The owners of Santorini restaurant want to make you a deal. Photo courtesy of Yelp.
Brooklyn’s pay-what-you-wish Greek restaurant has a Groupon… so you can pay half of what you wish. Santorini, the Williamsburg Greek eatery where you’re invited to pay what you think the meal is worth, has an offer today for $20 for $40 worth of food. But can’t you technically get that deal without a Groupon? And if the owners are taking an even bigger hit with the Groupon (they get only 25 percent) why don’t they just tell people to pay half? We rang Santorini up to clear up the confusion, and while we can’t confess to understanding every single word, this much we got: “Just come in.”
Photo via Flickr's William Self
Dear Cobble Hill Cinemas: We could go on and on about how we’d much rather hand over our $10 to your smiling, independently owned faces instead of shelling out $13 and some dignity at the bigger UA bully down the street; or how your concessions are priced lower so we don’t feel like we’re shopping at the last snack bar on the international space station; or how your crowds are pleasant and respectful and actually bought up all the tickets to Bridesmaids one Saturday night three weeks after its release while the newly released, far dumber Hangover 2 still had plenty of seats available. But there’s something bigger that cements our crush: it’s that old-generation, Saturday-morning-movie-with-Dad kind of charm the theater captures so well. You are located in one of the most Brooklyn stretches of Brooklyn down Court Street, with enough cozy bars, tasty food and enticing chocolatiers to justify missing the first showing. Climbing the winding staircase past movie scenes painted on the wall, it’s easy to imagine being there when all the movies were black and white and everyone wore fedoras. But mostly, we love that that the one time a bag of Trader Joe’s chocolate covered pretzels fell out of our bag as you were taking our ticket, you just smiled, laughed, and waved us through.
So, dear reader, you should buy this $15 Groupon for two tickets, popcorns and sodas today and go see for yourself. And even if you miss the Groupon, love up on some of their bargain nights: $7 seats all day Tuesdays and Thursdays and up to 5pm from Monday-Friday.
It’s habit to spend the first 10 waking minutes of the day weeding our inbox of terrible “deals” from the myriad coupon sites that totally miss the mark (you can keep your steaks and microdermabrasions as those are two things I never need in my life). The temptation to jump on a deal you-think-you-might-eventually-use-sometime is high, especially when half-off any meal seems like reason to celebrate. Except, sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes the “deal” is just a whored-up advertising game designed to get you in the door. Bloomberg News food critic Ryan Sutton is out to expose these deals that aren’t worth their weight in pixels with his new blog The Bad Deal. It’s worth checking before you click “buy” from now on to find out what’s really behind that offer. Read the rest of this entry »
Watch out for budgetary red shells this spring.
Typically, coupon sites traffic in hair removal, little-known restaurants and spa miscellany we don’t need, but we couldn’t help noticing an unusually intriguing spread of offers today, including dinner at a top-notch Williamsburg eatery, go kart racing, insurance-claims help, and furniture from a film prop store that sounds pretty cool. Read the rest of this entry »
Scoutmob
Despite the obvious irony of paying half a month’s rent for a phone when you’re pushing broke, most of us these days can’t walk a block without our iPhone or Android telling us the way. But for the cash-strapped, having a smart phone can actually be… smart. You may know about targeted money-saving apps for things like happy hours, cab sharing and Exercise TV. But what about apps for savings and savings period? Well, there are a bunch of free ones for that too. Some are mobile offshoots of old couponing friends, others are new kids you should get to know fast. Read the rest of this entry »
Do Groupon, ScoutMob, KGB Deals and the other sites still not quite fill your need for group discounts in New York? This week brings the launch a new site of a slightly different tilt: MindBodyGreen focuses on flash sales for healthy, organic, green or otherwise crunchy offerings from spas, restaurants and the like. The introductory offers today include a 10-person Pilates session at Body Tonic in Park Slope and $10 off GustOrganics, the city’s first and only certified organic restaurant (located near Union Square). Co-founder Jason Wachob (a DUMBO resident) says the site will focus on “everything from vegan/organic restaurants, to yoga and Pilates studios, to events and more.”
We just came across this limited-time deal from a very Groupon-like coupon site called KGB Deals (no espionage involved, we’re pretty sure). The deal’s for two tickets to a crossover Brooklyn Philharmonic concert and Brooklyn Museum exhibit on Sunday, May 16. The event is called Music Off the Walls, and you’ll hear a Philharmonic chamber ensemble, pianist and electric guitarist play music composed in the last decade, about the art installation Extended Family, whose works are also from the last decade. $14 (regularly $30) will get you and a guest museum admission, along with tickets to a 1 p.m. guided tour of the exhibit and to the 2 p.m. concert. The deal on KGB ends Friday, May 7 at midnight, or until the 88 remaining coupons are gone. Buy the coupon here.
A dollar here goes a long way there.
