My Town Marked Down is the official blog for Postabon, a community of deal-finders. This blog shares our experiences in finding a good value in New York City - whether it is a designer dress 70 percent off, free entrance to a museum or an incredible brunch special. Read about our adventures and some of our community members' favorite deals in the Big Apple.
Sometimes, Twitter can alert you to some pretty great deals and discounts. When our CEO and Co-Founder, Stu Wall discovered this deal thanks to Twitter while heading to work, he had to take advantage of this breakfast special.
Is It Truly A Deal?: A made-to-order omelet is normally $5 and the coffee is $2. This special price of $4 is not only a 40% discount; it’s also less than almost any deli in the city.
Pros: You can toss in two toppings in your egg white omelet. Five egg whites should also keep you full through lunch. Energy Kitchen also isn’t stingy on the coffee. The illy cup was comparable to a medium from your typical New York street vendor.
Cons: Maybe the guy at the West Village location didn’t understand the promotion, but I wasn’t allowed to add meat or cheese to my omelette. A rep from Energy Kitchen’s corporate offices however, says that you can get an omelet with one protein and a veggie in this special. Turkey bacon or cheese can be added for an additional charge. Speaking of additional charges, keep in mind that the $3.99 breakfast price doesn’t include tax, so you’ll be spending $4.34 on your breakfast.
Our 2 Cents: I personally love the Energy Kitchen breakfast promo and think it’s a great deal. Meat lovers may want to call your local Energy Kitchen to make sure you’ll be able to include protein in your omelet.
The first day you join the Postabon team, not only do you get cool branded t-shirts and water bottles, but our whole office goes to lunch together. In natural fashion, this lunch has to be a deal. Here’s where we ate lunch on the cheap when our two new engineers, Jason and Bill, joined our team this week.
Is It Truly A Deal?: I ordered dumplings to start and a plate of pad thai. If I came to Peep for dinner, this would have cost me $5 for dumplings, and $9 for pad thai, or $14 total. By coming to lunch, I was able to get the same large portions for only $7, so 50% off.
Pros: This deal is advertised right on the menu, so you don’t have to feel shady about asking for your free appetizer. Usually when ordering from a lunch special, the options are limited, but Peep offers 10 appetizers to choose from and 15 entrees. In addition, this deal is available if you’d like to order Peep for delivery.
Cons: Everything about this deal is perfect. The only con is that the service could be improved.
Our 2 Cents: If you work in Soho like us, you know the options for an affordable lunch are pretty slim. Luckily, Peep’s lunch special is a bright spot in this neighborhood. In fact, this two course meal is cheaper than our local salad spot! We definitely recommend giving Peep a try.
My parents were in town on Wednesday, and when we found ourselves with an hour to kill before dinner, we figured the best place to hang out was at a bar. And when you work for a deal site like Postabon, clearly I had to find a place for drinks that wouldn’t break the bank.
The Deal: Postabon member Mookman shared that Uncle Jack’s Steakhouses offer a free wine tasting from 5-7 pm on Wednesdays at their Manhattan locations, with complimentary cheese and fruit pairings. This deal is valid only at the bar. If you are in Queens, you can check out this deal in Bayside from 6-8 pm.
Is It Truly a Deal?: In a span of 45 minutes, my parents and I received 3 glasses of Shiraz and 3 glasses of Chardonnay, plus a fruit and cheese platter. At a steakhouse, you figure glasses of wine would have been at least $10 each, plus $10 for the food, so we got $70 worth of food and drinks for free. Of course, we tipped $20, so it was a savings of at least $50.
Pros: The drinks were flowing the moment we sat at the bar, and as soon as one glass of vino was finished, another glass was immediately poured. The bartender also brought out our snacks without us even asking. There was plenty of food too, with a selection of granny smith apples, dried cranberries, walnuts, olives, goat cheese and muenster cheese. This platter was perfect for 3 people and went nicely with the wine selection.
Cons: Uncle Jack’s advertises this deal on the website, but no where outside the restaurant or even inside at the bar did it mention this deal. In fact, when I walked in, I verified with the maitre’d that this deal did exist. So keep in mind, you have to be comfortable asking for your freebies or no one will offer the deal to you. Looking around at the bar, no one was drinking wine, so it was clear this deal is a bit of a hidden gem.
Our 2 Cents: Wine Wednesday at Uncle Jack’s is worth checking out, especially if you are in the neighborhood. As long as you are comfortable asking for the deal, head in from 5-7 and get ready for a few drinks and snacks. Some promotions are changing at the restaurant, as they just ended their “Ladies and Gents night”, so we recommend you check the website before heading over.
