Restaurant Freebies (no poker content)

Freebies! This has no poker content whatsoever—just something I wanted to get off my chest and share with readers. About seven or eight months ago a number of restaurants stopped one of my favorite practices.

It used to be when they brought your bill, about 10 percent of the time it had a questionnaire link to it and if you went on line, filled it in, the next time you came to that restaurant they’d give you a free appetizer or some such similar thing.
But all that’s changed. Now, instead of a free appetizer, going online and completing a survey merely enters your name into a drawing where you can win monthly prizes ranging from $50 to $1,000. I’ve completed surveys sporadically since they came out with this lottery-like prize structure—one winner in who-knows-how-many and lots of losers—but I haven’t been diligent about it.

Now I’ve decided to see just how long it takes for my name to come up in one of these random giveaway drawings. And while I know that one person’s experience is statistically insignificant, I intend to complete each and every survey that comes my way and track how long it takes for my number to come up. It may be tomorrow; it may be never. But in any event, I’ll let you know.

You can let me know about you, too. Have any of you ever won one of these restaurant lotteries? If you have, it might motivate me even further. But until then, I’ll be looking for every survey form California Pizza Kitchen and the rest of the usual suspects hand me along with my bill. I’ve no idea how long until I win something, but I’ll let you know.