You could feel twice as good the next time you give in and purchase a group deal. The Mutual is the latest group-buying service joining the dozen already filling up your inbox. But this one has a charitable twist: Billing itself as the “Groupon for good,” The Mutual rewards philanthropic giving with sweet hookups on VIP events, early product releases, discounts and more. The Brooklyn-based start up is simple enough: You pay a monthly $10 fee for access to the perks. Of that, 80 percent is donated to an environmental charity, with the rest going back to The Mutual. Perks right now include a VIP Brooklyn Brewery party, a free Sustainable NYC totebag and steep discounts to Broadway shows, which means you might recover your monthly fee in just one use. Read the rest of this entry »
The owners of Santorini restaurant want to make you a deal. Photo courtesy of Yelp.
Brooklyn’s pay-what-you-wish Greek restaurant has a Groupon… so you can pay half of what you wish. Santorini, the Williamsburg Greek eatery where you’re invited to pay what you think the meal is worth, has an offer today for $20 for $40 worth of food. But can’t you technically get that deal without a Groupon? And if the owners are taking an even bigger hit with the Groupon (they get only 25 percent) why don’t they just tell people to pay half? We rang Santorini up to clear up the confusion, and while we can’t confess to understanding every single word, this much we got: “Just come in.”
Photo via Flickr's William Self
Dear Cobble Hill Cinemas: We could go on and on about how we’d much rather hand over our $10 to your smiling, independently owned faces instead of shelling out $13 and some dignity at the bigger UA bully down the street; or how your concessions are priced lower so we don’t feel like we’re shopping at the last snack bar on the international space station; or how your crowds are pleasant and respectful and actually bought up all the tickets to Bridesmaids one Saturday night three weeks after its release while the newly released, far dumber Hangover 2 still had plenty of seats available. But there’s something bigger that cements our crush: it’s that old-generation, Saturday-morning-movie-with-Dad kind of charm the theater captures so well. You are located in one of the most Brooklyn stretches of Brooklyn down Court Street, with enough cozy bars, tasty food and enticing chocolatiers to justify missing the first showing. Climbing the winding staircase past movie scenes painted on the wall, it’s easy to imagine being there when all the movies were black and white and everyone wore fedoras. But mostly, we love that that the one time a bag of Trader Joe’s chocolate covered pretzels fell out of our bag as you were taking our ticket, you just smiled, laughed, and waved us through.
So, dear reader, you should buy this $15 Groupon for two tickets, popcorns and sodas today and go see for yourself. And even if you miss the Groupon, love up on some of their bargain nights: $7 seats all day Tuesdays and Thursdays and up to 5pm from Monday-Friday.
It’s habit to spend the first 10 waking minutes of the day weeding our inbox of terrible “deals” from the myriad coupon sites that totally miss the mark (you can keep your steaks and microdermabrasions as those are two things I never need in my life). The temptation to jump on a deal you-think-you-might-eventually-use-sometime is high, especially when half-off any meal seems like reason to celebrate. Except, sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes the “deal” is just a whored-up advertising game designed to get you in the door. Bloomberg News food critic Ryan Sutton is out to expose these deals that aren’t worth their weight in pixels with his new blog The Bad Deal. It’s worth checking before you click “buy” from now on to find out what’s really behind that offer. Read the rest of this entry »
Watch out for budgetary red shells this spring.
Typically, coupon sites traffic in hair removal, little-known restaurants and spa miscellany we don’t need, but we couldn’t help noticing an unusually intriguing spread of offers today, including dinner at a top-notch Williamsburg eatery, go kart racing, insurance-claims help, and furniture from a film prop store that sounds pretty cool. Read the rest of this entry »
Scoutmob
Despite the obvious irony of paying half a month’s rent for a phone when you’re pushing broke, most of us these days can’t walk a block without our iPhone or Android telling us the way. But for the cash-strapped, having a smart phone can actually be… smart. You may know about targeted money-saving apps for things like happy hours, cab sharing and Exercise TV. But what about apps for savings and savings period? Well, there are a bunch of free ones for that too. Some are mobile offshoots of old couponing friends, others are new kids you should get to know fast. Read the rest of this entry »
Do Groupon, ScoutMob, KGB Deals and the other sites still not quite fill your need for group discounts in New York? This week brings the launch a new site of a slightly different tilt: MindBodyGreen focuses on flash sales for healthy, organic, green or otherwise crunchy offerings from spas, restaurants and the like. The introductory offers today include a 10-person Pilates session at Body Tonic in Park Slope and $10 off GustOrganics, the city’s first and only certified organic restaurant (located near Union Square). Co-founder Jason Wachob (a DUMBO resident) says the site will focus on “everything from vegan/organic restaurants, to yoga and Pilates studios, to events and more.”
We just came across this limited-time deal from a very Groupon-like coupon site called KGB Deals (no espionage involved, we’re pretty sure). The deal’s for two tickets to a crossover Brooklyn Philharmonic concert and Brooklyn Museum exhibit on Sunday, May 16. The event is called Music Off the Walls, and you’ll hear a Philharmonic chamber ensemble, pianist and electric guitarist play music composed in the last decade, about the art installation Extended Family, whose works are also from the last decade. $14 (regularly $30) will get you and a guest museum admission, along with tickets to a 1 p.m. guided tour of the exhibit and to the 2 p.m. concert. The deal on KGB ends Friday, May 7 at midnight, or until the 88 remaining coupons are gone. Buy the coupon here.
