Who doesn’t want to save a little cash? There has never been a better time for SLC restaurant patrons to take advantage of a number of great discounting websites. I will cover the best five I know of in this article.
Restaurant.com and CityDeals.com
www.restaurant.com and www.citydeals.com offer the most recognizable savings programs.
Restaurant.com focuses squarely on restaurants and features some great eateries like The Copper Onion and Tasty Thai. A typical example saving: spend $10 to receive a $25 gift card. From time to time they also run special promotions and I have picked up $25 coupons for as little as $4! A great feature of restaurant.com is that once you purchase your coupon online, you may print it off for immediate use.
CityDeals.com has discounts for more than just dining, but does feature plenty of great restaurant deals. Some examples right now include a $25 gift card at Red Rock Brewing Company or $25 at Ganesh Indian Cuisine for just $12.50. Most offers will be mailed to you in the post once purchased, but some are printable at home too.
Groupon.com
Groupon takes a slightly different approach and isn’t exclusively for restaurants. Signup online and every day the website presents just one offer for your area. Savings run from 40% to as much as 90% in some cases. A certain number of people have to agree to purchase before the offer is given (hence the group aspect of their name). If that number is not reached, no one is billed and the offer is rescinded. You can signup to Groupon for free here, and they will mail you each day with a great offer. Full disclosure, if you use that link I get a referral credit when you purchase one of their deals.
Skweez.com
www.skweez.com is a little different to most of the savings websites. Everything is conducted through your cellphone. You sign-up online and each day you receive a text message detailing that days special offer. To redeem your discount you simply present your cell phone and text message at that days participating location. The service is free (apart form your text messaging costs from your cell provider) and recent featured restaurants include Citris Grill and Vienna Bistro. Skweez.com is locally owned and operated too.
Kostizi
www.kostizi.com is another local operation, from our very own City Weekly. It takes the standard discount coupon approach and adds in a little twist. Again you sign up online, and then a few days later in the mail you receive a Kostizi card (you can also pick them up in person at the City Weekly offices too). Redeeming offers still seems to be a work in progress. The eventual idea is that you present your Kostizi card to the participating merchant, who swipes it on site to verify the deal. At present this is only possible for certain deals, the Kostizi website states that some offers “can be loaded onto your card. Others must either be mailed or retrieved at will call. Instructions will be provided”.
Those are just five great ways to save a few dollars this summer, if you know of any more please let us know!
Note: We don’t personally endorse any of these organizations directly ourselves.
Hi, I’m Stuart, nice to meet you! I’m the founder, writer and wrangler at Gastronomic SLC. I’m a multiple-award winning journalist and have written in myopic detail about the Salt Lake City dining scene for the better part of seventeen years.
I’ve worked extensively with multiple local publications from Visit Salt Lake to Salt Lake Magazine, not least helped to consult on national TV. Pause those credits, yep, that’s me! I’m also a former restaurant critic of more than five years, working for the Salt Lake Tribune. I’m largely fueled by a critical obsession with rice, alliteration and the use of big words I don’t understand. What they’re saying about me: “Not inaccurate”, “I thought he was older”, “I don’t share his feelings”.
Want to know more? This is why I am the way I am.
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I also am signed up for Screamin Coupons. I think it is similar to Groupon. A lot of these sites are popping up now.
I hadn’t heard of those guys Annie, thanks for the heads up. Signing up now to check out their deals. As you say there are a lot popping up, great time to save some cash!
I like CityDeals personally. I mean they all have cool stuff but unlike most of the other sites it isn’t one deal or I only get the deal if a thousand other people get it. They just have a ton of stuff on the site all the time. BTW I just got an email saying if you buy $50 in gift certs you get a $20 gift card to Great Harvest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!