The California Pizza Kitchen discount conundrum

We enjoy eating at the local California Pizza Kitchen. We like the food, and it's right on the edge of the hoity-toity Domain, so we can get to it without having to wander too far into Yuppie-dom but we still can look at all the beautiful people in pursuit of material happiness. Neat. And I may have just picked up two more corporate readers. Welcome CPK and Simon Property Group. But I digress.

On a previous visit we had one of those discount coupons that you can open only at the completion of your meal to see what the discount on your check will be. The manager comes and makes a big deal of it (it was only 5%. Big Deal) but then he gave us a couple more coupons for later visits.

Now I say that we like CPK, but we don't go there all that often, because it is a bit pricey and we usually order the Spinach/Artichoke dip for an appetizer and sometimes that's not so good on the diet. All that to say that the two coupons we had were on the verge of expiring  when we went there last week.

So. We had two coupons, but only one dining experience to use it with. No problem, we'll just choose one and give the other one to some near-by diner. But which one?  The coupon could have as much as a 25% discount. If I gave one away, and our coupon was only 5% and the nearby diners was 25% I would harbor some angst there, I tell you! Okay. We will give one away as we are leaving. That should take care of the problem. I would never know that they out discounted me.

But wait. It says on the coupon that one of them could be worth $100,000! What if I read in the paper the next day, "Local couple receives $100,000 gift from total strangers." Oh, no. that would not do!

I was hanging there, on the horns of my dilemma, when the manager came to my rescue. He saw that I had two coupons and said, "I'll open them both and sign them and then you can use the one you want and do whatever you want with the other."

So, if you are reading this, Mr or Ms CPK corporate executive, please be aware that you have a very nice, customer friendly manager at your Austin location and he should get a raise, and oh by the way if you have some more of those nice shiny coupons and wouldn't mind sharing...

The coupons? Both 10%. We enjoyed the discount and so did the couple with all the kids at the next table.