Finding it increasingly difficult to justify eating out at pubs etc

We used to eat out two or three times a week. We haven't done that since pre covid times and now just don't appreciate it anymore.

For us it's just not worth the money. We love a good Indian restaurant and now they are charging ridiculous prices for a small portion of rice which brings the price up to about £70 a meal.

We are in a position to eat out if we wanted to but it's so disappointing that we have (almost) stopped.

That's another conversation we had today. We live near a tourist town and there are plenty of places serving food but they all serve the same and the menus haven't changed from last year. It's standard burger, frozen fish and chips, lasagne etc with a soggy vegetarian offering. Prices all the inflated same too. It's like some OPEC cartel😂

Another thing. The menu never changes so you get fed up going to local places. Then you find lots of places with the same dishes courtesy of Brake Brothers or Harlech foods. Who supply so many restaurants now. Because you just can't get chefs any more the hours are anti social. Small family business owners retired, sell out to breweries.

A lovely place we've been going to for years under new owners in March we visited last week. Bought a drink asked for the menu to be told the chef hadn't arrived, agency chef. Could we wait. We walked away found another place family run. The food was sublime, the service spot on, good coffee. It was very busy.

Breweries are buying up around here and destroying good local restaurants.

Though to be fair, there are some great full cooked breakfasts around here in local café. 10 Euro for full Irish, tea, toast, read of papers, chat with a few locals, warm, comfy, clean, refills of tea (costs them about 20 cents but we all feel apreciated), no hassle or major inquiry about mixing and matching different elements of breakfast, good waiting service and know you and enough working to enable to stop for a chat if you want.
Clean toilets.
Not surprising, it's always busy. That's the way to go. Their fixed costs are going to be same with 5 people paying 15 Euro as 10 people paying 10 Euro. Staff get more tips too.

Yes, agree with all of this. The weird thing is that there are two really excellent gastro pubs near us and their dishes cost only 5-10% more than the standard village pubs where the food is very average and seems to have got worse as the price has risen. It’s completely unaffordable. A meal out at our local with a glass of wine for each of us costs almost as much as our weekly shop!

I like a local farm cafe place, this was my sandwich last time - it was £57 including 2 glasses of wine, a coffee and 3 meals
apart from that the local chain carvery is decent food for the price

We can eat better at home. I am fed up with going to a supposedly decent restaurant and paying £18-£25 per main course for fish such as coley that in years past I would have bought for the cat, or economy cuts of meat. We still go to the chippy occasionally for a treat.

We usually go out once a month for a pay day treat and if there’s a family birthday would go to that but apart from that nope not paying £20 for bang average pub meal , if we can’t be bothered to cook a proper meal we will have egg and beans on toast or ramen at home

We very rarely eat out these days. We have also started having takeaways only on birthdays, our wedding anniversary and Christmas eve.

I remember when dh and I were students we would go to the cinema and the tickets were £3.20 each. We would go to Woolworths on the way and get a bag of haribo sweets and a panda pop each for less than £1.50. We used to get takeaway once a week then. Fish and chips were £5 for the 2 of us or kebab was £10. That included a drink. That was when you could get a can of coke for 50p and a bar of chocolate for 25p.

The problem is, a lot of places won't be making much or any profit even with these kind of prices. I live in a holiday area so lots of my friends work in hospitality and many are struggling even though they seem busy. I don't know about big chains who I would imagine have lower overheads overall, but for smaller independent cafes and restaurants it is a tough time. The cost of ingredients, utility bills and wages have all rocketed in recent years. And getting staff at all is increasingly difficult.
Some friends of ours who run a cafe and pride themselves on using really good quality ingredients, sourced as locally as possible, make very little on each dish they serve. They don't want to put prices up any further because they're scared of losing customers but they can't charge any less because they'd not be covering their costs. I'm sure some businesses are raking it in, but in my experience a lot of independent establishments really aren't.

£5 for a few new pots is just taking the Mickey!

Of course restaurants will go under if they mark up like that.

This. We stopped years ago. I can't stand seed oils and the food always seem to be low grade to start with.

We decided to spend slightly more on our food and buy better quality but have less of it. Now it's all silly money but we picnic a lot more and enjoy it just as much.

Totally agree, prices have increased so much. Last Wednesday I went out with a group of friends to a hotel restaurant. We chose a set menu £27 for 2 courses. The starter was pate, it was so small and served with only half a slice of toasted bread. Main course was sea bream with broccoli and green beans and a light butter sauce! Again very small portions, I had to add a side portion of new potatoes to make it a meal, as it didn’t come with any potatoes or chips, this cost me another £5
I was driving so I had Diet Coke, a small bottle cost me £4
On top was a service charge of 10% and gratuities also 10%
So my bill was very nearly £45
No wonder people don’t go out much!

