I think it's pretty cheap for $13.50pp for Traditional Japanese "All-You-Can-Eat" in Melbourne CBD, heart of the Melbourne.
Enjoy Two Hours of Indulgent Dining on King Street! Fill Your Tummy to the Brim with Delicious Gyoza, Takoyaki, Traditional Japanese Tonkotsu Ramen, Katsu Don, Spicy Pork & Chicken, Desserts and So Much More! Available for Lunch and Dinner! Over $90 Value!
Yep, I bought a sushi deal for a place I've been to a few times. When using the coupon suddenly the green tea was $1, and extra ginger was 50c?
Righto!
I would say you get the same quality of service (they want you to come back… that's the whole point of the exercise), but possibly a restricted menu. That said, if they have a full room of scoopon's then there's a chance they'll put on less staff, and the staff will be less interested in giving good service because there'll be no tips.
What also worries me is the voucher is valid for 3 months, and there's already 450 sold. I don't know how big the restaurant is, but it's quite possible they put a limit on the number of seats available per night to scoopon customers, making it difficult to get a seat.
All hypothesis of course…
I don't think that's necessarily true. I've been asked to quote "groupbuy" voucher in places I have eaten without a voucher and service/food was the same. It's more to do with bookings as normal customers will get priority in booking over group buy voucher customers.
That said, the more worrying thing is that 500 of these are sold (with 21 hours to go) where you can only use them between April 11 - July 11 or roughly 90 days. That's almost 5 a day but given most of these get redeemed towards the end, and on weekends, you will need to book ahead weeks in advance via email. Buyer beware.
It's more to do with bookings as normal customers will get priority in booking over group buy voucher customers.
That is an example of not getting the same service…
When i use an Entertainment book voucher, I don't have to tell them until i go and pay for the meal…
and thats why you pay for an entertainment card rather than have coupons on restaurants that have a history of closing down during coupon sales.
"Obviously". If you don't know the business, comments like this are worse than useless.
We've used well over 100 of these deals, and have had issues like the one you are accusing this vendor of maybe twice.
The genius of Ozbargain - downvoting actual experience, and a significant amount of it, in favour of the Chicken Little's of the place. Unbelievable.
Geez guys, seriously what's with the down-votes?
Precisely why I hate scoopon deals,
You get treated as a second class customer …………… Because you are one ;-)
Was going to get one but saw this on the T&C
"One dish per person may be ordered at a time. Upon completion of one dish you may order the next."
Why call it all you can eat if can only order one item at a time? and they have 2 hours limit too.
Guess they want to avoid food wastage. It's always some condition like this in these "all you can eat joints"
or wait 10 mins or more until you next dish…
Hutz: Mrs. Simpson, what did you and your husband do after you were ejected from the restaurant?
Marge: We pretty much went straight home…
Hutz: Mrs. Simpson, you are under oath!
Marge: We drove around until 3AM looking for another all-you-an-eat fish restaurant.
Hutz: And when you couldn’t find one?
Marge: We went fishing…
Hutz: Do these sound like the actions of a man who had all he could eat?
I did japanese buffet before, it's like this, you order something, and it takes forever to come out. Or it comes out in small quantity. When your allocated time is up, you're not even anywhere near full. It's not really "all you can eat".
it doesn't surprise me…
At just $13.50 most people could send the restaurant broke while gorging themselves for 2 hours. The restaurant needs to protect itself from abuse. However I think this is a poor offer as there's a clear incentive for the place to serve small dishes that take a very long time to come out.
"But I only had 3 small plates in 2 hours!"
"Yes, that's all you could eat. Bye!"
:-)
Actually if you look at the menu, there's not a lot there that would send them broke. There's only a handful of starters (including some SPAM in rice concoction), then mostly everything else is Ramen, Curry & Rice, or meat & rice sets, which are all quite filling.
There is salmon sashimi - and I wonder if this would be restricted or off the menu. I could eat a lot of sashimi in 2 hours…
Here's a much better scoopon for anyone living near Ivanhoe or Hampton (which I do, and I just bought it!):
http://www.scoopon.com.au/deals/10149/sweet-easter-special-o…
$49 worth of Chocolatier chocolates for $19. Good for easter or mother's day, valid until 4 May.
As expected, no sashimi on offer!
"Not valid for Unagi, Salmon Sashimi, Seafood Salad, Jumbo Salmon Sashimi and Unadon"
where's the menu, can't see a link?
