The Big 5-0 For The Irish Cottage

Here’s a nice write-up — with some cool pictures to boot — from The Irish Emigrant about the Irish Cottage Bar and Restaurant located at 108-07 72nd Ave. in Forest Hills celebrating its 50th anniversary.

http://www.irishemigrant.com/ie/go.asp?p=story&storyID=6924

As a side note, the combination of back to work after the holiday weekend and this heat wave has resulted in my brain being fried today. I can barely type!! 🙂

Duaned and Confused

Anybody else completely baffled by the new Duane Reade loyalty card program? The old one was so simple to use and easy to understand. But this new Flex Rewards one has me completely thrown off.

I’m not one to spend a lot of time clipping coupons (in fact, I rarely have ever done that), but I usually join the loyalty programs at places I frequent a lot, like Duane Reade. They’re usually easy as hell to use and they can really pay you back. Like the movie theater one’s – if you haven’t joined those you don’t know what you’re missing. For no annual fee, nada, I seem to get something free pretty much every time I go to one of the theaters – candy, popcorn, soda and sometimes a free movie entirely!

Now back to Duane Reade – the previous dollar rewards or whatever they called that program was a really good one. I seemed to get some money off every few trips to the store. With the new one, I swear I had racked up this nice balance and was getting closer to some money back, and then when I bought something this weekend, that balance had just disappeared and been reset to zero.

I admit, in my harried life, there’s a chance I did not notice when I got the redemption.  But if I did miss it, then what kind of reward program is that if they don’t somehow make sure you’re aware of it when you’re getting it?

And also, what kind of reward program is it if, even after asking different cashiers to explain it to me two different times, and reading the little booklet they gave me when I signed up, and then just checking out the website a few minutes ago, I still for the life of me can not remember how many points I need to accrue before I am rewarded for shopping at Duane Reade.