Finding it increasingly difficult to justify eating out at pubs etc

So where does the profit come in for that £16 for the pie and chips? The £4 they may be charging for a cup of tea? Because they have to be making money, surely, otherwise why would they still be open?

@Inawhyl I really agree on that -when we lived in Copenhagen the cafes were warm, well lit, just a nice vibe- even a chain like espresso house which is their version of Starbucks ( in Sweden too) had leather sofas, potted palms, throw over furry blankets nice lighting and usually clean tables, loos and floors. Ok a large ( and I mean a large) coffee was £4.75 to £5.20 but it was a much nicer experience - average wages are higher so it kind of balances out too

I’ve been WFH most days since 2020 and sometimes I think my weekly shop is too expensive but then I remember how much I save now not only from making lunche at home, but from not buying stuff from Gail’s and Pret etc on my commute . (my waistline is grateful too! )

I usually bake my own stuff but I ordered a Cinammon bun tray bake that serves 4 to come with this weeks Tesco delivery. It’s £3.80 and I was debating buying it then realised even one cinnamon bun in cafe Nero it would be about that price so it was a bargain.

And my local Nero is always full of barking and/or wet dogs, long queues and dirty tables if you can even find one.

I’ve noticed cafes/restaurants always seem to be quite cold here in winter too compared to when I go out to eat in other European countries. It doesn’t feel very cosy! Unless I’m meeting up with a friend which is maybe once a month I avoid eating out here. It’s just not worth it for me.

I do feel sorry for business owners who do their best and are struggling to make ends meet though.

Yep 5 of us so everything’s expensive to feed us all . More than happy to go there ( and cheap alcohol too 😁)

Maybe this is one way forward for some businesses - a pared down menu of 'back to basics' but freshly made.

Yep, can’t really afford it myself either. Coffee and cake is so expensive, even a meal or a takeaway!

Does Waitrose also cook it for you?
Supply, prep and cook the veg & potatoes?
Bring it out to you on a plate?
Come and take the empty plate away and wash and put away the pots, plates, cutlery etc?
Give you a warm room to sit in to eat it?

With the likely mortgage and rates cost for somewhere like Bath, £16 will barely be covering the running costs. We all celebrated when minimum wage went up, but of course every other person above minimum expected a similar increase. The cost of ingredients and gas electric have gone through the roof. This is just cause and effect.

@ChopstickNovice yep - we used to live in Copenhagen for 2 years from 2020 to 2022 which is known as being expensive and when we came back I do remember saying to H that the UK post Brexit/covid now had scandi style prices without the quality or wages to match .

@DuesToTheDirt @Crikeyalmighty I had better adjust my expectations!

@DuesToTheDirt yep , I was thinking that’s quite cheap!!

@ChopstickNovice I think you got off lightly, actually. That's what, say £3.50 per cake, £2.50 per coffee and same for the juice. A complete bargain these days! I'd expect to pay an extra pound minimum on all of those, so £24 upwards.

It's not eating out meals per se, but I really miss going for tea/coffee and cake on the regular. Yesterday I bought 3 x cakes and 2 x coffees and 1 x apple juice and it was £18. £18!!!!! The cakes were lovely, but I was absolutely aghast

Completely agree. Interestingly it’s making the real top end more interesting. We’re going on holiday soon and have two Michelin starred restaurants booked (one one star and one two star). They will end up at around £300 each for two, but given we can easily spend well over £100 for mediocre drinks and food these days it feels well worth it.

This is going to sound mad but I honestly think this is part of the reason why there is a general feeling of "it's all gone to shit" and why Reform seems to be getting traction. This and how much more expensive cars have become. It doesn't get picked up by pollsters because no-one is going to say - life in the UK is shit because I can't afford to eat out and drive a nice car - but if you're used to being able to do those things and you're working your bits off and not getting the nice life that you previously had, yeah that will lead to a lot of negativity and, dare I say it, populism.

