Las Fuentes - Pleasanton, CA

Las Fuentes
929 Main St
Pleasanton, CA 94566
(925) 462-7319

We bought one of the Restaurant.com $25 gift certificates for Las Fuentes and decided to give them a try for dinner tonight. The place was empty, but we sat down and ordered two combination fajita dinners. With nothing better to do than to look around, I noticed they had taped a Restaurant.com $25 gift certificate to the wall behind the counter and wrote "NOT VALID" on it. Uh-oh...that gift certificate was the reason we were trying this place out.

When we told the young male server we had a Restaurant.com gift certificate that we purchased online and asked why it wasn't valid here, he said the owner told him not to accept them because he didn't know anything about it...excuse me??? We've used 22 of these Restaurant.com gift certificates at 22 different restaurants and all 22 worked fine. The server did offer us $2 off our meal and told us that so many people have come in with the Restaurant.com gift certificates.

So they use Restaurant.com to attract new customers to come in to their restaurant, then tell them they don't accept the $25 gift certificates but take $2 off their meal and voila...another sucker bites the dust! Not me, though...we left before the food even came out. I'm going to contact Restaurant.com about this and if they verify that Las Fuentes did sign up for their program...I'm never coming here again.

Here's my e-mail to Restaurant.com:

Hello!

I've been very happy with every Restaurant.com gift certificate purchase so far and to date, I've used them at 22 different restaurants! However, this evening my husband and I stopped in at Las Fuentes (929 - B Main Street, Pleasanton, CA, 94566) and they had a copy of a Restaurant.com gift certificate with the words "NOT VALID" written across it.

I asked why they don't accept Restaurant.com gift certificates and the server said the owner didn't know anything about them, so he was instructed to decline them and offer customers a $2 discount instead. FYI, the server says that many people come in with these gift certificates! I'm just glad I noticed the sign and I don't like being the victim of a bait & switch, so we left before the food was even brought out and told them to cancel our order.

Please let me know the status of Las Fuentes restaurant...is it true that they didn't sign up with Restaurant.com? I didn't think you published gift certificates without the restaurant's knowledge, but thought I should ask just for the record! :)

My $25 gift certificate no. is ________, if you need that info to issue me a refund.

Best regards,

Leilani Souza

***UPDATE ON 4/7/2009***

Here's the reply from Restaurant.com:

I apologize for the inconvenience, I checked the account and yes, there is a contract. We don't put restaurants on our website without a contract. Our cancellations department has been notified that the restaurant is not accepting certificates.