Bounce Energy Savings

The terrifying aspect of Valentine’s Day, for many, is the prospect of masterminding the perfect romantic dinner date in the face of the overstuffed pricing, far-in-advance reservations, and other agonies of dining out on the holiday. Many restaurants unveil unique menus–with staggering price tags–for the occasion in order to capitalize on couples’ desires for making the evening a special, standout one.

The good news is that romance doesn’t require a triple-digit bill or a weeping violin at table-side to manifest itself. For the budget-conscious among us, there are plenty of options for planning the perfect, classy Valentine’s Day dinner without breaking your budget. What follows are a few tips for achieving this, all with an emphasis on the holiday’s spirit: spending quality time with someone special and expressing those deep, intangible feelings you share for one another.

(1) Seek out more casual or freshly opened restaurants that may be specifically trying to draw in those Valentine’s Day diners running full-tilt from the over-priced, overwrought affairs found at more high-end dining establishments. Some places might be offering special deals on affordable dinners; others may simply be sticking to their usual menus. In the case of the latter, you may even be able to take advantage of happy-hour pricing or some other daily special. Call around and keep your options open. More often than not, the homeyness of such places–whether it’s your neighborhood pizza parlor or a bustling little tavern–engenders the warmth and romance Valentine’s diners really seek more than a coldly refined, excessively stuffy premier restaurant.

(2) Be creative while dining out so that you can reduce the stress on your budget, and still ramp up the elegance. Plenty of restaurants have generously sized appetizer or starter items, and in many cases, you can simply order a plethora of these for a tapas-style feast. Call around and find out which restaurants allow you to bring your own alcohol (invariably for some corkage fee); in such situations, you can provide your own fine bottle of bubbly or wine and avoid the often-crippling costs of the beverage menu. Maybe you aren’t exactly following tradition, but you might end up having more fun. Embrace the adventure.

(3) Seek out food trucks, if your area has them. From coast to coast, these personable little joints have really diversified dining in character and offerings in the last few years, and now it’s feasible to get an absolutely delicious meal on par with any traditional restaurant for a startlingly low price. A food truck might lack the refined elegance of a fancy sit-down eatery, but it can more than make up for that in the quality of its offerings and the joy of its own personality.

(4) Dine in instead and provide the classy atmosphere yourself. You can have full control over the menu: Maybe you want to make your special someone’s favorite dish, or browse through cookbooks and websites for some new culinary adventure to try. You don’t need to be a stellar or veteran chef to make good food; a simple recipe, like an easy pasta dish, rice pilaf, or homemade pizza, can render a dish just as tasty and wholesome as a complicated, ingredient-heavy one. You can opt to have the meal ready ahead of the date, or you can make the cooking process and its lazy, unhurried pace the backdrop for happy conversation. As a bonus, you can choose the music–a restaurant’s idea of a romantic soundtrack frequently doesn’t jive with your own–and decor. Then all the focus can be on you and your loved one, as it should be.

Truly, the last thing you want to care about on Valentine’s Day is fulfilling some preconceived notion of romantic elegance by spending a lot of money. The act of eating together–and cooking, too–has its own inherent sensuality, and a casual dining-out or dining-in experience commonly translates to better food and better atmosphere