Fast Food Coupons 2012

Fast Food Coupons to Print

I remember when you didn't fast food coupons to print in order to get a cheap meal at a fast food restaurant. When I was a young man, which doesn't seem like that long ago, you could get a decent meal at almost any fastfood restaurant for $5 or less. But times have changed, and the average fast food meal is closer to $10 than it is to $5 now. But with a printable fast food coupon, you can get your quick service restaurant meal at a price closer to what you'd expect when I was younger.

What Is a Fast Food Restaurant?

Just to be clear, I want to take a minute to clarify the difference between a fast food restaurant and other kinds of restaurants. The restaurant industry itself doesn't refer to fast food restaurants using that particular term. They prefer the term "quick service restaurant."

The phrases "quick service" and "fast" should tell you what you need to know about the difference between fast food restaurants and other restaurants. The primary difference is the amount of time spent getting your food. The way fast food restaurants make their service quicker is by eliminating most of the table service that you'd expect at a full service restaurant.

Fast Food Coupons to Print 2011Quick service restaurants usually offer fewer items on their menus. They often cook their food in advance rather than to order, and then they keep that food hot via heat lamps or something similar. Most fast food restaurants are chains or franchises.

A&W opened the first fast food restaurant in 1916, and White Castle opened the second fast food restaurant in 1921.

Printable Fast Food Coupons 2012

If you're looking on the Internet for printable fast food coupons, then the place to start is always with the restaurant's official website. You should follow your favorite fast food restaurant chains on Twitter and like them on Facebook. Often these restaurants will publicize their promotions and coupons to their social media followers.

Some fast food restaurants make coupons available to print right on their site, too. Look for a menu option that says "Coupons." If you don't see that, look for a menu item that says "Promotions," "Deals," or "Discounts."

I did a quick survey of some of the larger and more popular fast food restaurants to see which sites offered online printable coupons on their official sites. Here's what I found:

  1. McDonalds - I couldn't find any printable coupons for McDonalds on their website, but they did have a "promotions" page. When your dollar menu is so popular, it's probably tough to offer huge coupons anyway.
  2. Subway - Their site has a signup section where you can sign up to receive news and promotions. I'm sure they'll send you coupons via email once you sign up. They also promote their Subway card there, where you get free sandwiches when you buy a certain number of sandwiches. It's the same as a coupon program, only it's more of a customer rewards program.
  3. Starbucks - I'm sure some people don't think of Starbucks as a fast food restaurant, but it is. You can follow them on all their social media channels there, and I'm sure they occasionally broadcast coupons from there. They also sell gift cards from their site.
  4. Pizza Hut - Click on the "Deals" icon on their site menu, and you'll find the latest Pizza Hut coupons and offers. In my area, they're offering any size and any kind of pizza for $10. They also usually bring coupons with your pizza when they deliver it, although when I ordered one yesterday, I didn't get any coupons. (I think the $10 deal is their big offer in late 2011.)
  5. Burger King - If you like printable coupons and special offers, you'll love Burger King's website. They've got coupons right on their home page. I'm writing this article in September 2011, and they've got an offer for a free soft serve ice cream cone right there on their homepage.

Fast Food Coupon Sites on the Internet

Some sites on the Internet specialize in offering fast food coupons to print. Finding them in the search results can be tricky, because the coupon advertising market is pretty aggressive, so a lot of less-than-helpful sites exist within the niche which try to cash in on the advertising dollars available.

My favorite site for fast food coupons (and most other kinds of coupons) is RetailMeNot. A lot of their content is user-driven. Users post coupons and offers, and other users rate how well those coupons and offers actually worked when they tried to use them.

As I write this, the site is featuring coupons for some of the following fast food restaurants:

I'm pretty sure that if I were running a restaurant, fast food or not, I'd push really hard for coupons for free drinks. The soda pops at most fastfood places is one of the biggest profit centers, because the cost of the actual product is so much lower than what the company charges for it. Kenny Shopsin, in his book Eat Me, discusses how most restaurants make their money by selling colored and flavored water. If I could build good will by giving away something that didn't cost much to begin with, you can bet that I would do so without hesitation.