Our intern Dan is in his last week of his internship and since he really enjoys dumplings, I thought we’d try one of the best dumpling deals we have on Postabon.
The Deal: Like dumplings? Prosperity Dumplings in Chinatown offers 5 dumplings for $1, according to Postabon member Yaelleah.
Is It Truly A Deal?: When you consider that an appetizer portion of about 7 dumplings costs $4.50 at the cheapest Chinese restaurant, this deal at Prosperity Dumplings is truly a great value.
Pros: You can choose what kind of dumplings you’d like to get for $1. Get 10 boiled pork and chive dumplings for $2, or 5 pan-fried pork and chive dumplings for $1. You can also get 10 Chinese vegetable and pork boiled dumplings for $2 as well. If you change your mind and don’t feel like dumplings, don’t worry - everything on the menu is cheap!
Cons: There wasn’t anything wrong with this deal. My only complaint was I wish you got soy sauce packets so you can put the sauce on at home. I’d rather though dump the soy sauce out of the restaurant’s containers on to my to-go food though than have them raise the prices! Keep in mind our sauce leaked out of the styrofoam containers into the plastic bag, so make sure you don’t get anything on you.
Our 2 Cents: If you like dumplings, you must put Prosperity Dumplings on your to-do list. Since this is such a good deal, chances are you’ll act like us and over-order, but $2 worth of dumplings is more than enough. Most likely you’ll be torn between boiled or pan-friend, but go with the pan-friend. Since Prosperity Dumplings is rather small, you’ll want to take it back to your apartment or office and the pan-fried dumplings held up much better and were much more delicious.
Every once in awhile, the employees here at Postabon like to catch up with our co-workers outside of the office - often known as “team fun” activities. And naturally, these “team fun” activities center around some kind of deal we saw on Postabon. Here’s our take on a deal our whole office tried this week!
Is It Truly A Deal? Yes, the $19 is actually a great deal. A margarita typically goes for $8, and a platter of three tacos is $15. So if you wanted to get a marg and tacos, you’d be spending $23 to begin with, so you might as well do you all you can eat for $4 less. The first plate of the all you can eat tacos deal is a platter that also comes with rice and beans.
Pros: Unlike other all you can eat taco deals in the city, this deal was available all night, and anyone could get the deal at the table, even if not everyone in your party wanted to participate. Three of the six of us took advantage of this deal, while everyone else ordered fajitas. Mercadito for example, offers an all you can eat taco deal for $23, but everyone needs to do it which can be tough if you are with picky eaters.
Cons: There were at least 10 or so different taco varieties that all sounded delicious. On your first plate though when you got three tacos, you were allowed to pick only one variety. When you ordered your second plate of two tacos, you were allowed to change variety.
Our 2 Cents: If you like tacos, head to Vamos on a Monday night, and make sure one of the people you’ll be dining with wants to participate in this deal. This way, you can swap tacos with one another. For example, I ordered carne asada, John ordered fish tacos and Jason had a plate of chicken tacos. This way, we were able to switch and sample different tacos that Vamos had to offer.
If you are looking to keep cool this week and want a delicious treat, you may want to take advantage of one of the many frozen yogurt or smoothie deals that are floating around this month.
Let’s start with the smoothies. Frozen yogurt chain, Red Mango, is now offering smoothies and to celebrate, will be handing out $1 smoothies at the Union Square location today. Swing over to the store between 11am and 3pm to snag this deal. If you are one of the first thousand customers, you’ll also receive a passport that allows you to get one free smoothie every day between now and Friday.
If you’d rather stick to eating frozen yogurt at Red Mango, consider trying their new flavor, key lime pie. According to Postabon member jboyaval, Red mango is offering a coupon to get $1 off this new flavor. This coupon expires August 31 so print out several coupons and use them over the next few weeks!
Key lime pie not your favorite flavor? If you’d prefer watermelon instead, Pinkberry’s fro-yo happy hour is still going on. From 5-7 pm, swing by Pinkberry to get half-priced watermelon frozen yogurt. Thanks to Postabon member sluglass for passing this deal along!
Last night marked the first night of summer Restaurant Week here in New York City. For those unfamiliar with Restaurant Week, participating restaurants offer a three-course meal for lunch at the price of $24.07, or dinner for $35.
I find myself often going overboard when it comes to Restaurant Week, and end up making several reservations throughout the week. Then the next month comes, I look at my credit card bill, and wonder why I thought I could afford five nights of 50+ dinners. See, with Restaurant Week, dinner does come at $35, but add in tax, tip and one of those “discounted” glasses of wine at $7, and the next thing you know, you are paying $57 (case in point: my trip to Park Avenue Summer last night).
