Corporate diners are helping bring back the long lunch, with EatClub, the hospitality start-up backed by celebrated chef Marco Pierre White, emerging as a popular tool for booking cut-price meals.

The EatClub app, which promotes live restaurant discounts in real time, has reshaped how business lunches are organised by making discounted dining feel discreet rather than awkward.

Last Friday, the Daily Mail found hundreds of restaurants and bars across Melbourne’s CBD advertising offers through the platform.

Deals typically ranged from 20 to 50 per cent off menu prices, with alcohol included in the savings, giving diners the chance to enjoy a bargain-priced liquid lunch.

Yet while EatClub is an obvious win for cash-conscious diners chasing cheap eats, it is also allegedly being used by some staff to mislead unsuspecting employers when claiming meal reimbursements.

The app works in place of the diner’s credit card, appearing to unsuspecting wait staff as if the diner is paying using their ordinary phone-enabled credit card.

The rort works because the diner receives a receipt for the full ticketed amount of the order, with the app later applying the discounted amount in the background to the user.

The Mail successfully trialed the process on a Friday afternoon at a popular Melbourne watering hole.

In the name of public interest journalism, our reporters put the system through its paces, eating and ordering drinks as any selfless investigator would.

At the end of the meal, an unsuspecting staffer processed payment via the app and issued a full paper receipt.

That receipt was used to lodge a reimbursement claim with the Mail’s accounts department, which promptly approved the entire bill.

What the bean counters didn’t realise was that $48.53 of the $219.60 bill was returned to the payer, meaning the staffer not only dined for free but pocketed a profit.

The trick also works for diners splitting bills, with EatClub users able to pocket the discount from unwitting ‘mates’.

The Daily Mail contacted EatClub for comment, but received no response.

EatClub is not accused of any wrongdoing. It is a legitimate dining-discount app that partners with restaurants and bars to offer time-based promotions to customers. This article does not suggest EatClub or participating venues are acting improperly. Rather, it examines how some diners may be using receipts generated through the platform to claim reimbursements from employers for more than they actually paid.

While news of this unintended loophole is unlikely to bother the club or its growing clientele, the app’s success has divided restaurants and venues offering the deals.

The app was originally created to help restaurants fill tables during quiet periods. 

The Melbourne-based start-up launched in London in May last year and is already booming in Manchester.

But as its popularity explodes across Australia, many restaurateurs now say they feel forced to subscribe or risk going out of business.

The Mail has been told by several venue owners that offering discounts during off-peak hours to attract customers has led to dependency and shrinking profit margins.

EatClub reportedly takes a 10 per cent cut of the diner’s bill and charges a monthly fee of $50–$60 to participating venues.

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Venue owners now complain that customers often misuse the system by bringing more people than the voucher allows, resulting in financial losses for restaurants.

A co-owner of one of Melbourne’s largest hospitality groups said their group had joined the app only because they felt pressured, fearing they would lose business otherwise.

‘We are on it but we don’t like it. It’s actually costing us money to be on it but if we don’t we’ll lose business completely,’ the hospitality boss, who did not wish to be named for fear users of the app would ‘blacklist’ their company’s venues, said.

‘We do feel the pressure to be on the app and give the discounts because everyone else is, but there needs to be something done because no one will be able to survive if we give 30, 40 per cent off bills.

‘We get to choose what times we allow the discount and it’s generally during periods where we are usually quiet, but I fear it may turn into a situation where we will have to give discounts during peak periods and that is alarming to think about, considering the current climate for small to medium business operators.’ 

That fear appeared largely realised on a Friday afternoon in Melbourne. 

‘Thing is when they first come in, they say there are rules. If they break any rule, you don’t have to honour the voucher. But as you get into it, the first response was, “Ah, yeah, we’ll look into it,”‘ another restaurant manager told Daily Mail. 

‘There were delays. They haven’t refunded the money. Then they said, “Look, yeah, we’ll refund this one”. Then it happened multiple times … It’s not sustainable for us to do this. So they were basically saying we have to wear it.’

The manager said he was aware of diners using the club to exploit not only their employers, but friends. 

‘But the other thing we’re getting is, let’s say you two come in for a dinner. You say, “Oh, mate, I’ll bring you. I’ll take you there for a dinner.” And this guy knows about EatClub, whereas you don’t know he knew about it. You pay with EatClub and you still charge him 150 bucks. Because he doesn’t know,’ he said. 

‘Because we see people bringing a group of five or six, and the lady goes, “Oh, you guys just go. I’ll pay the bill. You guys can transmit to me later.”‘

The Daily Mail contacted the Australian Tax Office about the potential for misuse of the app, but the ATO responded that corporates should not be claiming meal expenses under any circumstances. 

