How to save 30% on restaurant meals

Eating restaurant food doesn’t have to be expensive. Follow these simple steps to save 30% or more on your next restaurant meal. 🙂

1. Pick a restaurant that offers a 10% discount if you pick up your take out order.
2. Contact the restaurant and tell them what you want to eat.
3. Go retrieve your food and bring it back to your home.
4. Enjoy your meal. 😀

That’s it. You can experience authentic restaurant cuisine, while being comfortable in your own dwelling. You don’t have to dress nice or wear pants that feel tight after you eat. You can eat in your underwear if you want. Nobody will judge you. 😉

Let’s compare the costs of eating in a restaurant to eating at home using an example. Imagine we want to order $40 worth of food for 2 people from this Thai restaurant in Vancouver. #notasponsor 

Cost if we sit in at the restaurant:

• Menu item = $40.00
• 5% sales tax = $2.00
• 15% tip = $6.00
• Total Cost = $48

Cost if we pick up the food and go home to eat:

• Menu item = $40.00
• 10% discount = (-$4.00)
• 5% sales tax = $1.80
• Total Cost = $37.80

(Note: Fixed sales tax amount. Previously calculation was incorrect)

As we can see, taking out the food saves us $10.20. So if we eat inside the restaurant we’ll have to pay 27% more, or 30% if we tip 18% instead of 15%. The total cost of take out is even lower than the initial $40 figure presented on the restaurant menu. That’s a good deal! 🙂 If we go to a restaurant in Ontario we can replace the 5% GST with a 13% HST. Most establishments that offer the pick up discount will advertise it on their website. Usually there is a minimum order amount of $30 or so. This is perfect if you’re ordering for 2 or more people, and if you have access to a vehicle.

Here are a couple more restaurant examples.

If ambiance and being pampered to is important then maybe the 30% premium to eat on location is worth it. But personally the value of ordering restaurant food to me comes from not having to cook, not having to clean, and the social element of enjoying a meal together with friends or a partner. So if I receive the same economic utility by eating at home as eating out, then I’ll choose the cheaper option. In fact, eating out comes with additional potential stress factors such as rowdy restaurant patrons, paying for parking, uncomfortable seats, feeling rushed, etc. Also, my home wasn’t cheap. I paid $230,000 for it. So I should make good use of the space, especially when it can save me money by not being somewhere else. #opportunitycost.

Whenever I hear about a new restaurant that I want to try the first thing I do is find out if they offer a discount for pickups. 🙂

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