The votes are in: ShopAtHome.com's Favorite Restaurants

There’s just no question about it. ShopAtHome.com members love the Olive Garden.

“I love their soup, salad and breadsticks,” wrote one ShopatHome.com member in a review on the ShopAtHome.com site entitled “Awesome Food” posted on Olive Garden Coupons.

“They have a tortellini that is really good. I want to take my kids next week. They love the food,” the member said.

Even in tough economic times, families celebrate special occasions by going out for dinner, and use ShopAtHome.com restaurant coupons to do it. A look at the member comments for some of the 120 restaurants on ShopAtHome.com revealed postings about celebrating first communions, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, graduations and many, many other family milestones.

And which ShopAtHome.com restaurants were favored for these special events?


Olive Garden tops the list
According to member choices for “favorite,” Olive Garden received 2,293 votes, nearly twice as many as the site that took second place, McDonald’s Coupons, which received 1,273 “favorite” votes. Red Lobster Coupons, in third place with 922 votes, was the only other restaurant to approach 1,000. Rounding out the ShopAtHome.com Top 10 in descending order from there were Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza, Soup Plantation and Sweet Tomatoes (the same restaurant chain under two different names), Taco Bell, Outback Steakhouse, Papa John’s Pizza and Ruby Tuesday.


A different take from Google.com
For purposes of contrast, we ranked our list of 120 restaurants against all Google.com searches. Google’s No. 1 turned out to be In-N-Out Burger Coupons, followed in descending order by Uno Chicago Grill, Piccadilly, McDonald’s, Outback Steakhouse, Noodles & Co., IHOP, Hooters, Hard Rock Café and Pizza Hut.

Then, just to have fun with numbers, we figured out what a combination of ShopAtHome.com member favorites and Google hit rankings would look like. This list was determined by averaging the ShopAtHome.com rank and the Google hit rank. Using this system, McDonald’s came out at No. 1 because it ranked No. 2 on ShopAtHome.com and No. 4 on Google, for an average rank of 3 – higher than any other restaurant that’s on both lists. On this list, Domino’s and IHOP tied for 4th place, and Benihana and Denny’s tied for 7th place.

These are the 12 restaurants on the combination ShopAtHome.com and Google list in descending order (alphabetical order when tied): McDonald’s, Outback Steakhouse, Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza, IHOP, Chipotle, California Pizza Kitchen, Benihana, Denny’s, Panda Express, Texas Roadhouse and Longhorn Steakhouse.


Pressure to economize
The choices on all three lists are about evenly divided between fast food/pizza restaurants and moderately priced restaurants with table service. Benihana – a pioneer in staging meals that make family celebrations memorable – is the only listed restaurant with an average dinner entrée price of more than $20. Clearly, families are under pressure to economize even in their celebrations.


Here’s how!
That’s where members of ShopAtHome.com have a clear advantage.

For example?
• Check out the restaurant listings to learn about getting free kids’ meals during their birthday month for children 10 or younger at California Pizza Kitchen Coupons.

• Get a free Aussie-Tizer and a chance to win a trip to see Tim McGraw perform live at Outback Steakhouse Coupons.

• Find exclusive email-only offers and a coupon for a free birthday burger at Ruby Tuesday Coupons.

• Sign up for the Denny’s Rewards program and receive a printable coupon for a free order of Red, White and Blueberry Pancake Puppies with a value menu purchase at Denny’s Coupons.

• Finally, don’t fail to check out ShopAtHome.com’s restaurant coupons page, where you’ll find such deals as a printable coupon for a free orange chicken single serving with the purchase of another entree after 9 p.m. at Panda Express.