The Best Surprise Valentine’s Day Ever On Eleven Bucks!

With permission from Kristina over at Kristina Kuzmic.com, I share this delightfully awesome idea for a very cool inexpensive Valentine’s Day:

A few years ago for Valentine’s Day, I told my husband I’d like to take him out. I asked him to wear his best suit, and told him I’d be wearing a gown. We had a reservation at a very nice restaurant.

But really we had a ‘reservation’ at Del Taco, my husband’s favorite fast food joint. (For those of you unfamiliar with Del Taco, it’s no fancier than a Taco Bell.) As I pulled into the parking lot, my husband started laughing, assuming I was joking. I wasn’t. I took his hand and walked him in for our Valentine’s Day date. Our table was already set. White table cloth, linen napkins, champagne glasses and a beautiful center piece of fresh flowers. (And, of course, I made sure the table was right in the center of the fast food restaurant, where everyone coming in had to pass by us to get to the food counter.)

I asked our good friend to play the part of the waiter. He was perfect!

He put on a fake mustache and changed his accent every time he came to the table. He shifted from a French accent to Italian to a mix of all accents. The perfect international server!

(Notice his Italian towel… in a Mexican fast food joint. And can we please take a moment to admire that fake mustache? Beautiful!)

He was also very attentive! If you look closely you can see that he’s holding a crumber. Almost every time my husband took a bite of his food, our lovely waiter came by with the crumber to ensure our table was clean. At one point, he was even crumbing my husband’s hands.

Our waiter was able to answer all of our important questions…

“Is the fish in the fish tacos fresh?”
“Why, yes, of course, it was defrosted this morning!”
“Are the tomatoes organic?”
“They were in direct contact with soil at some point.”

He took our order, walked three feet to the counter to place it, and three feet back to deliver it to us.

When our international, fake-mustached server brought over our lemonade, he first poured just a tiny bit in my husband’s champagne glass to have him smell and taste it. Just to make sure it wasn’t corked.

I’m not a fan of fast food restaurants, so part of the Valentine’s Day gift was the fact that I was willing to take him somewhere he likes even if it wasn’t my first (or fifth) choice.

We asked to speak with the ‘chef,’ so that we could compliment his wonderful cuisine. The guy was so sweet (and looked about 16 years old). He brought over complimentary churros and asked to take our picture because he’d never seen anything like this before.

(That’s not the first time someone looked at me bewildered and said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’ But we’ll save those stories for another day.)

It was fun watching the other customers’ reactions. Some laughed, some just looked confused. We caught a few snapping photos of us. (As you can see, our waiter was always nearby, tending to our every need.)

Our bill arrived in a fancy booklet (which I borrowed from a friend who worked at a fine dining restaurant).

The meal was very expensive, but we did get a senior discount (saved $1.15!). Just one of the benefits of having our “senior” waiter order for us.

The following picture cracks me up. I love our waiter’s facial expression!

My husband was genuinely surprised and blown away by the whole date.

We laughed throughout the entire evening. It was the cheapest, yet the most memorable Valentine’s date we ever had.

So remember, all you lovebirds- you don’t need to be rich in order to have a fancy, romantic Valentine’s Day.

All you need is a little creativity. And a friend with a fake mustache.

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all!

Kristina and her husband currently live in Southern California, where her most important, rewarding, and exhausting careers include being a sanitation engineer, chef, chauffeur, and conflict resolution guru for her three (mostly satisfied) clients – her children.

You can find her at Kristina Kuzmic.com, facebook.com/kristinakuzmic and twitter (@kristinakuzmic).

And check out her videos on YouTube like the one below.