course, it’s a free service so I can’t complain. I just treat most of the offers like spam as I browse for the occasionally nugget in the dross.