We've stopped eating in the kind of ordinary pubs and restaurants we used to go to because it's not worth spending £18-20 a head on a meal that we could buy from M&S for £12 for the two of us. We're both good cooks and sick of paying inflated prices for food that is nowhere near as good as we make at home.

What we now do is eat out once every 4-6 weeks at much classier restaurants where we eat food we couldn't make ourselves at home. We spend up to £100 each on a quality meal with good service in nice surroundings. And we have a takeaway once a month from the best Indian in the area. A takeaway costs around £30 for the two of us, but covers us for two or more days because the portion sizes are so large.

I'm astonished at the number of cafes that remain open. Yesterday morning I was out at 8am. There was a queue of people waiting at a nearby cafe, all stopping to pick up £4 takeaway coffee and a £3.50 almond croissant or a £4.50 bacon bap.

Yes. Family of four. If we “enjoyed ourselves” and bought some starters and/or dessert as well as main meal and drinks £120-150.
It is sad because restaurants will close and families will miss out. I would rather not eat out than go to chain pub for cheap food that I don’t like. Occasionally find an independent pub or Italian with proper home cooked food, love these. Don’t mind paying a decent price. Though as a kid, we NEVER ate out. Not even once. Closest we got to it was having sausage and chips at the beach (definitely not fish-that was too pricey), on holidays we had ice cream from a van. Even as a child, I squirmed when I knew we could buy a box of feast lollies in the supermarket for the price of one at the van. As I got older/ wealth conscious, I remember feeling very embarrassed passing around a 2L bottle of pop between my siblings to wash down the chips (cans were too expensive). God bless my mum and dad, only my dad worked (SAHM, few childcare options in those days for low earners) and dad earned not much above minimum wage. I earn above minimum wage and don’t feel that much better off than they were. Eek.

Yes agree.

I'm not in the UK, but it is the same here, and actually based on what kinds of priced people are posting I'd say it has gone up by a similar amount.

I just can't afford for us to eat out as a family. If we need something on the road I am popping in to a supermarket or something like that and picking up a prepared sandwich. Which I usually split between two people.

We had this exact conversation today about going out tonight. Usually we would just go out if we felt like it but tonight we just thought it going to be near 50 Euro for two of us and the food will be fine but just standard meal and we just didn't think it is worth it. We didn't go.

In fact out for a very rare lunch today, treating daughter and grandson. Nowhere fancy. Pleasant enough food, not exceptional. 1 course each (child had a “mini picnic”, basically half a sandwich, few crisps, couple of cherry tomatoes/cucumber stick and a cookie), two coffees and a tap water. £45.
A party of 7 came in, 5 adults and 2 kids. Starters, main courses, wine and beers. . Must have cost at least £150. That’s just mad.

i know costs have gone up but its ridiculous now wouldnt mind if it tasted good most of the time its fozen crap

I haven’t really gone back to eating out since Covid!

It does feel really expensive for meh food. I know not just paying for food but for labour and building costs etc but £15 + for a burger and chips is bonkers and sometimes not great meat. For same prices as one I can do five burgers at home made from steak mince, fries and a big salad. Home made pizza is much nicer too.

Yes, we only really eat out for special occasions now, or as part of a trip/holiday. And we will go somewhere decent where the cost is really worth it (as opposed to popping in somewhere easy for a quick dinner like Pizza Express. Those sort of places are not worth it now). It’s how I remember things being in the 80s- eating out/takeaways were a rare treat.

Totally. The food's usually so underwhelming I end up thinking I could’ve done better and I’m barely qualified to boil an egg. £20 for limp fish and chips or a soggy burger in some sad-sack pub that smells of spilled ale and despair? I'm not in London though, I think out of London there's less competition and the food is more expensive and shitter when you eat out.

We’ve stopped eating out in the evenings, lunch’s I don’t mind the odd one as you can still get more value with nice sarnies.

I did think WTF the other day for an £18 veggie ravioli.. it’s pasta.

But Sunday dinners around here are £25 a pop, really nice but I can’t use a whole weeks food shop budget for the family on one meal, the last one we took my mum and DH and two DS, both had beers, wines puddings etc and the bill was £248. It was an occasion but it’s not happening again!!

You're not wrong, prices have shot up! 5 years ago a 3 course in a gastro pub would set you back £30 a head, including half a bottle of wine, now its more like £60! I work in a kitchen so can see the other side of it, the price of food has increased massively. I get that pubs have to make money and £15 for a sausage and mash doesn't really add much at all in the way of profits but I shrink a bit inside whenever I look at menus now. Even mcdonalds is very expensive for what it is these days