Still considering the prices of some of these entrees, you can sometimes get a great deal during Restaurant Week. Here are our suggestions for getting the most bang for your buck!
Lunch! Many restaurants offer a great lunch menu during Restaurant Week. If you work at a job that offers summer Fridays (read: you don’t work at Postabon) or you happen to have an afternoon off, consider going for lunch. Often restaurants offer the same menu for both lunch and dinner. For example, Ruth’s Chris offers the same menu at both lunch and dinner, so clearly it is a better deal to go for lunch and spend $11 less. That being said, if going to dinner, look to find a restaurant that offers a unique dinner menu.
Get the Real Deal! When deciding on a restaurant, compare the menu to the real menu at the restaurant. I believe the point of Restaurant Week is to actually sample dishes from a restaurant, so if a restaurant offers “specialty” items during the week that they would never offer otherwise, I’m more likely to pass on that restaurant.
Check the Dates! Before pressuring yourself to make a reservation sometime over the next two weeks, see if the restaurant offers an extended Restaurant Week menu. For example, some restaurants are offering their Restaurant Week menu through summer. Others may offer the same exact prix-fixe menu all year long, so there’s no reason to go out of your way now to dine there.
Get Out the Calculator! Before heading to dinner, determine what you would plan on ordering. Then compare it to the regular menu to see if you are getting a deal. Often, steakhouses are the best bet during Restaurant Week because a steak would cost close to $30 - nearly the price of the entire prix-fixe dinner.
Beware of the Side Dishes! While steakhouses are a great deal, look for steakhouses that throw in a choice of side in the prix-fixe price. One steakhouse I visited last year (cough cough Smith & Wollensky), just plopped down a piece of meat on the plate, and since I wanted mashed potatoes with my steak, I had to spend another $11 to get ONE side for the table. See if the restaurants you’d like to visit include side dishes. Parlour Steakhouse for example offers a choice of a side if you order a steak, as does Ruth’s Chris.
Have any other Restaurant Week tips? Share them with us!
When it comes to sushi, every now and then you may want to break out of your usual sushi routine. You know what I mean - you order the same two rolls from the same place down the block week after week. But what if there is another roll out there that you may like better? If you are like me, chances are you haven’t expanded your horizons for fear you aren’t going to like the roll you selected and will go hungry.
Luckily, all you can eat sushi places are a great way to sample different types of rolls and can help expand your horizons. If you’d like to try an all you can eat sushi special, you may want to head to Funayama Japanese Restaurant in the West Village. According to Postabon member (and founder!) swall1, every Monday and Thursday Funayama offers an all you can eat sushi special for $23. Swall1 adds that he’s really enjoyed his time at Funayama in the past, but acknowledges there is a heavy rice to fish ratio.
If you are going to enjoy all you can eat sushi, you’ll need something to wash it down with. Postabon member Manisha and blogger for NY Social Agenda shared a great deal with us at New Ashiya. For $30 on weekdays and $33 on the weekend, you can get all you can eat sushi and all you can drink sake or beer. Mentally prepare for this activity if you wish to participate - we’ve seen several young adults crying outside the restaurant after a night of all you can drink sake.
If you’d like to try new sushi, but don’t want to be responsible for ordering, consider trying Aki on West 4th. There is a special $35 prix-fixe menu, that offers a choice of 3 appetizers and a chef’s selection of sushi. According to swall1, this menu used to be just an early bird special, but now it is available at any time. Keep in mind the restaurant is small so reservations are suggested.
What are some of your favorite sushi specials? Tell us on Postabon!
After walking only two blocks yesterday and saw everyone, including myself, dripping from head to toe, I realized there had to be some affordable way to stay cool during this heatwave that didn’t involve me simply blasting my AC.
While the heat advisory may be lifted this evening, let’s face it - the temperature will be in the 90s the rest of the week and that is certainly hot! Here are some ways you can cool down - besides cracking open that fire hydrant.
Often, all it takes is a cool drink to cool your body temperature. According to Postabon member Jrubes77, Jamba Juice is offering a great promotion for you and a friend to take a break from the summer heat. Now through July 13, you can buy one smoothie, get one free with this coupon. With the weather this hot, you better take advantage of this deal!
If you are walking around Times Square this week, most likely you’ll be breaking a sweat. Rather than picking up a bottle of water at a street cart, why not sip on free orange juice? According to Postabon member Lilys189, you can snag free juice from Simply Orange Juice. They’ll have a booth in Times Square until the 11th, and recently were spotted in front of Broadway and 42nd Street.
Sometimes there is nothing like a good frozen tasty treat on a warm summer day. If you want a great sundae at an even better price, stop by Sweet Melissa’s in Brooklyn tonight, says Postabon member JudyA. On Wednesdays, you’ll get two for one sundaes - a great way to cool off during this heatwave. Just make sure to eat your ice cream before it melts!
