Restaurant.com certificate not honored for Kashmir buffet

Just curious if anyone else has encountered this at Kashmir. My girlfriend had a ten dollar restaurant.com certificate, and after having their buffet (two of us), we were told that "this can't be used for the buffet. You can come back for dinner."

Nothing on the certificate about such as restriction.

We didn't want to raise a fuss over ten bucks, Only told him that it doesn't say that anywhere on the certificate. No luck.

It was my gf's first time there, and now probably her last. I'm pretty sure it was the owner we were talking to (older guy, probably 55 or so, who has been there for years).

So instead of getting a new satisfied customer, they're going to get a bunch of bad press through her facebook account, twitter feed, and even here. Bad way to run a business. Oh well....

I have $150 worth of credit to be used on Restaurant.com, that were gifted to me several years ago. Unfortunately I haven't found any restaurants on their small list that I want to use it on. I was happy to see Anselmo's on there but when I went to buy one of theirs the smallest denomination they offered was $100, and I didn't want to spend that much on them.

From what I understand, Restaurant.com is one of the worst promotion companies. I've heard that they take forever to reimburse places for the coupons they have sold. So the establishment tries to cancel the service but Restaurant.com keeps on selling vouchers even after cancellation. I've seen a number of signs on doors an cash registers around town that will not honor them. They usually don't offer any certs to places I want to eat at anyway.

Update:
Restaurant.com did contact her yesterday (same day) via twitter, apologizing and asking her to send a description of what happened to an email address they provided. (she had sent something out on twitter about the incident)

I'll let you know how that turns out. Social media is pretty powerful.

When I ran a restaurant I had a standing policy: take any coupon presented, no matter what. You have a guest looking to patronize your restaurant and they are also giving you ROI data on a promotion you have run; two things I assume you are looking to generate. Turning down a coupon because it expired or doesn't apply to a service, etc. just never made sense to me. I'm not beyond holding a coupon to its posted restrictions, but at the end of the day if the restrictions are not clear or even listed, or if the customer's experience is going to be sacrificed for the sake of a coupon value, I would rather have the business and maybe take a small hit than upset a guest. If you are not ready to enter the fabulous world of discounts and coupons, do not enter that world.

When I ran a restaurant I had a standing policy: take any coupon presented, no matter what. You have a guest looking to patronize your restaurant and they are also giving you ROI data on a promotion you have run; two things I assume you are looking to generate. Turning down a coupon because it expired or doesn't apply to a service, etc. just never made sense to me. I'm not beyond holding a coupon to its posted restrictions, but at the end of the day if the restrictions are not clear or even listed, or if the customer's experience is going to be sacrificed for the sake of a coupon value, I would rather have the business and maybe take a small hit than upset a guest. If you are not ready to enter the fabulous world of discounts and coupons, do not enter that world.

Agreed. You have to realize that the coupon probably brought them in in the first place. You can either choose to accept it, expired and all, and make yourself look accommodating or refuse it and send the guest away with a bad taste in their mouth. Seems an easy choice.

We have a different restaurant we will never return to because of a refusal to redeem a restaurant.com certificate with unclear restrictions. We were told we had ordered from the wrong list on the menu. I said, "Okay, then pretend we ordered this and charge us the higher price, then take the coupon." (Which would have still saved us money and allowed us to use the certificate.) They refused to do that, I clearly told her more than once that we would not be back because the terms weren't clear, and she said okay. I guess it meant more to the manager not to accept the coupon than to keep the customer.

I also don't buy certificates from restaurant.com anymore because it seems like a lot of places don't take them anymore.

Restaurant.com used to have certificates from some pretty good local restaurants including such notable places as the English Grille, Selena's etc.. Back then we used to use them quite often but recently it seems like the quality of the restaurants with certificates has dropped significantly and the restrictions placed on them have gotten ridiculous. I really don't think that restaurant.com will be around much longer if they keep declining.

Kari, I wish he would tell us what restaurant you had that problem at. It certainly sounds like a restaurant none of us want to deal with the management of.

Kashmir is one of the worst places in the city to try and use a coupon. (Also, the food is mediocre.) The wife tried to use a coupon from one of those Entertainment-style books of coupons (I think Buy It Local?) and even though the coupon didn't say dine-in only, they refused to take the coupon for a carry-out order made at dinner prices. So she just left the food sitting on the counter and walked out.

So, not only did they lose the sale and lost all my future business, they also had to eat the cost of the two carry-out orders. Though they probably just scraped them onto a place for the next person who ordered lamb vindaloo and chicken tikka masala.

Mark, this was four years ago and things very well could have changed, so I didn't find it prudent to give the name of the restaurant...it's the principle of the thing for us at this point.

Mark, this was four years ago and things very well could have changed, so I didn't find it prudent to give the name of the restaurant...it's the principle of the thing for us at this point.

If it was 4 years ago I certainly understand your position. If it had been recent many of us would've appreciated a Tip to avoid the same situation.