Forget it.
They'll take their time bringing out the food you order to restrict how much you eat.
This is hardly "all you can eat", offer title should be edited.
Also, you can't order everything on their menu, many exclusions.
Bring food out slow is the least thing you should worry about, get book in for a seat is probably impossible with Scoopon deals anyway. Good luck man.
Out of all your voucher deals, how many times has this happened to you? (You know, ACTUALLY happened, not "oh it always happens, everyone knows" internet keyboard warrior crap.) Feel free to tell us how many deals you've bought, how many problems you've had, how many have been caused by waiting until the dying days of the deal.
A true "all you can eat" is one where you can help yourself. Have to order and wait? - it's NOT "all you can eat", it's "all they allow you to eat".
True.
As with all these kind of deals, they may be good value it it somewhere you know or have been before. If you know the quality of their food, then 13.50pp is still a good deal - most mains are about $10, and starters vary between $2 and $8. It would be easy to get value out of this offer.
My concern is still the availability, and being able to get a table at a convenient time. Assuming the kitcken knew who was a scoopon customer you may get more rice, less curry, or more noodles, less quality ingredients in your Ramen. This defeats the business model here though. They're not making money out of the deal, they're trying to get people to come in and try it, and then hopefully come back again and pay full price for a meal.
I think everyone is getting a little hysterical about the restrictions! 13.50 isn't a lot of money, and 2 hours is a very long time to be eating in a restaurant like this!
It's Ozbargain. People want to rock up on the last evening of the deal and eat like Homer for $13.50.
you're thinking of a buffet, that's where all the food is laid out ahead of your booking and you fill up your plate, i like the fact you can eat at your own pace and not be waiting ages inbetween plates, but having said that buffet is a little less fresh, and some people still do stupid things like touch the food with their hands(and put it back!) or sneeze all over the foods, or let the kids play with the food etc personally i'd like to see portioned food on buffet tables sealed with something like gladwrap or tinfoil so there is minimum chance of spreading germs
just been to a all your can eat, lok lok dumpling, earlier this month, and it was great and food came out at reasonable amount of time and was full well before the 2 hours limit. I ordered a main in the ending and couldn't quite finish it, but was quite big and would be enough if I just ordered it for a normal meal. which i probabaly will when I'm in the area again!
it was one dish per person as well, that's just to avoid ppl from ordering everything on the menu and not eating half the stuff which is understandable.
but it is a bit of hit and miss.
I've been to a latin one in fitzroy before and it felt like a rip off because you can only order in a certain way, and if you've move on to the next course then you can't come back to the previous one and it took ages for the small portions of food to come out. I and still wasn't all that full after the 2 hours and no drink included.
considering the good reviews and only $13.50 i'm gonna give this one a try.
I stopped buying group deals for a while as I had issues with bookings, quality of services etc.
Bought 2 pet food coupons last year which expired in Feb, the shop changed their operating hours from 6 days down to 2 days, 9am to 4pm, and closed for nearly a month during Christmas. Contacted the owner and was asked to place order online, a month later still not receiving my order and they have been ignoring my sms/email. Going to give them final call tomorrow or report to ACCC.
I get better deal using Entertainment book with my salary packaging card anyway (25%-50% off from the book with further 30% off claimed at work). I don't get treated differently as I don't need to show the card/voucher until paying the bill.
I would like to know if you can order just half size me so that you can sample more food and less food wastage.
for those interested, urban spoon gives an 87% rating, which is usually translates to pretty good for melb restaurants
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/71/1630261/restaurant/CBD/Ipondo…
maybe the quality of the food is good, but we are talking quantity here…
I've been to this restaurant recently, its absolutely tiny can probably squeeze in 30 patrons at once. the food is fine but the menu is pretty small. also the menus are on ipads which everyone on the table orders from.
2474 sold.
WOW.
90 days to serve all those scoopon customers who provide very thin profit margins.
Good luck to all those who bought the deal.
Some seriously bad management going on with that deal.
Wow, average of 27 scoopon's per day for 90 days, assuming they're open 7 days a week..
Don't be sad if you missed out on this deal. The venue is really small and service is pretty slow even when the place is empty. Food is just okay. They have the kitsch factor going for them because you order via an iPad and the food comes out from a blind in front of you directly onto your table and all you see is a flash of hands. I don't see this one ending well.
The reason why i never buy these deals…
Obviously you don't get the same service as a 'normal' customer…