Date Night: Saving Cash While Eating Out


couples finance, frugal living, saving money, Uncategorized / Monday, May 6th, 2013

I love date night! Usually my husband and I end up staying in and trying a new recipe for dinner at home then watching a movie on Netflix or On Demand. But sometimes we just want to go out and have a night on the town.

We walked by this Brazilian steakhouse in Perkins Rowe here in Baton Rouge a few weeks ago and my hubbie got real excited since he loves Brazilian steakhouses. You know, the kind of restaurant that offers all you can eat meats and they have servers walk around with a variety of meats on a sword that they slice off at your table. Yeah, he loves that.
We wanted to go out to eat at Texas de Brazil last Friday but it’s quite expensive at $43 a person. We discussed it to make sure that we were willing to spend almost a quarter of our grocery budget on a single meal. Then we tried to figure out ways to save some money on it. Here’s how to save on eating out at nice restaurants:
1) Check Restaurant.com, Groupon, or Living Social for discount gift certificates.
2) Call and ask them if they offer any specials rates for students or military personnel. Even if you are not active duty but have a military ID a restaurant that offers a military discount will often still allow you to get the discount.
3) Eat cheaply. This restaurant offers an all you can eat buffet along with the all you can eat meats for $43 a person. We checked their website and learned that they also offer a buffet only option for only $24. And what’s in the buffet? Salad, cheeses, smoked salmon, lobster bisque, feijoada, sushi, and many other delicious dishes.
So what did we do? We couldn’t find any discounted gift certificates online but we called and found out that they offered a 15% military discount that they would give if you had a military ID even if you weren’t active duty. And we checked out the menu online and I decided that the buffet only option was more than enough for me. So we ate our hearts out at Texas de Brazil. It was sooooo delicious! 
Unfortunately we forgot to ask for the military discount once we got there but I got the cheaper buffet menu and we got a delicious upscale dinner for $67 plus tip. Still quite a hit to our grocery budget but we agreed that it would be our one nice meal out for the month and the rest of the month we will eat cheap at home.
Want to see what I wore? Check out my new blog at What I Really Wear!
How you save money at restaurants?