‘Client lunches are usually considered entertainment expenses which are not deductible, even when they involve work-related discussions,’ a spokesperson said. 

‘The cost of food and drink during normal work hours is considered a private expense and not deductible.

‘Taxpayers are required to keep accurate records and can only claim deductions they are entitled to under the law. Claims that are false or misleading may result in compliance action by the ATO.’

The Mail repeatedly contacted the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry about the app’s potential for misuse, but received no response. 

Katie Holmes and artist Jason Bard Yarmosky looked firmly in vacation mode as their summer romance continued with a sun-soaked appearance on Lake Como.

The 47-year-old actress, who shares 20-year-old daughter Suri with ex-husband Tom Cruise, spent Tuesday enjoying a boating excursion with her new partner.

Holmes appeared to confirm the relationship last month when she reposted photos of herself with Yarmosky, 39, after he shared them on Instagram.

During their latest lakeside outing, the former Dawson’s Creek star showed off her toned figure in a classic white bikini while relaxing on the water.

With her dark hair worn loose, the Batman Begins actress was seen basking in the Italian sunshine and lounging on deck alongside Yarmosky.

Holmes beamed radiantly at Yarmosky and clasped his hands as she rose out of the water and clambered back onto their vessel. 

The Daily Mail has contacted a representative for Holmes for comment. 

While they were both in the water, they were seen drifting close together, exuding an air of romantic bliss as they enjoyed the early flush of their relationship.

On deck, Holmes lay both on her back and her front, honing her tan as her bronzed and musclebound boyfriend stood nearby and took in the views.

Yarmosky, a New York native whose contemporary art has explored topics like the aging process, showed off his burly physique by going shirtless over his black swim trunks.

Last month, shortly after they went Instagram official, Holmes took Yarmosky as her date to Michael Kors’ 45th anniversary dinner in the Hamptons.

The couple clung to one another for a snap Kors posted to Instagram, and Yarmosky swanned around comfortably with members of Holmes’ showbiz circle, including such names as Naomi Watts and Christie Brinkley.

They were seen in July wearing matching navy blue to a Ferragamo dinner in the Hamptons, which they reportedly spent laughing and whispering with each other.

‘I think we just have similar taste,’ Holmes said of their outfits, marking her first public comment about her blossoming new romance, via Elle.

That month, they had also been spotted together attending the premiere of the buzzy new swinger comedy The Invite, directed by Olivia Wilde and starring her alongside Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton.

‘He was whispering in her ear, and she was laughing, they seemed very easy together and there was a smile on her face all night,’ an eyewitness told People. 

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‘They sat together during the movie, she had her head on his shoulder at one point,’ the source observed, adding: ‘They looked very cute.’

Since her divorce from Tom Cruise, Holmes was romantically involved with Jamie Foxx in a relationship that lasted at least six years.

Foxx and Holmes went public as a couple in late 2017, though there had been speculation they were an item since four years earlier. 

There was a swirl of rumors that Holmes’ divorce agreement prohibited her from publicly dating anyone for five years after her split with Cruise in 2012.

Holmes, who shot to fame on the teen drama Dawson’s Creek, started dating Tom Cruise in 2005 and got engaged to him seven weeks into the relationship.

Their Scientologist wedding was held at the Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in Bracciano in November 2006, seven months after their daughter Suri was born.

Holmes filed in 2012 for a divorce that was finalized just 10 days later, retaining primary custody of Suri while Cruise was granted visitation.

Ron Miscavige, father of Scientology leader David Miscavige, told the Daily Mail in 2016 that Holmes’ misgivings about Scientology, including the effect it could have on Suri, contributed to her decision to leave Cruise.

The Top Gun Maverick star reportedly paid Holmes $400,000 a year until Suri’s 18th birthday, and subsequently contributed money to her college fees.

Cruise has not been pictured with his daughter in 13 years, and in 2018 it was alleged that he had created distance between himself and Suri.

‘Every person is allowed to see their child if they wanted to,’ an insider told Us Weekly. ‘He chooses not to because she is not a Scientologist.’

Prior to Cruise, Holmes dated her Dawson’s Creek co-star Joshua Jackson from 1998 to 1999, during which time she gushed that he was her ‘first love.’ 

Holmes has now written and directed a movie called Happy Hours, starring her alongside Jackson in a heartwarming reunion.

When she posted an Instagram shot of the two of them together promoting the film in April, a fan commented: ‘They should be a couple’ – earning a like from Holmes. 

Kimberly Van Der Beek, the widow of Dawson’s Creek leading man James Van Der Beek, also leapt into the comments of Holmes’ post to write: ‘Love this.’ 

Speculation exploded about a renewed romance between Holmes and Jackson, only for her to go public with Yarmosky the following month.