Best White Elephant Gift Ever: an Italian Restaurant Coupon that Doesn’t Work On Any Actual Food

Dear business owners, we get it, you guys don’t like coupons. To you, coupons are like the commercial equivalent of getting ice cream after your tonsils have been removed – between the pain of having no business and giving away money for people to use at your business, well, some days, the world can just keep its stinking ice cream.

To that end, if you must absolutely give away coupons, there’s nothing wrong with not letting people use it on the good stuff, right?

As spotted on the Consumerist, one Italian restaurant decided to beat the coupon game by making their latest value ticket inapplicable, seemingly, to any actual food – including, yes, at an Italian restaurant, pizza, pasta, prime rib and soups and salads.

Here’s the actual copy:

Not valid on Alcohol or Gift Certificates. Pizza. Pasta. Crab Cakes. Veal Parmigiana. Stuffed Flounder. Prime Rib. Stuffed Chicken. Soup. Salads. Monday through Thursday Dinner Specials. Banquets. One coupon per party. Coupons may not be combined with any other offer. Not valid with any other offer. Not valid with any other coupon. With Valpak® coupon only. Coupon void if altered.

Though the name of the restaurant was censored in the original article, a quick Google search revealed the coupon probably belongs to Pica’s Restaurant in Philly. But as with many a mom-n-pop Italian spot, Pica’s menu is, admittedly, still long enough to include a decent selection. But then you can only use it on weekend dinner specials. And since you probably already tore it up out of anguish, it’s probably not even valid anymore. Plus there’s the whole issue of you being allergic to cheese. Sighs on sighs on sighs.

H/T Consumerist + PicThx stu_spivack