restaurants

Although staying in to eat is a lot cheaper than going out, foodies can't help but indulge in their favorite restaurants once in a while. Food is one of the biggest joys in life, and nothing is better than sharing a good meal and conversation with the ones you love. In fact, the restaurant industry in America makes about $1.8 billion on a typical day, according to the Restaurant Association. That's a lot of money we're spending meals out! On your next food outing, be sure to keep these tips in mind to shrink your bill:

Use Coupons: Go to Restaurant.com and enter in a coupon code for restaurant.com that'll get you a $25 voucher for only $10. You can find the coupon code by searching online at sites like RetailMeNot.com. Buy a local Entertainment book worth $15 that will give you lots of buy one get one free coupons for restaurants.

Earn Rewards: Do your research on sites like Mint and Credit Card Guide and figure out which credit cards give you the best rewards for your diner bucks. Oftentimes, if you're a loyal member of a mileage program, you can even earn some miles by eating at the restaurants the airline partner up with. For example, Southwest has a Rapid Rewards Dining program that credits three points for every dollar spent with their restaurant partners.

Skip the Drinks: Sodas, alcohol, and other non-tap water drinks tend to be overpriced at restaurants. Get water with your meal, and if you're really itching for a particular drink, wait until dinner's over and head to a convenient store to buy it.

Order the Kiddie Meal: The meals for kids are generally cheaper and most of the times are the perfect size for adults! This option is also great for portion control and your wallet.

Read on for more tips to save when dining out.

Think eating out nightly and watching episodes of Kitchen Nightmares has given you a grasp on what it's like to run a restaurant? Then think again: owning a restaurant is serious (and tough) business. While the tough landscape is nothing new, you might be surprised to learn what factors are directly related to success — and which ones aren't. At day three of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, a number of culinary heavyweights came together to demystify the biz: New Orleans stalwart John Besh, Top Chef and Chicago favorite Stephanie Izard, Portland restaurateur Jenn Louis, and Miami mogul John Kunkel. Here are five points they hit upon that might surprise you.

Restaurateurs are, first and foremost, businessmen.
Kunkel shared one revelation: "A line out the door does not guarantee a profit." Understanding a balance sheet, on the other hand, might help. "I opened a restaurant . . . by basically pulling a Ponzi scheme on myself," he told the audience only half jokingly. The biggest amateur mistake is "not knowing all the costs that go into opening," Izard said. Or for that matter, the amount of work: "I have no other hobbies," Louis admitted. They all went by the wayside once she committed to opening her own restaurant.

Juggling more than one restaurant can be hugely complicated.
Izard, who has just opened a second spin-off restaurant, Little Goat, put this out there: "It's hard at restaurant number two, learning how to divide your head, when you can't do all the details. I don't know if I'll ever get to that point where I have more than two [restaurants]. I'm kind of a control freak." On the contrary, Besh pointed out that "to go from one to three restaurants is more difficult than to go from three to nine. You have to have managers that understand it, get it, and have the soul." To keep everything consistent across his Louisiana restaurants, Besh has implemented across-the-board rules. "You have to create a standardization of everything," he said. One way he does it is by sharing information with other similarly sized restaurant groups elsewhere in the country, like the Philadelphia-based Vetri Family or Chicago chef Paul Kahan's One Off Hospitality Group.

Local and sustainable is not always practical.
"Farm-to-table is not always possible," Kunkel admitted, explaining that there's a tightrope to walk between top-quality food and what the customer perceives to be a reasonable price point. "There is a balance between providing the absolute best product as a restaurant and . . . staying in business."

Keep reading to see two more interesting restaurant facts.

We're happy to present this article from our partner site Yahoo! Shine:

At a time when airlines are charging more for child-free seats and people are routinely enraged about out-of-control kids in public, one restaurant is rewarding parents when their pint-size diners show good manners.

When Laura King and her family got their bill at Sogno di Vino, a small Italian restaurant in Poulsbo, WA, listed under the subtotal was something they had never seen before: a discount for "Well-Behaved Kids."

