Fans of incredible frozen yogurt rejoice we are only a few days away from the grand opening of Pinkberry in Aventura. If you haven’t already check out our listing and review for the South Miami Pinkberry location.

Here is the info on the event:

To celebrate the brand’s second south Florida opening, the Aventura Pinkberry location will host a Grand Opening event on Thursday, August 25, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.  The party is open to the public and will include free Pinkberry for everyone along with plenty of extra goodies.

The first person in line will win free Pinkberry for a year, and the first 50 people in line will receive a Pinkberry surprise.  There will also be a raffle give away throughout the night.  Every 30 minutes, starting at 6:30 p.m., a lucky guest will win a free Pinkberry Party for up to 15 people.

Even before the economic recession, many people chose to either eat in or go the fast food route for their outdoor dining leaving restaurants for special occasions. Once the recession hit people were even more inclined to stay at home or wait for a great bargain to head out the door. While many restaurants offer happy hour specials as well as weekly deals, it just was not enough to bring in a high number of customers, that and the fact the many people did not know these deals existed. Enter the discount dining sites.

Groupon – www.groupon.com

Groupon became big by offering up to 75 percent off dining experiences. The way Groupon works is by city and each day there is a new deal. The only problem is the deals are not always for restaurants and you won’t always find the type of food you want.

However, Groupon was great in that it helped new or struggling restaurants and it exposed people to places they may not have thought to go to. I personally have visited a ton of new restaurants just because I purchased a coupon through Groupon.

South Florida Dines – www.southfloridadines.com

Local to South Florida, SFD offers discount coupons of up to 50% off. How it works is you visit the site and view the coupons they offer and purchase them.  Most of the time it’s a 2 to 1 ratio meaning if you pay 10 dollars for the coupon its worth 20 at the restaurant. What’s great about South Florida Dines is that there are multiple restaurants to choose from daily and it is restaurants only so no need to worry about finding other deals there.

Just Meal Deals – www.justmealdeals.com

Just meal deals is a south Florida deal network sponsored by local television station WPLG. Local restaurant owners and managers can post deals to the site and you select which you wish to take advantage of. They also offer 5, 10 and 20-dollar specials meaning you can get that much off your bill depending on the requirements of the deal or there may be a set special for that price as well.

In addition, they offer a freebie deal, which can be a buy one get one free deal, a free appetizer when you purchase an entrée deal or just something free for any reason the restaurant wishes. The great thing here is it is slightly different from the others and with the other two sites allows you to find a dining deal for every day of the week.

Frugal means smart

There are more dining deal websites that we will profile in the future and new ones popping up each day. If you know of a deal site or of establishments that offer great deals e-mail us and let us know and we will profile it on our site. If you are an establishment looking to post deals also contact us and we will pass on your deal to our readers.

Until next time.

Everyone loves to eat out, but often we cannot due to lack of funds. Especially in this time of economic strife, people are saving their pennies and doing whatever they can to weather the storm. However, there are a number of great places to go even on a budget and we are not talking crappy service or sample orders. One of these such places is Brio Tuscan Grille in Pembroke Pines.

I heard about Brio from a friend of mine and she told me they offered a $2.95 Tuscan Taster Bar Menu. Now, I admit, the first thing I thought was that she was going to say the portions were cut in half or worse. The second thing is I don’t like sitting at the bar at restaurants.

When we arrived there was indeed a large bar area to sit at, but they also consider their entire patio the bar area which was really nice. There are plenty of seats, comfortable ones too and the wait staff asked if we were here from the special.

You can see the full menu here and let me tell you these are the normal portions not a sampler. We tried everything on the menu over the few times we have been and everything is delicious.  The special menu is available Monday thru Friday from 3:30pm-6:30pm & Monday-Thursday 9.

They also offer a $5 martini night on Wednesdays; you can view that menu here.

Overall Brio is a great place to visit if you are a frugal diner. If you go let me know what you thought.

Miami Spice is a two-month long event organized by The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau which allows local restaurants to showcase their finest dishes and for visitors and locals to enjoy delicious food at magnificent prices. During August and September participating restaurants offer three course meals (Lunch $22, Dinner $35) to delight their guest and show off their chefs’ talents. The overall concept is to promote business and draw in diners during the low tourism period in Miami.

My first Miami Spice experience was very nice. I went to a restaurant which I had seen showcased on the Food Network. The dinner included the appetizer I had seen on the show, and what a deal since the appetizer alone was $25, and for $35 we also got dinner and dessert. The service was nice, we also bought a few after dinner drinks at the pool bar.

My second Miami Spice experience was not so nice. The waiter warmly welcomed us and told us the evening’s specials. I noticed the Miami Spice menu was not listed in their menu so I asked “can we see the Miami Spice menu?” His demeanor completely changed, the warm welcome turned to a disappointed “oh, let me go get them”. We enjoyed the meal, even the $4 sodas and $4 refills, but that waiter’s attitude towards our Miami Spice request left a bad taste in our mouths. The restaurant was not busy, with drinks our bill was still over $100. It not as if we took up a table for which he could have gotten a larger tab for the evening.

