Sushi at Tsunami
A new Jerusalem-based group-buying site, appropriately called GroopBuy, is taking the Anglo community by storm. The site, which launched Nov. 1, is the brainchild of a 27-year-old new immigrant, David Shadpour, who says he created the business to help his fellow olim negotiate better deals.
He might also have had his eye on Groupon, the U.S.-based group-buying site that was just snapped up by Google for a whopping $2.5 billion. Shadpour’s GroopBuy borrows liberally from Groupon, down to the color scheme, the big “buy†button and countdown timer (not that there’s anything wrong – or illegal – about that).
GroopBuy is not the only game in town either – Baligam does the same thing for Hebrew speakers and is available in Tel Aviv and the Sharon area as well.
My wife and I signed up for GroopBuy nearly as soon as it launched. Since then, we’ve been receiving an email every day with another “outrageous offer.†We’ve already bought three – a haircut for our daughter at 60% off, discounted horseback riding, and NIS 75 ($20) of sushi at the Tsunami restaurant for only NIS 20 ($5.50). For that one, we bought two coupons.
We got a chance to try out the GroopBuy system for a date night dinner last week. I was worried there might be some hidden catch (such as, you have to order from the “special menuâ€) but there wasn’t. The only fine print was that we had to use our coupon within one month of purchasing – no hording coupons like frequent flyer miles. (Another recent deal, for the River Noodle Bar, had a limit of only one coupon per table – we passed on that one.)
We pigged out (pardon the non-kosher expression – the restaurant most definitely is, though the imitation crab meat was nothing like what I remember from sushi back home), and at the end of the meal received a bill for “minus 3 shekels†– that is, we hadn’t reached our NIS 150 limit.
Unfortunately, the food itself wasn’t as spectacular as the savings. I’m a decent sushi connoisseur and, other than a few tempura coated maki, Tsunami didn’t come close to our Jerusalem favorite: Sushi Rehavia. That wasn’t GroopBuy’s fault of course.
On the way out, I ran into a work colleague who was celebrating her daughter’s birthday. There were six at her table – and each one had bought the GroopBuy coupon. That meant for NIS 120, they received NIS 450 worth of sushi!
Even I’d put up with the fake crab for a deal like that.
You can read about our sushi date on Israelity.
