My wife and I just returned from a free Veteran’s Day meal at McCormick and Schmick’s, a nice seafood restaurant near our home. McCormick and Schmick’s is just one of many companies offering free meals and discounts for Veteran’s Day, and it was awesome to be able to take advantage of this deal.

When I visited the McCormick and Schmick’s website to verify the offer for a free meal, I noticed the fine print mentioned a special menu offering one of five free meals for military veterans. I thought they might be doing this to keep people from ordering the most expensive meals on the menu. But after arriving and looking at the menu, I determined they must have limited the menu to make it easier on the cooks, waitstaff, and the person who orders the food for the restaurant. By limiting the number of dishes, they could better prepare their food order. The meal selection was wonderful.

At our local McCormick and Schmick’s there were actually about 10 different meals to choose from, including top sirloin, salmon, trout, mahi-mahi, catfish, talapia, and a couple other dishes. My wife had a plank roasted salmon and I opted for the top sirloin. Both meals came with potatoes and vegetables. The combined prices for these meals was $40, so this is no small expense on the part of McCormick and Schmick’s. I also had two beers and my wife and I split and upside down apple cobbler with cinnamon ice cream. It was delicious! The meals were large enough that we even took home leftovers.

The total price of the meal with tax and tip came out to $31.00 - $10 for the two beers, $8 for the desert, $2 for tax, and $11 for the tip. When I leave a tip, I always leave the tip based on the price of the full meal, not the price of the discounted meal. The waiter does the same amount of work either way and you are tipping the waiter, not the restaurant. (To quickly calculate a tip, I divide the total bill by 6, which comes out to roughly 15%).

My wife and I both had a wonderful and inexpensive date night, and we have McCormick and Schmick’s to thank for that. Thank you for supporting military veteran’s!

Be sure to check out these other military deals and discounts.