There a Japanese steakhouse – Kobe’s Steakhouse – in Atlanta. We had a rare bad experience several years ago and commented to the GM on the way out. No big deal really. Now once or twice a year we get a buy 1 get one free hand written invitation from the restuarant and we ALWAYS go when it comes in the mail.

A small thing we did – like you in asking – led to a win-win for everyone involved.

That’s probably not bad value for $40… in normal economic times. If Black Angus is going to back to full price and Outback (or a local steakhouse) is going to run it’s specials, I’ll surely go to Outback.

If I want to pay prime price for prime rib, I’m going to House of Prime Rib in San Francisco. The menu has… prime rib… that’s just about it. I think there’s a fish entree (maybe available only during lent) and potentially a vegetarian meal. They choose one thing and do it well.

It’s 9:30 AM and you made me hungry for prime rib.

Now, for the $83 question … was the food good enough to get you to come back another time at full price?

I didn’t realize that the coupon said not to be combined with other offers until I was writing this up today.

We tipped for normal service (what we felt we received) as if we paid $83 dollars (what it would have cost without a coupon).

I’m not sure if breaking the company rules and allowing us a deal we shouldn’t have gotten is worth a bigger tip (something that I think Matt implied in his comment).

Another thing to think about… if the wine was going to be $25 a bottle (it’s regular price), we wouldn’t have gotten it and our final bill would have around $58 without the coupon ($37 with).

Would you rather be tipped well on $58 or tipped normally on $83? If you consider normally to be 15% (just putting a number that a I’ve heard as normal out there) and tipping well to be 20%, you’d rather be tipped normally on $83 (by a dollar). By upselling us on the wine, the waitress is already getting rewarded.

I’m like Jim, where did you get the coupon?

Jim