Let's Dish! Food for Thought » Most Popular Posts

Let’s Dish!: Sensible Solutions For Tight Budgets

Rick Corcoran — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:12:19 +0000

It’s hard to turn on the TV or open a newspaper without a reminder of the economic challenges our nation is facing. As the turmoil on Wall Street hits home on Main Street, more families are turning to Let’s Dish! for a solution. Here’s why:

Let’s Dish! costs less than dining out. What was the check last time you brought the family to Applebee’s? $50? $60? $80? A Let’s Dish! dinner serves 4-6, and costs as little as $21 (that’s for salmon, tenderloin, etc).

Let’s Dish! costs about as much as making it from scratch. We take care of the planning, the shopping, the chopping. And we do most of the clean-up. Do you think you could shop the grocery store and make flank steak or mahi mahi for the same $3.50 per serving they cost at Let’s Dish!? We couldn’t!

Let’s Dish! value is getting better and better. While grocery prices rise, and our competitors cut back, Let’s Dish! keeps adding more value. We’ve added sides to almost every meal. We’ve launched DishRewards, which has already doled out over $100,000 in Dishing discounts. And starting in November, we’ll offer half-sized meals for smaller families (with smaller budgets)… more variety and more deliciousness, with sessions starting at only $54.

We’re all feeling the crunch these days. But that doesn’t mean you have to compromise at mealtime. With Let’s Dish!, healthy, convenient family dinners can fit just about any budget. Sign up and start saving today!

RECOMMENDED LINKS:
> “Surging costs of groceries hit home“: Boston Globe article
> “More time and money are just a dish away“
> “Kid-Friendly Let’s Dish! Meals featured on WUSA9”

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The in”side” Dish on side-dishes

Jeremy Kugel — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:46:33 +0000

Sides, sides everywhere!

The customer feedback has come in loud and clear. Sugar Snap Peas, Sweet Potato Fries, Exotic Grains and Fire Roasted Vegetables. You love our sides, and you want more of them.

We hear you. And we’ve responded by including more sides as part of the regular Let’s Dish! menu. We’ve added Sugar Snap Peas to our Marinated Flank Steak, Sweet Potato Fries to our Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops, Jasmine Rice to our Savory Apricot Crusted Salmon, and more!

Plus: We’ve extended our special sides offer through the fall, meaning you can choose 4 family-sized sides for $20!

So sign up for a session today, and you’ll see we are filling your family’s plates with more deliciousness than ever before!

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Walk-in Wednesdays now available!

Emily Blakely — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:00:15 +0000

We have gotten thousands of customer suggestions and requests over the last few years, and none as often as the request to be able to walk in and dish at Let’s Dish! store without an appointment. We’ve heard your feedback and are excited to launch Walk-In Wednesdays!

Now on Wednesdays, you can walk into any of our participating Maryland or Northern Virginia locations and dish anywhere from 1 to 13 meals at a time.* No appointment necessary. You heard right. No appointment necessary!

We are thrilled to try out the new walk-in idea, and summer is the perfect time for it - when everyone’s schedule become more hectic and planning a dishing session can seem nearly impossible. We think you’ll be excited too (hey, you’ve been begging us for it)!

If Wednesday is your regular dishing day, don’t fear - you can still sign up in advance if you wish, just like you normally would. That will guarantee that all the food you ordered will be waiting for you when you get there.

Check the online calendar for your store’s Wednesday hours and stop by to dish!

*Participating Let’s Dish! locations include Baltimore and Columbia, MD, and Alexandria, Ashburn, and Fairfax, VA. Menu items are subject to availability. Only customers who make 4 or more meals will have those meals counted toward DishRewards.

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1 Dish? 6 Dishes? 11 Dishes? We’re Flexible.

Rick Corcoran — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:00:51 +0000

It started out as “8 or 12″ dishes per Let’s Dish! session. Then, with much fanfare, we added 4-meal sessions. And this spring, SingleDish Trials.

And now, welcome to the final frontier of session flexibility. Dish however many meals you want: 1, 3, 7, 14 or anything in between. OK, our technology is limited, so you still have to sign up online for SingleDish or a 4-, 8- or 12- meal session. But you can add meals to your order, quickly and easily, once in a Let’s Dish! store - usually for just $23 each. Just ask a host and we’ll take care of the rest. Want to dish 3 meals? Sign up for SingleDish and add on 2 meals in-store. Six meals your cup of tea? Sign up for 4 and add two during your session.

OK, we might not be able to touch our toes (even with the benefit of a Spoodle). But when it comes to dishing your preferred number of meals, we’re flexible.

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Let’s Dish!: The savings might surprise you.

Jeremy Kugel — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:00:53 +0000

Gas station. Coffeeshop. Dry cleaners. Just about any place you open your purse or wallet these days, you’re spending more than ever. This is especially true when it comes to shopping for food. According to a report from the Department of Labor (cited in the Boston Globe), a year-on-year increase in food prices like this hasn’t been seen in nearly two decades. Eggs are up 60%, pasta 30%, fruits 20%, and vegetables 20% versus last year – just to name a few examples.

So where does a family turn when faced with these economic challenges at the dinner table? Let’s Dish! is part of the solution. When you compare our costs to what you’d spend at grocery, you’ll find that the more you dish, the more you save. In fact, to illustrate just how much we save our dishers, we recently did a comparison of grocery costs vs. dishing costs for two of our most popular menu items (cited in a previous blog): Thai-Marinated Flank Steak and Mahi Mahi with Red Ancho Marinade.

The savings might surprise you. Here are some of the highlights:

If you bought all the ingredients at a grocery chain, you’d spend up to 7% more per serving than you do at a Let’s Dish! in-store session.
Those leftover ingredients not only clutter your pantry but they create additional costs. That Red Ancho Marinade, for example… you only need $0.69 worth (or 2 TBS) but the grocery store charges $9.95 for one 14.4 oz jar!
Check the price of flank steak recently? We can offer you the entire, marinated meal for close to the same price as steak alone!

Accounting for waste, Let’s Dish! can save you almost 50% vs making it yourself. And who wants to go through all that shopping and chopping hassle, just to spend more money than you would by dishing?! Check out the numbers for yourself. We think you’ll agree there’s no better (or more economical) way to put dinner on the table than with Let’s Dish!.

Don’t let rising food costs force your family into unhealthy dinner choices. Let’s Dish! is convenient, healthy, and always a great value.

RECOMMENDED LINKS:
> “Surging costs of groceries hit home“: Boston Globe article cited above. Graphic (right) in post courtesy of the Globe.
> “More time and money are just a dish away“
> “Kid-Friendly Let’s Dish! Meals featured on WUSA9”
(more…)

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