how to invite/surprise someone to a future dinner

This month, my mom's turning 75. Whoa, right? Our plan is to take her to one of her most favorite restaurants, Le Bernardin, but how do you invite someone to a future dinner as their birthday gift? 

You give them a Zagat guide.

I went to Le Bernardin to pick up a business card and asked if they had anything else I could give my mother from the restaurant. Honestly, I was just hoping for a piece of letterhead stationery but the Maître d' had a Le Bernardin-issued Zagat guide fetched for me. Score! (If you're going to a notable, high-scoring restaurant in New York City, chances are they have a copy with their name embossed on the cover.)

I knew mom wouldn't look at the cover too closely so I could point out that it's a Le Bernardin issue later. I flagged the page where Le Bernardin is listed; I circled the restaurant's name; wrote the date and time on the business card and tucked it in the book, where the restaurant is listed. Wrapped and ready to gift!

She initially thought I was giving her a Zagat guide so she would have lots of places to go. It wasn't until she started thumbing through the book and ran into something stiff that she realized that the guide was a large multi-paged invitation pointing to one thing: A birthday dinner. 

A small funny fact: Before we gave her the Guide, Mom asked if us if we would be available for dinner that exact same night, "Do you think we could get a reservation at Le Bernardin?" she asked. Hmmm, not sure, Mom. It's a pretty popular restaurant. I'm sure you can imagine her surprise and giddy happiness when she opened the book and figured out what was going on. Score!