50 off at 50 with Citibank & The Bistro Group

This may possibly be the most generous offer to come around in the restaurant scene in a long time. Citibank has partnered with the Bistro Group for a fall-off-your-seat offer that kicks off at Italianni’s on Oct. 1 to 4.

The Bistro Group is celebrating 50 stores in 2012 (and they have even exceeded their own expectations as they might actually hit store No. 53 by the end of the year). Citibank is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. With such milestones for the two well-loved institutions in the country, the partnership couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Bistro Group has 12 international franchise restaurants and homegrown conc ept s unde r i t s name: its first and flagship chains, the American favorites Italianni’s and TGI Friday’s; the Singapore concept Fish & Co.; the modern Korean cuisine Bulgogi Brothers; the American South restaurant and bar Village Tavern; and soon the modern Japanese restaurant Watami. And its homegrown restaurants Flapjacks, which serves breakfast and other fare all day; the western restaurant The Stock Market; Pig Out with its Pinoy comfort food; Filipino and fusion restaurant Krazy Garlik; the modern Japanese restaurant Ma Maison; and soon the Chinese restaurant Modern Shanghai.

Bistro Group COO Jean Paul Manuud says, “This year is a very productive year for Bistro; this year alone we opened 16 restaurants.” Mon del Rosario, Citibank SVP and head of Partnership and Business Development, says, “It’s very important for us to make sure we have the best offers in the market. We’ve done many promotions before and we tell our cardholders, go ahead and use your Citi card because it will really give you the best offers with our partner restaurants. We even guarantee our customers that if they dine in a restaurant where we have a promotion and another card offers a better deal, we will pay them back for their meal because our commitment to our cardholders is to give them the best deals.”

We’re pretty sure there won’t be a better one than 50 percent off your tab at the Bistro Group restaurants. It’s an eight-week series that will start Oct. 1 to 4 at Italianni’s, so there would be some weeks where you’ll have two Bistro restaurants running simultaneous promos.

Diners just need to use their Citibank credit card when eating at Italianni’s to get 50 percent off their bill, for a minimum of P2,500 and a maximum of P5,000, which are the average tabs of typical Italianni’s customers who come in groups of two to six.

That’s fifty off! It’s like paying for only half the group. Paul calls this generous offer a “decision maker.” Some customers pick a restaurant and simply ask the wait staff if there’s an ongoing promotion, but when you get 50 percent off your bill — that’s going to be the deciding factor.

“It’s relevant for us as we are turning 50 stores and we would like to give back to our customers. At Bistro we are very generous with our customers. We found a great partner in Citi.”

The Bistro Group was founded in 1994 when they opened the first TGI Friday’s in December of that year. Three months later, in February 1995, they opened the first Italianni’s branch. These two are the most successful brands of Bistro and have the biggest restaurants.

Italianni’s, whose cuisine is best described as American-Italian, in many ways changed the casual dining scene in Manila with its first branch on Dela Rosa St. in Makati. For one, it was the first restaurant to offer diners free freshly baked focaccia and Tuscan bread on the table with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Paul relates that whenever they do customer surveys — even to this day — the free bread always comes out on top of customers’ favorites.

From that first branch to its latest, Italianni’s has maintained its homey feel with Italian memorabilia on its walls — as if it was being run by a family — which has always been great for gatherings or even meetings with colleagues. Paul says its two branches — Greenbelt 2 and Bonifacio High Street — which offer a breakfast menu give great value for your money with its refillable coffee and western and Filipino breakfast favorites.

For many of us who have been going to Italianni’s throughout the years, it is a place of both familiar and favorite dishes, and new dishes to be discovered (it now serves Filipino favorites — it even has eggs benedict adobo for breakfast!)

Its extensive menu (it has 20 pasta and 12 pizza selections, among the main entrees) has produced bestsellers that have remained through the years : Sicilian Chicken Salad, Quattro Formaggio pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, spinach and artichoke formaggio (a favorite at the office paired with bread), and the parmesan-crusted fish fillet.

Paul reflects on the success of Italianni’s, “We deliver what we promise. From day one, what we promise is a very good value and caring restaurant people. We value our customers. We’re always on our toes, trying hard to be better. A lot of organizations have the same manual of what good customer service is about. At Bistro, we mean it, we execute what we promised to do, which is to please the customer.”

Taking 50 percent off the tab is a promise that many loyal Italianni’s customers will surely look forward to.