If you need more than a cool drink or dessert to cool you down, then check out one of NYC’s 54 free outdoor pools. As the ultimate cool-down, this is a great way to spend the day with friends and family. Postabon member Pear724 says general hours of operation are 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Click on NYC’s free outdoor pools to find a pool near you.
How do you cool off without spending a ton of money? Share it with us at Postabon!
It’s no secret that everyone loves food, but what people do hide is their love for an overwhelming amount of food. While it may be taboo to stuff your face, every so often it is okay to splurge a bit. And if you are going to go all out, you might as well make your way to the nearest buffet.
The concept of the buffet is brilliant if you think about it. One flat price and you can eat anything that the restaurant puts out on the buffet. On occasion you can even find a buffet that throws in some freebies, and boy let me tell you, it doesn’t get much better than that.
If you are dreaming about all you can eat tacos, quesadillas and enchiladas, you may want to head to El Ranchito del Agave in Hell’s Kitchen. This all you can eat Mexican fiesta is available for $7.99 on weekdays between 11AM and 3PM. Don’t have time to eat in the restaurant? Grab your food to-go for $3.99 a pound, according to Postabon member AthenaCheng.
Ravel Rooftop in Queens offers one of the finest buffet experiences you will have, outside of Vegas that is. This 6000 sq foot rooftop garden with a view of the Manhattan skyline is the perfect setting to have a brunch buffet. The buffet is from 1-3pm on Sundays and includes a vast variety of brunch favorites including lox, muffins, fresh-made waffles and the coveted omelette station with all the fixings. Remember when I said it doesn’t get much better than a buffet with some freebies? While this buffet is $35, what makes it all worth it is the unlimited Bloody Marys and mimosas. Thanks to Postabon member streetforce1 for sharing this deal with us.
If you plan on going out to Happy Hour on a Thursday, why not pick a spot that includes a free buffet? According to Postabon member Lilys189, Vudu Lounge on the Upper East Side does an after work special on Thursdays. From 5 - 6:45 pm, admission is free, plus you’ll enjoy a free Latin buffet. Drink prices aren’t bad either - 2 for 1 drinks between 5 - 7 pm. Be sure to arrive before 6:45 because A) you don’t want to miss the buffet and B) cover becomes $10 after 6:45.
Where are some of your favorite buffets? Share them with us at Postabon!
should also keep you full through lunch. Energy Kitchen also isn’t stingy on the coffee. The illy cup was comparable to a medium from your typical New York street vendor. 
get cool branded t-shirts and water bottles, but our whole office goes to lunch together. In natural fashion, this lunch has to be a deal. Here’s where we ate lunch on the cheap when our two new engineers, Jason and Bill, joined our team this week.
Pros: This deal is advertised right on the menu, so you don’t have to feel shady about asking for your free appetizer. Usually when ordering from a lunch special, the options are limited, but Peep offers 10 appetizers to choose from and 15 entrees. In addition, this deal is available if you’d like to order Peep for delivery.
Shiraz and 3 glasses of Chardonnay, plus a fruit and cheese platter. At a steakhouse, you figure glasses of wine would have been at least $10 each, plus $10 for the food, so we got $70 worth of food and drinks for free. Of course, we tipped $20, so it was a savings of at least $50.
pork and chive dumplings for $2, or 5 pan-fried pork and chive dumplings for $1. You can also get 10 Chinese vegetable and pork boiled dumplings for $2 as well. If you change your mind and don’t feel like dumplings, don’t worry - everything on the menu is cheap! 
delicious. On your first plate though when you got three tacos, you were allowed to pick only one variety. When you ordered your second plate of two tacos, you were allowed to change variety. 
If you’d rather stick to eating frozen yogurt at 
I find myself often going overboard when it comes to Restaurant Week, and end up making several reservations throughout the week. Then the next month comes, I look at my credit card bill, and wonder why I thought I could afford five nights of 50+ dinners. See, with Restaurant Week, dinner does come at $35, but add in tax, tip and one of those “discounted” glasses of wine at $7, and the next thing you know, you are paying $57 (case in point: my trip to Park Avenue Summer last night).
menu at the restaurant. I believe the point of Restaurant Week is to actually sample dishes from a restaurant, so if a restaurant offers “specialty” items during the week that they would never offer otherwise, I’m more likely to pass on that restaurant.
of rolls and can help expand your horizons. If you’d like to try an all you can eat sushi special, you may want to head to 
According to Postabon member 
If you are dreaming about all you can eat tacos, quesadillas and enchiladas, you may want to head to 