£100 for a casual lunch out for 4 is too much

I don’t see a point of going out for dinner and coming out hungry.

Yes the family might not be starving but the point of going out is to eat a complete meal with the requisite calorific content so they don’t need to go home and raid the fridge.

No way would my teenagers be able to share a pizza!

Have you heard of The Fork? I've used to it several times for half price food at restaurants. We don't go out for food that often when not on holiday but we went out last night and it was 50% off food at a local Indian. 2 adults and 2 teenagers, £45 for all of us which included 2 teas and a soft drink too. Everyone was stuffed.
Without a discount we occasionally go to our local pizza place and the pizzas are far superior to PE and it about £12-£14 per pizza. With drinks etc and a charcuterie board to share for starters is around £80.

@Letsgoroundagainnow

do you actually know what disordered eating means? Because me saying that to be “starving” after eating a full pizza to oneself isn’t typical is not it!

Because people with disordered eating posting all their views that have not been asked, is very irritating? I can’t be the only person who you irk, I mean this post proved it.

q. Is £100 a lot for four people

a. You don’t need a pizza each, you must have worms or be greedy.

Keep on topic, it’s boring hearing about your teeny tiny meals and no one wants your view on the menu.

I didn't eat out when I was a child because we were poor. Even for those richer than us, it was an infrequent treat. It's become normal to eat out and people think it's something everyone should be able to do frequently. Perhaps it's moving back the other way.

It’s not ‘too much’. It is what it costs. If you don’t want to spend that for a ‘casual lunch’ go to McDonalds or stay at home.

The rapidly rising minimum wage is pretty much at the root of all of this.

The rock bottom rate now for the pot washer aged 21 and over is £12.21 per hour. It is almost impossible not to earn £5k a year on that rate, even when you're very part time. Then the NI contributions kick in. When that's the cost of the pot washer, the 'jump' to line chef doesn't equal much more per hour, but there still needs to be at least a few pence more.

The teenage girls clearing plates used to be paid around £3-5 per hour back in the early '10s. Now they are on £7-10 depending on 16-18 age.

If you've got teenage children and wondering why it's hard for them to find part time work - this is why. The business may as well pay £12.21 for someone older, with more availability, less laws around their working hours, better flexibility, experience etc etc.

It seems as though many people hate the apps for payment etc, these have all been bought in to reduce the staffing. If a server need only take orders and not worry about bills and taking payment they can probably handle an extra 5 tables or so in their section. Which means across the board you can run with less staff per night.

We can't have it both ways. If you want everyone - really, everyone - to have a fair livable wage then this is what restaurants cost now.

@Letsgoroundagainnow

they wouldn’t be starving. That’s not an opinion , it’s a fact. They have just had a good calorie intake so they are not starving. They might be able to eat more, most of us can even after a meal. But starving - no. Fact. Not sure why this irks you!

It’s not a fact it’s an opinion‘

Stop talking nonsense.

Its not a fact, its an assumption. When my lot were teens one PizzaExpress pizza would have left them with plenty of room. I would have been the same at that age, for most of us the teenage years are when we need to most calories and have periods of being constantly hungry.

Its also just miserable to go out as a family but then say “everyone needs to have the same pizza so we can share to save money”. As pp say, I’d rather eat at home than go out and carefully pick the cheapest items on the menu and the one pizza everyone likes so it can be shared.

Completely agree OP - I've been thinking about this quite a lot, though through the lens of not just eating out, but other 'treat' type spending which I'm quite radically re-evaluating in quite a sudden way... We are in the top 10% of households for income so not exactly impoverished but still feeling the need to quite radically change spending habits as a result of massive hikes in cost of living - both essentials and treat type things (which I would class as eating out, new clothes you don't really need, fancy toiletries etc..). I'm basically far far pickier about eating out - would only go somewhere I know is going to be completely delicious and great service.. I read an interesting blog recently about how customers are much much ruder and more demanding in restaurants these days, and wonder whether this is connected to people being much more stressed about getting their 'money's worth' than they were in previous years.

I'm not getting out the tiny violin for myslef and though I'm moderately nervous about the direction of our economy, but I'm much more worried for the many many restaurants/shops/cafes that will surely go bust if there are others like me out there (and I'm assuming I'm not alone in this shift).

@Letsgoroundagainnow

It’s not disordered eating to say that no one would be starving after eating a pizza!! It’s stating a fact!

Or maybe you’re talking nonsense and have a disordered eating issue? You’re also passing this to your children, clearly.

Based on the majority on this thread.

@Mondaytuesdayhappydays

no, the average boy/man wouldn’t be “starving” after a Pizza Express pizza. If they are they have a problem - maybe worms, or maybe just greed/gluttony.

OP is saying how expensive it is to eat out now compared to a few years ago.

I dont understand what you mean? As long as tbe prices of the items were displayed, it is your choice to eat them or not.

It’s inflation. Inflation has been way out of step with people’s salary increases in recent years.

This is MN. Everything with so much as a mention of food is turned into a orthorectic bunfight on who eats the least/“best”. Thank you lucky stars we haven’t yet had the UPF lecture.

Buying food out became incredibly cheap leading to a level of eating out/takeaways that I couldn’t have imagined as a child. Partly prices have been kept down due to the hospitality industry being very poorly paid for most staff with wages remaining low when other industries were rising. Fuel and food prices are less easily controlled than staff costs. Menus can be tweaked a bit to use cheaper foodstuffs, less fuel but only up to a point.

I think we have benefitted from hospitality wages staying low whilst others have risen combined with food going through a long period of being artificially cheap - in the UK people expect to spend less on food that other Europeans. Now that pattern is shifting. Fewer meals out but with better paid staff could be a good thing.

We now avoid chains for this reason. Local restaurants are not cheaper but the quality is much better.

There is a very cheap pub near us. It has Wetherspoon's prices. So you can have a decent lunch or dinner and if you go with the offer it’s a tenner a head including a pint, glass of house wine or a soft drink. At lunchtime they have an offer of 2 meals from the a very limited selection at £14.00 .We are up North and not in an expensive area like Harrogate or York.

My local favourite cafe has home cooked Chinese or English food that’s about £13 to £15 a head. I know the owner and it is all fresh. A few miles away is a cafe that does a cream tea for £12 a head.

Prices have gone up but you are also going to chain restaurants which have always been the worst food option.

Anything you can do yourself but chose to pay someone else is a luxury is it not?

4 people can’t have lunch at our local coffee shop for less than £100 . I just suck it up , prices are up everywhere.

I don't know if it should be a luxury.

Whether or not it was, it’s long since become quite normal to eat out regularly and the hospitality industry has grown to accommodate that. When I was a child we ate out fairly regularly but it wasn’t the norm for most, but then the high streets weren’t full of restaurants and cafes back then either. It was mostly shops.

If people are cutting back because they can’t afford it, the industry will shrink which is what we’re seeing.

4 x 11" pizzas and 4 wines in Wetherspoons, £42. Try it, you might be surprised.

It's not up to you to decide whst other people should eat🙄