I thought that experience was just THAT waiter at THAT restaurant until a friend of mine recounted a similar experience. Table seated, waiter welcomes them and as soon as the words “Miami Spice” are mentioned the waiters tone and attitude changes to someone annoyed. Let’s recap Miami Spice is offered at participating restaurants, which means the owners/managers have agreed to participate, they must understand the benefit to their establishment, draw in diners during Miami Spice and perhaps keep them coming back all year.

Obviously some staff members didn’t get the memo. I realize their tips for a Miami Spice meal might not be as large as a regularly prices meal, but instead of instant disappointment it is their chance to upsell drinks, maybe an extra dessert.

I was finally able to visit the market over this past weekend and while it was a nice setup, I did expect more. The market is located in Hollywood FL and is open Saturday and Sunday 8am to 4pm. The building the market is housed in is quite large and it is open, but since it is covered and they have fans going it is not too bad.

Why I expect more is I have visited farmers markets since I was a child and have seen some that had incredible amounts of food, vegetables and more and while this farmers market did have some great looking and tasting fruits and veggies it just seemed smaller and less than what I expected.

I felt there were too many shops that did not fit in with the farmers market theme and made it more like a flea market, obviously there are going to be shops that offer art and crafts, but there just seemed to be to many and not enough that offered edible goods.

From what I did see, the fruit and veggies were very fresh and the people running all the establishments were kind, friendly and helpful. They even had a man playing reggae music and the prices on the items both edible and not were a good deal. Personally, I was expecting much more, but it is still worth the trip, but bring cash because most places do not accept credit and the ATM machine charges you $3.50 in fees.

Check out our pictures on Facebook.

In addition to discussing restaurants and experiences in Miami, we also hope to document people’s experiences bad or good and hopefully have issues resolved. Often bad service or experiences go un-rectified because people do not have a place to talk about what occurred and we want to offer a voice to those have left an establishment unhappy.

However, this is not just a place to bash restaurants, we hope to work with places to solve issues and we encourage any business who receives an unfavorable review or comment to contact us. We will be happy to report on the final solution because we know in the end most places look to make a bad situation right.

One incident I remember occurred many years ago concerning the Ruby Tuesdays at 18801 Biscayne Blvd, it is currently a Pei Wei restaurant, but two friends and I visited that location when it was a Ruby Tuesdays. Everything about the night was fine, the food was good and the waiter that served as was nice.

We were in our mid-twenties, but even then, we understood the importance of tipping. Each of us had worked at one time in a job where tips were given and we knew that if you received good service you should tip. At the end of the meal, we split the check, which did earn us a weird look from our server, but nothing serious. When the checks arrived, we paid with credit cards and filled out the tips. When I saw my friends added a bit more to their tip I realized I tipped a bit to low so I added two dollars in cash to the three dollars on the card. For reference, the meal per card was less than $18.

We left the restaurant and as we were walking to the car we were approached by the waiter. He was visibly upset and yelled to us “I think you left something.” The waiter was holding the two dollars in his hands as if it was discarded trash. When he reached us he said, “If you are going to go out to eat, learn how to tip properly.” Then he stormed off.

We were all upset, but I was willing to just shrug it off and leave. My friend however, was not going to let this go and stormed back into the restaurant. We asked for and were able to talk to a manager, and explained the situation. The manager told us the waiter has had other complaints in the past, but this was inexcusable. He was fired on the spot.

While he was completely in the wrong for first, not checking to see he was tipped in cash and the card, but second, by approaching and confronting customers in the parking lot, I did not want to see him fired. Everyone has a bad day and his cost him his job. Everyone else including the manager at Ruby Tuesdays was very nice about everything and we continued to go their until it closed.

We hope that you will share stories both good and bad of experiences you have had and if we can we will try to contact the establishment for a comment. If you have something to contribute, please leave a comment or e-mail us your story so we can post it.

South Beach is a hot spot for restaurants and people can make a name for themselves here as much as they could in New York and L.A. It is no wonder you can find many famous chefs opening locals in the area.

Soon we will be seeing a brand new restaurant on South Beach from Jeff Mclnnis. The restaurant is to be called Yardbird Southern Table & Bar and is set to open in Fall 2011. The set location for the restaurant will be at 16^th Street and Lenox Avenue.

I first tried Pinkberry two years ago in L.A. during E3 and I must admit it was pretty great. Every flavor I tried was good even before adding the toppings. When hearing Pinkberry was coming to Miami I was ecstatic, but as of yet have not been able to visit the location in the Prado Shopping center. For those that have what are your impressions of Pinkberry, and if you have had in before is there any difference from then to now?