The Was-Price Wiggle: A 2026 Black Friday Restaurant Deal Audit

Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November this year, which means two things are about to happen in Britain. One, your inbox will fill up with restaurant offers written in capital letters. Two, someone will try to sell you a £14 burger as a bargain because it was briefly £17 in August.

At ChewDays, we like a deal. We also like not being mugged off by menu maths. So here is the practical audit: what makes a Black Friday restaurant offer genuinely good, what smells like a marketing department having a laugh, and when it is worth standing in a cold queue on a November Friday.

The cold-Friday tax

A deal is not just a price. It is price plus time plus travel plus the bit where you stand outside a burger chain while your phone battery dies. If you save £3 but queue for 40 minutes in the drizzle, you have not won. You have just bought a cheaper burger with a side of mild hypothermia.

So before you get excited about a headline discount, ask a boring question: compared with what? The normal menu price you would pay on a Tuesday, not the fantasy price printed in a red circle.

The three numbers that matter

Every Black Friday restaurant offer should be judged on three numbers:

1. The normal price. What does this meal cost on a normal Wednesday?
2. The offer price. What will you actually hand over, including sides, fees and the drink you did not really want?
3. The you price. What would you have ordered anyway if no one had waved a discount in your face?

If the offer only works by pushing you into a bigger order, it is not a saving. It is a spend.

The was-price wiggle

This is the classic move. A menu item is listed as “was £16.50, now £11”. Brilliant, except the “was” price may have existed for three weeks in a quiet August, or applied only to a larger portion nobody ordered. The current normal price might be £12.50, which makes the Black Friday saving £1.50 rather than £5.50.

That is the was-price wiggle: creating a discount by inflating the starting point. It is not illegal if the pricing is done properly, but it is not automatically a bargain either.

Our rule is simple. Use the price you paid last month as the benchmark, not the price on the poster. If you have not been before, compare the offer with similar dishes nearby. A £12 burger is only a steal if the local alternative is £15, not if it is £10.

Bundle maths: the burger-chain bundle drop

Expect the usual wave of burger bundles, pizza multibuys and “feed two for £25” deals. Some will be decent. Many will be fine but unremarkable.

Take a typical two-burger bundle at £25. If two burgers, two fries and two drinks would normally cost £32, you are saving £7, or about 22%. That is a real deal. If the bundle excludes the good burgers, charges extra for cheese, or only works on delivery where fees add £5, the shine comes off quickly.

A bundle is only a bargain if you would happily order every item in it at full price. If you are paying for a second fries you do not need just to unlock the saving, the maths is already wobbling.

Café loyalty double-ups

Black Friday brings out the loyalty-card tricks: double stamps, bonus points, free upgrades. These can be lovely. They can also be dressed up as something bigger than they are.

If a free coffee requires 10 stamps and the coffee is worth £3.50, each stamp is worth about 35p. A double-stamp day on a £3.80 coffee gives you 70p of extra value, roughly 18%. That is a nice little perk, not a half-price feast. If you would not normally visit twice that week, the “saving” may cost you an extra £3.80 to chase a freebie.

Loyalty deals are best when you were going anyway. They are worst when they turn a quiet Tuesday coffee into a Black Friday quest.

The percentage illusion

“50% off second main” sounds like half-price dinner. It is not. On two £14 mains, you pay £21 instead of £28. That is £7 off, or 25% across the meal. Still decent, but not the 50% your brain heard.

Likewise, “free dessert with £25 spend” only works if you were already spending £25. If the dessert is worth £6 and the offer nudges you from £20 to £25, you have spent £5 to get £6 of pudding. Congratulations, you saved £1 and bought a dessert you did not plan on.

“Up to 40% off” is another favourite. It usually means one item, at one time, with conditions. Find the actual item and do the actual sum.

Delivery apps: check the collection price

Black Friday delivery vouchers can look generous: £10 off £30, free delivery, double points. But delivery menus often carry a markup, and service fees, small-order fees and rider tips can swallow the saving.

A £10 voucher on a £32 delivery order is not a £10 saving if the same food costs £27 for collection and you pay £4 in fees. Sometimes the best Black Friday move is to walk to the restaurant and order at the counter. Your chips will be hotter and your maths will be simpler.

When it is worth queuing

We are not anti-queue. We are anti-pointless-queue. A Black Friday restaurant deal is worth the coat and the wait if:

• The discount is at least 20% off the normal price you would genuinely pay.
• There is no minimum spend pushing you to order more than you want.
• The portion and menu item are the normal ones, not a smaller “offer version”.
• The deal works at a normal mealtime, not just 3pm on a Thursday.
• The queue is short enough that you would still go if the saving were £5 instead of £15.

For two people, a saving under £5 is generally not worth a long wait. A saving over £10 on a meal you actually wanted is worth setting an alarm for.

The ChewDays verdict

Black Friday restaurant deals are a mixed bag. The good ones are straightforward: a straight percentage off the bill, a free side with no silly spend, a buy-one-get-one that matches how you already eat. The duds are the ones that rely on inflated “was” prices, vague “up to” claims and minimum spends that turn a discount into an upsell.

So this 27 November, do one thing before you order: screenshot the normal menu today. Then compare it with the Black Friday offer. If the saving is real, enjoy it. If the maths needs a flowchart, leave it. There are plenty of comfort eats in Britain that taste better than a fake bargain.