Related: The No-Kids-Allowed Movement Is Spreading

King was so touched by the restaurant's gesture that she posted a picture of the receipt on her private Facebook page; a friend shared the photo on Reddit with the comment.

Read on to find out why their good behavior was rewarded.

When you're dining out with friends and the check arrives, things can turn uncomfortable quickly. Is the tip included? Should the cost be divided evenly? Some people just ate appetizers, some people just had drinks, and only a handful brought cash — what do you do? Follow these quick tips to keep things pleasant when the bill appears.

• Make a date with the ATM. Unless you regularly keep cash in your wallet, you should always stop at the ATM before meeting up with a group. Some restaurants are picky about charging multiple credit cards, so think ahead and stop by the bank before any group get-togethers. Better yet, buy something to break all those $20 bills.
• Communicate early. As soon as everyone is settled in and preparing to order, initiate a casual conversation about their bill expectations. Find out whether your friends plan to order appetizers, full meals, or just drinks, then talk about tip options and come to a consensus on how you'll handle the tab.
• Pass the bill. It's polite to pass the check folder around the table so that everyone has a chance to look at the bill. Once each person has seen the tab and made their contribution, take charge and count the cash to make sure enough money has been added. If the total comes up short, don't single out any one person — instead, kindly let the entire group know how much more is needed and let each person decide whether she needs to chip in a bit more.

At this month's Olympic games, McDonald's — the official restaurant sponsor of London 2012 — is welcoming the world's biggest set of Golden Arches at its 1,500-seat pop-up restaurant in Olympic Park, and the chain has just revealed its world-class menu for the venue.

Read ahead to see the McDonald's Olympics menu.

Earlier this week, restaurant reservation site OpenTable announced its 2012 diners' choice award winners for the top 75 kid-friendly restaurants in the country. The list reflects the responses of some five million reviews submitted by active OpenTable users, and the most popular cuisine for kiddies was found to be Italian and American. "These winning restaurants are creating a child- and family-friendly dining experience that has more to do with food and fun than merely price and portion size," says Caroline Potter, OpenTable's chief dining officer. "They offer inventive menus that can satisfy any child, from those with picky palates to adventurous young eaters — as well as mom and dad."

OpenTable's Top 75 Kid-Friendly Restaurants in the US:

• Aquarium Restaurant — Denver, CO
• Benihana — Encino, CA
• The Brooklyn Diner Times Square — New York, NY
• Buca di Beppo — 25 winning locations nationwide
• Burger Jones — Burnsville, MN
• Burger Jones — Minneapolis, MN
• Café Pesto — Kawaihae, HI
• Crown & Crumpet — San Francisco, CA
• Deerfield — Newark, DE
• Dee’s — Forest Hills, NY
• F. McLintocks Saloon & Dining House — Pismo Beach, CA
• Genji Japanese Steakhouse — Dublin, OH
• Graziano’s — Niles, IL

Click here to see the rest of OpenTable's top kid-friendly restaurants!

In the past year, there's been significant growth nationwide in the number of fast-casual eateries, from burger joints to healthier comfort-food fixtures. The latest craze we've noticed hitting this scene? Asian-themed chain restaurants.

Chipotle could've tackled a number of ethnic eats, so the Mexican chain certainly caught our attention when it unveiled its plan for ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, "inspired by the traditional shophouses through Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam." Then we raised our eyebrows when a former chef at San Francisco's renowned Slanted Door restaurant opened the first of what will be several Bay Area locations of Asian Box, a healthier riff on Asian street food.

Meanwhile, Canada-based Wok Box has been preparing to bring its stir-fry boxes and curry dishes to the western part of the United States this year. And just this week, a former Hooters chef announced his new venture, a minichain of Atlanta-based Latin fusion restaurants bearing the name Taqueria Tsunami.

Regardless of where diners are in the country, it's clear they're on the lookout for the explosive flavor combinations that come from Southeast Asian cuisines. Are you excited at the prospect of more Southeast Asian cuisine in your neck of the woods?

Photo courtesy Sonya Yu for Asian Box