They cannot legally do this. Restaurant.com certs are good for one year after purchase as clearly stated in the terms. You can sue the BBQ place if they don't honor the certs.

That said, I have found restaurant.com to be an absolutely delightful company to deal with. I find them so refreshingly pleasant that I have a hard time finding out how any reasonable person can have a problem with them. Their return (exchange) policy is more than generous, their terms are CLEARLY disclosed, and even if you screw up and don't follow the terms, they really do try their best to make their customers happy. I had a certificate I didnt use for 9 months, I called up and they offered an exchange.

I also absolutely adore the business model here. It exposes customers to local restaurants that they wouldn't find otherwise AND it does so at a substantial discount. I even talked to the CEO briefly when restaurant.com was in its early years.

Personally, I find that looking at the menus gives you a good feel for which restaurants are worth checking out and which ones you should take a pass on. I have found amazing restaurants though this company that I have returned and paid full price for.

Of course there was also the time a restaurant listed with them served my girlfriend *very* undercooked chicken...

As to the 18% automatically added gratuity, you can ask to have that removed. Gratuity, by definition is completely and totally optional, and there is plenty of case law establishing it as such. You can even do this at those places that add gratuity to a party of 6-8 or more, and they are legally required to take it off. Again I know this because of experience.

But with restaurant.com, I have always been so satisfied with the company and the way they treat their customers that I haven't bothered as it would probably make the restaurant reluctant to renew their contract, and they have established enough goodwill with me that I just pay the gratuity even if it was not earned.

Great company, def worth checking out.