Restaurant.com coupons. Use them or lose them?

With the economy nearly in shambles, many of us have tightened our belts down to the very first notch. One casualty of all this belt-tightening is the practice of dining out. Some frugal readers, however, have found a way to eat out at fine restaurants for a fraction of the typical cost, by using a site called Restaurant.com.

Restaurant.com sells printable, online "gift certificates" to an array of restaurants nationwide. Type in a Seattle zip code, for instance, and over 135 restaurants will pop up. The gift certificates offered by Restaurant.com typically come in $10 or $25 increments, but you pay only $3 and $10 for them, respectively. Occasionally, Restaurant.com will offer a special bonus code that allows you to buy these certificates for even less, sometimes as much as 80% off.

Great deal, huh? Well...sort of.

The gift certificates really aren't the "same as cash" gift certificates that we all know and love. They're really more like coupons that you can buy. Each certificate comes with a (sometimes hefty) set of restrictions, such as a $35 minimum purchase, an exclusion of alcoholic beverages, a limit of how many certificates can be used per restaurant, per month, and a limited number of days and times that the coupon can be used.

Plus, many of the restaurants that participate in the Restaurant.com program aren't exactly everyone's favorites, although I noticed a few popular places, such as 88 Keys, Alki Crab and Fish, and Kabul Afghan Cuisine.

Restaurant.com's gift cards were the subject of a LifeHacker.com article, and while the article itself was relatively positive, the reader's comments were split pretty equally between those who loved the gift cards and felt they were a great value, and those who felt they were a rip-off due to the excessive restrictions.

What's my verdict? Try the coupons when you have a bonus code to purchase them at the absolute lowest price, and use them only if you are a die-hard frugalite who is patient enough to deal with all the restrictions. The most satisfied customers of Restaurant.com were the ones who read the fine print, and understood exactly what they were getting.

What about you, Frugal Readers? Have you used Restaurant.com, and if so, what was your experience? I welcome your comments!