Italians have had thousands of years to work on national cuisine, resulting in perfectly spiced marinara sauce and pasta primavera that tells the same stories about meeting Caesar. Sink smiles into long-lived eats with today's Groupon: for $10, you get $20 worth of Italian cuisine at Checkers Bistro.

Over the course of 20 years, Checkers Bistro's cuisine architects have designed a menu of Italian fare, constructing breads, dressings, and sauces from scratch. Sun-dried cranberries and candied walnuts burst from plump butternut-squash ravioli, slathered in shallot cream sauce, surprising its smoked-chicken roommate ($16). A Mediterranean entourage of pesto, feta, olives, and pine nuts escorts the greek pizza ($10 for 6", $13.50 for 9", $20 for 14") to a mozzarella-skirted red carpet teeming with sun-dried tomato starlets and artichoke-heart heartthrobs. Couple the prosciutto-wrapped scallops ($18) or fiery thai noodle salad ($12) with a hearty serving of Checkers' customer-lauded tomato-basil soup ($3.50 for cup, $5.25 for bowl). The elegant, airy restaurant opens into an outdoor seating area where imbibers bathe in the fruity billows of Checkers' revamped wine offerings, doled out by the glass, bottle, or 10-gallon hat.