Cost of eating out

[LetsDoThis2023]

Went with DH and DC to a bog standard local Italian restaurant last night....

We ordered: a starter, a pizza , a calzone, a lasagne, some prawns (4!) and a salad. We had one glass of wine, a bottle of fizzy water and 2 fantas. It was over £100.
Is it me or is that slightly ridiculous?!

Yes that does seem a lot, but presumably you saw the prices before you ordered? But seems overpriced for a "bog standard Italian".

Eating out is so expensive now. We like to eat out a lot but have had to start cutting back as it’s going up so much in price.

I find that if the food, ambiance and service is good then I don’t mind the cost of eating out, but too often everything is mediocre and I could have cooked better at home. Recently went to a chain pub and had a main and one drink, no one had starters and only a couple had dessert, some had two or three drinks cost 215 for 8. Mains were between 12.95 (4 of us) and 15.95 (other 4) as no one ordered expensive stuff. I did a rough calculation that the food was 130 so that left 85 for drinks, no one had wine etc, mainly shandy as driving. It was clear that the drinks were marked up to offset the reasonable price of the food. Service was crap and one item of food had to be sent back twice as it was stone cold, it all was average at best. Won’t be going back
Another local pub is a lot more expensive for the food but you come away thinking it’s been a nice experience, would choose this every time

Definitely very expensive to eat out, then when you add the tip/paying for parking, it really adds up.
We usually try to limit ourselves to one non-alcoholic drink each when going out, and sip tap water the rest of the time. Because a drink alone sometimes is £4, so that also starts totting up and I'd rather just pay for the food.

Sounds about right to me .

We rarely eat out. Happy to buy the odd coffee when meeting friends but don't generally have meals out. Don't buy takeaways either as we live rurally where there aren't any within a twenty minute drive.

Food out is too expensive for us and often tastes disappointingly mediocre, when I can cook better food at home.

I would much rather splash out £££ on an extraordinary meal at a WOW restaurant on a special occasion once or twice a year than spending bits here and there on mediocre food or takeaways at mediocre restaurants. Then at least you pay for memories.

Eating out is so expensive.

But what's really put me off is restaurants cutting corners.

I had a curry in my favourite long standing (of 30years) curry house. They had substituted the fresh chicken with some sort of precooked thick sliced suff. The type you get in the freezer isle to add to pies. Awful.

I have found another restaurant based on local recommendations which so far has been rather good.

Seems about average around here for an independent place in the south east.

3 starters, 3 mains, 3 drinks, a bottle of water and a tip. That's £30 a person + water and a tip, not cheap, but not expensive.

If the salad was a meal rather than a side, so it was 4 people, then £100 is on the cheaper side of things.

On the other side
I went out with my dad Christmas Day to a local Indian
5 pints of lager
Poppadoms and chutneys
2 starters
2 curry (1 was king prawn)
2 naan
1 rice
Coffee and ice cream x 1

£65!

Eating out here has got much more expensive but I also notice the quality has gone down a lot. I met friends for lunch last week and we noticed a lot of the dishes which we all had before had cheap ingredients to bulk out the meal so your plate looked full. Key ingredients were missing and when we asked the waiting staff said that they were told to tell us they had run out.

We used to regularly eat out for lunch and dinner but not so much anymore due to rising costs and falling standards. I find most meals now are worse than what we can cook at home.

We went to the Ivy just before Christmas and it was lovely food and service but £180 for 2 of us isn’t something we could do weekly.

I paid £13 for a sandwich and an orange juice not long ago.

I couldn't stand up fast enough when my friend suggested we have tea and cake afterwards. That would have been another £10.

Two sandwiches, two juices, two teas and two pieces of cake would have been about £45!

We have to find about another £600 a month for the hike in energy bills and mortgage interest rates.

I can't spend that kind of money on a basic lunch.

We come to my house now.

If it keeps going on like this, at some point it will be cheaper to fly to Italy to get a meal!

This is why weatherspoons is so successful. Food and drink fir under a tenner.

Me too.

Even with one starter I don’t think it’s that bad however what do people class as an average restaurant? everyone will think differently. I suppose comparing a national chain is the only way to get a decent comparison. I think the most decent value National chain is Wagamama’s not fancy but decent value, it’s £9 for chicken ramen. We used to go to a lovely little Thai restaurant that did excellent chicken ramen, just better and also lovely decor and staff, it was £12. It shut down unfortunately, just a tiny place I imagine overheads were huge .

I think cafes for cake and sandwich type lunches are the most overpriced places of all.

We went to a local Indian for Xmas dinner, to be fair it was a high end one with a special Xmas dinner menu but it was £75 per head!
DD is 18 but tiny and doesn’t eat a lot so it really wasn’t worth it from a £ point of view but the food was lovely and we enjoyed it

@UnknownElement

i think it's ONE starter, 3 mains, 2 sides, GLASS of wine, 2 soft drinks & a bottle of water.

@LetsDoThis2023

id expect to pay around £80 here (central south east & £100 in London) at an Italian restaurant.

it's a lot of money for not a lot really, but I think we're all going to have to get used to these prices.

pretty much everything has become very expensive for Restaurants.

I think over the last decade, eating out became so much cheaper, we were spoilt, but didn't realise it.

@Hoppinggreen wow

This one had a set Christmas Day menu which was starter/main/dessert for £25 I think but a bit boring as it was sort of onion bhaji/chicken tikka type stuff
We just ordered off the normal menu, they don't change the prices at all which is why we go most years!

We eat out regularly,local Italian,curry house,pub
2 adults 2teens
Average price £100

I’ve yet to find a Wetherspoons that I would go in

Same @Floralnomad - I have eaten in two different ones when we didn’t have much choice (one in Newcastle and one in cornwall), they were both shit imo. Crap quality, it’s just ping meals. I wouldn’t eat a ready meal at home, I don’t want one when I’m out and about.

I've been thoroughly disillusioned and we rarely go for a meal out any more. I look at the price of one main course and think 'I could feed four of us for several days on that'.

It kind of takes the shine off, and I don't enjoy the meal as much because of it.

We've stopped eating out

We are low/mud earners and it's just too big a chunk of our food budget ...