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Dinner With Your Friends In Kingston - Student Deals Edition!

Whilst going out to eat regularly can be a tempting prospect for those who don't enjoy cooking, it can be difficult to accomplish on a student budget. However, there are lots of student discounts available in restaurants/cafes around Kingston, so here's some of my top choices for places to go out to eat with friends or flatmates. :smile:

The Cornerstone (The Rotunda, 1 Clarence Street)
Right beside Kingston’s main nightclub (Pryzm) is The Cornerstone, a Greene King pub offering 20% off food and drink on Student Wednesdays. The menu is a mixture of all kinds of cuisines, but mostly focuses on pub classics, such as fish and chips, katsu curry, beef and ale pie and a selection of burgers. Located in the Rotunda, it's also right beside Tenpin Bowling and Kingston Odeon, and regularly shows all kinds of sports fixtures. The Cornerstone is an ideal spot if you're wanting to hang out with your classmates and catch the latest Six Nations or Premier League game!

Las Iguanas (The Malthouse, 25-29 High Street)
Right beside the River House campus is Las Iguanas, a large restaurant which serves up a variety of Mexican and South American dishes (such as tapas, tacos, chimichangas and Brazilian loaded chicken) with lots of cocktail/drink options. They offer 25% off food and drink Sunday through Thursday - a perfect choice if you're looking for an easygoing sit-down meal with your friends or flatmates.

Pho (6 Eden Street)
Pho, which serves up a mixture of Vietnamese street food and noodle-soup, offers students 15% off food throughout the week when they present their student ID at the counter. This is a super popular option for KU students due to its proximity to both the Penrhyn Road and Knights Park campuses - my personal favourite thing to order here is the beef brisket phở, however I also adore their summer rolls.

Itsu (22 Clarence Street)
Specialising in Asian-inspired food, Itsu offers students a 15% discount when they order through the Itsu app or when they present their student ID in-store. However, if you and your friends enjoy being out in the evenings, there might be an even bigger discount up for grabs - Itsu reduces all of their remaining sushi and salads to 50% off 30 minutes before closing. (For the Clarence Street branch, this is 8:30p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 7:30p.m. on Sundays.) I'd definitely recommend trying Itsu out if you're near Kingston town centre - the menu is relatively affordable for students, and there's usually lots of seats available if you're coming in with a group of friends.

Too Good To Go
Unlike the other options on this list, TooGoodToGo isn't a physical restaurant but rather a food-saving app. Local restaurants/cafes list ‘mystery bags’ containing any leftover or surplus food they have in stock from that day, which can then be purchased on the app for a fraction of the standard price and collected in an allocated time slot. Lots of Kingston's major chains use TooGoodToGo on a daily basis, including Gregg's, Starbucks, Leon, the KU cafés themselves, Morley's and PAUL (and that's only to name a few!). Whilst TooGoodToGo is a great option for students who want to try out new restaurants and don't really mind what type of food they receive from them, it's important to consider that the ‘mystery’ element of the app might not always be ideal for those with allergies or other food intolerances.

I hope this was helpful, and feel free to drop down below any of your favourite restaurants/best student discounts you've come across in Kingston! :biggrin: