A spaghetti noodle, much like a swimming-pool noodle, maintains its shape until it's exposed to boiling water or sat on by children. Savor pasta's forced flexibility with today's Groupon: for $25, you get $50 worth of Italian fare at Francesca's Ristorante Italiano.

Dangling chandeliers and arched, artwork-filled walls surround the diners at Francesca's Ristorante Italiano who peruse a menu brimming with classic Italian pastas, pizzas, and other entrees that form a marinara-themed holiday gift. Chefs paint the eatery's signature red-wine sauce or garlic-cream-cheese spread onto edible canvasses such as the Pizza Francesca dotted with an appetizingly abstract configuration of marinated artichokes, olives, and prosciutto ($7–$16). Tender slices plucked from a slow-cooked beef shank snuggle with two cheeses and oyster mushrooms inside ravioli osso buco ($17), and smoked salmon encloses lightly dressed greens before taking the stage with sautéed shrimp and scallops as the capri seafood trio ($24). While navigating forks through the ricotta and sun-dried tomatoes dwelling inside stuffed pork chops ($24), patrons can tap toes to occasional live music or launch paper airplanes into orbit on the alfresco patio. Dark-wood furnishings coat a fully stocked bar replete with wine, beer, and cocktail makings. Groupon customers will also receive 25% off gift cards to the restaurant.