I agree eating out has become restrictively expensive, and that the quality in a lot of places is poor.

But we also have the other side of the coin. That plate of fish and chips at £15 will have £2.50 going straight to the tax man. Then we have staff costs, which as we know aren't cheap. Going to be £12.20 plus employer contributions every hour. Mortgage/rent & rates along with the other operating costs, extortionate. Add the basic cost of the materials on, and there isn't a lot left.

@taxguru I was talking in a cafe here in Bath only the other week to a really nice couple- maybe mid 60s and they were telling me they based themselves in Bath and Cheltenham for a week pottering in the Cotswolds simply because they could go to medium chains and pubs without breaking the bank - stuff like Bills and Wagamama and Rosas Thai - whilst not cheap as chips they were saying they could budget £60 to £75 a night with drinks and that it was impossible to do this in much of the Cotswold villages these days - they didn’t want to cook but nor did they want to pay £120 a night for very mid range gastro pub dinners with drinks for just the 2 of them - and they also had the options of KFC or Maccy Ds if not wanting a formal meal - a lot of these gastro pubs are pricing themselves out the market - I know it’s really hard to make it pay but it’s a viscious circle if you lose trade too -

I agree. We always stay in holiday cottages for that exact reason. We like eating out, but these days it's such a faff and so expensive and usually disappointing. Far easier just to nip to Tesco and buy stuff to cook ourselves.

We spent a week in the Cotswolds village last Summer. There was a kind of "Gastropub" in the village but we looked at the menu online and the prices were insane - £40/£50 for pretty basic sounding main courses. We cast our net wider to nearby villages and towns and most restaurants were likewise "fur coat and no knickers" of over-charging for what looked to be pretty basic. In the end we found a little private Italian restaurant that we used a few times, but other than that we bought from the nearest supermarket and cooked in.

I wouldn't mind paying more for basic food, cooked well - the traditional idea of 'pub grub' - but so many pubs seem to be trying to be 'fancy' but doing it badly, essentially reheating ready meals as pps have said.

I saw a food review on YouTube of a Harrods restaurant. They were charging £37 for a dismal looking plate of fish and chips. Yes I know it’s Harrods so you expect a high cost but apparently it was tasteless.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=grvpFnJpA_k&pp=ygUVMzcgZm9yIGZpc2ggYW5kIGNoaXBz

I know people complain a lot about airbnbs (or holiday lets from other platforms) damaging accommodation prospects for locals, but to be honest food is a big reason for us using holiday cottages rather than hotels when holidaying in this country. As well as getting some shared space (not the case in budget hotels) we can cook, and do not have to pay every night for overpriced substandard food. Plus, if we are staying somewhere fairly rural, then the only food available within a reasonable distance might be pretty limited, especially as we are veggie - it might be veggie burger + chips at one pub, or macaroni cheese at a different pub, and that's it.

As my family are poors we go to wetherspoons. £25 for 2 kids meals, 2 meals for us and 4 drinks. Happy days.

We went to Miller and Carter for DDs birthday meal. I'd always avoided it as I thought it was pricey but we got 2 chateaubriand with the iceberg wedge and topping, fries, onion wedge and sauce, 3 cocktails and a diet coke and a bottle of red for £200 on a Saturday night. It was really lovely.
I'd rather spend that and not be disappointed than spend similar in my local pub and feel I wasn't getting nice food or value for money.

I very rarely eat out now, soup and a roll in a café every so often.

Just looked at a pub, think it’s part of a chain. £14 for Mac and cheese. I imagine it came frozen too. It’s actually on the edge of an area of significance economic issues, I know it’s been trying to drum up business lately with money off vouchers and things. I get money off with a tastecard. They’d be better just making the prices more reasonable.

@DuesToTheDirt reserve got a pub in Bath like that - it’s perfectly nice and in all fairness isa lovely old pub with a great vibe , but it’s not £16 nice for pie and chips ( same pie range as I get in Waitrose ) maybe £12 or so would be more like it -