Father’s Day in the U.S. is less than a week away.
If you aren’t shopping for a gift, you might be planning on taking Dad out for a good meal on Father’s Day. Several restaurant chains run Father’s Day deals and freebies every year.
Here’s when Father’s Day 2025 falls on the calendar, a list of freebies from Father’s Day 2024, some confirmed deals for this Father’s Day, a list of 2025 predictions based on last year’s Father’s Day deals and how the holiday began in the U.S.
When is Father’s Day 2025?
Father’s Day 2025 will fall on this Sunday, June 15.
Is Father’s Day the same day every year?
Father’s Day is always on the third Sunday of June, but the calendar date changes every year.
Father’s Day 2025 food deals and freebies
Some Father’s Day 2025 deals and freebies haven’t been announced yet, but USA TODAY’s list of Father’s Day deals from 2024 is a good litmus test for what could be available this year.
The Krazy Coupon Lady – an online media company that aggregates deals, discounts and coupons – also has a list of food chains that confirmed Father’s Day 2025 deals and a list of chains that are predicted to run deals this year.
Here’s the list of confirmed Father’s Day deals for 2025, from The Krazy Coupon Lady:
Here’s The Krazy Coupon Lady’s list of predictions for Father’s Day 2025 deals:
The following is a list of predictions based on what these companies have offered in the past; these are not confirmed deals for 2025.
Here’s a list of chain restaurants that ran Father’s Day deals in 2024, from USA TODAY:
Other confirmed 2025 Father’s Day food deals
When was Father’s Day invented? History of Father’s Day in the U.S.
Mother’s Day came first and actually inspired Father’s Day. According to History.com, the commercialized Mother’s Day we know and celebrate in the U.S. today began in 1908, but its origins can be traced back to the mid-1800s.
“The ‘Mother’s Day’ we celebrate today originates in the peace-and-reconciliation campaigns of the post-Civil War era. During the 1860s, at the urging of activist Ann Reeves Jarvis, one divided West Virginia town celebrated ‘Mother’s Work Days’ that brought together the mothers of Confederate and Union soldiers …” History.com says.
“In 1909, 45 states observed the day, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution that made the second Sunday in May a holiday in honor of ‘that tender, gentle army, the mothers of America.’”
But Father’s Day took a little longer to get off the ground due to gender norms. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac and Lawrence R. Samuel, author of “American Fatherhood: A Cultural History,” “Men had a different role in the family during the first half of that century. It was patriarchal, so they felt that a special day to exalt fatherhood was a rather silly idea when it was mothers who were underappreciated.”
How did Father’s Day start?
It wasn’t until 1972, under President Richard Nixon, that Congress passed an act officially making Father’s Day a national holiday. But the first Father’s Day celebration can be traced back to 1908, around the same time Mother’s Day kicked off in the U.S.
“The first known Father’s Day service occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908, after hundreds of men died in the worst mining accident in U.S. history,” the Old Farmer’s Almanac says. But the observance didn’t become an annual or nationally observed event.
A year later, Sonora Smart Dodd, a 27-year-old from Spokane, Washington, was inspired by Mother’s Day and came up with the idea of setting aside a day in June to celebrate dads.
“She proposed June 5, her father’s birthday, but the ministers chose the third Sunday in June so that they would have more time after Mother’s Day (the second Sunday in May) to prepare their sermons,” the almanac says.
When was the first Father’s Day?
“On June 19, 1910, the first Father’s Day events commenced: Sonora delivered presents to handicapped fathers, boys from the YMCA decorated their lapels with fresh-cut roses (red for living fathers, white for the deceased), and the city’s ministers devoted their homilies to fatherhood.”
The first bill to make Father’s Day a holiday was presented to Congress just a few years later in 1913, but didn’t pass.
Eight years later, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution in favor of establishing Father’s Day. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order dictating that the holiday would be celebrated on the third Sunday of June. In 1972, Congress approved an act to make it a national holiday under Nixon.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Father’s Day deals: See freebies and discounts from IHOP, Burger King and more
Reporting by Lianna Norman and Samantha Neely, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
