1 Travel Tip Tuesday: The American Steakhouse Happy Hour

Everyone--especially Date Mike--loves Happy Hour. But Boston, with it's ban on discounted liquor, has to rely on cheap eats to insert the happy. Some time last year Patrick and I discovered the wonders of the McCormick and Schmick's Happy Hour. Every day except Saturday from 3:30 to 6:30, our local outlet serves deeply discounted full-sized portions of some of their more casual fare. We order their 8 oz burger for $3 and watch the suckers who come in at 6:35 get identical ones for $10. And their creamy, melty $2 spinach artichoke dip is a standard for us. Not only is this food cheap, but it's of really high quality. Opentable.com tells you to expect to pay $31-50 for a meal.

After several belly-busting, penny pinching dinners at M&S, we found out that The Palm does a similar deal on weeknights as well. Here the food comes out a bit more high-end with a penchant for the bite-size: burger sliders, chicken sliders, cheese steaks on the cutest little rolls you've ever seen. And in general it's not quite as satisfying, but we like to shake it up from time to time. We're pretty crazy.

But with hundreds of locations of McCormick and Schmick's and The Palm peppered all over the country, I really wish we'd known about this for our cross-country road trip, when we were living on dollars a day and had all the time flexibility in the world. There would have been way less nights of subsisting on granola bars and peanut butter sandwiches. So if you're looking to save money on an upcoming trip to or within the US, or just a nice little Sunday, call up your local steakhouse and check out their discounted bar menu times. It tends to be a very happy hour.

Unless Date Mike shows up. Or Prison Mike.

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