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?!

You just have to look out for special deals. DH and I had an incredible 3 course dinner at Carluccio's in London for £14 each. We ordered wine and coffee too because the set menu was such good value. The portions were generous and the food was delicious. But if we'd been on a tight budget and just had a carafe of water, even with a tip it would have been less than £35 for two of us

we only go very rare now . i do use my tesco club card vouchers so we only pay for the drinks

Sounds about right. At least now restaurants usually have their menus online so you can be ware of the ballpark figure. I agree with PPs that we’re less likely to go out to big standard places now and save up for more special places that give good service and quality food.
My other top tips:
If portions are expected to be small, have a snack before you go out so you can savour the restaurant food without being starving.
Don’t bother with soft drinks, just have tap water
Don’t bother with starters
See if you can reduce things ordered by sharing some things.
Try to have something you can’t easily cook at home so it feels more worthwhile
Graciously complain if standards aren’t good enough
Opt for lunch rather than dinner
Avoid dining in large groups, service is always difficult to get right and choice is often limited (plus it’s hard to speak to that many people at the same time anyway).

Sorry Unknown, but I've just checked. In Manchester Wagamama chicken ramen is £14.50.

We don't often go out for food anymore, it's £50-£60 for 2 adults and a toddler and we just can't afford it. I'm not blaming the restaurant as prices have skyrocketed but it's no wonder more are going under with increasing overheads and lack of custom.

That is absolutely ridiculous. For context over the christmas period i went as a party of 4 for a posh nosh. Not a local pub type meal, definitely paying a premium.

We had a 20oz Ribeye steak and trimmings between 2 which cost £60. We had 2 other main courses, 4 x cocktails at approx £9 each and a diet coke. Full bill came to £130.

We left very happy, full tummy and suggesting that we probably could have got that bill down by £50 if we hadnt had such expensive steak and cocktails. The big difference is always the starters and puddings. £8 for a pudding each is £32 and very often very disappointing.

Yes as many others have broken down that does sound about right. At least where I'm from in Surrey.

Even when going to a family friendly chain restaurant the bill comes to about £65 for one starter, 2 adults mains, 2 children's meals, 4 drinks (children's & adults non-alcoholic), and maybe 1 dessert to share and a coffee.

So given that you've got a bottle of wine in there and additional full priced adult meals that sounds fairly standard.

Costs of everything are going up. You can't expect to complain about the price of gas and electricity at home, inflated prices at the super market and still go out to eat (especially at an independent place) for the same price you may have a few years ago. Sad times, but it's true

Costs of everything are going up. You can't expect to complain about the price of gas and electricity at home, inflated prices at the super market and still go out to eat (especially at an independent place) for the same price you may have a few years ago. Sad times, but it's true.

This really.

Energy bills for businesses are through the roof.

Prices of eating out have gone up a little, but I'm actually surprised it hasn't gone up a lot more. It is probably not covering the increases in their own overheads.

The price sounds about right to me and I'd encourage people to support local/ independent establishments wherever they possibly can.

I can imagine the running costs for these restaurants & cafes must’ve gone sky high. Our own gas/electric bills have more than tripled. Also less people are probably eating out in many areas as these luxuries are usually the first thing to go, we eat out every week but now we choose between an evening meal on a fri/sat evening or a Sunday lunch in the pub whereas before we used to do both - and dh is a high earner. But it just seems wasteful when the cost of everything has risen so much.

I wonder how many of these places will be forced to close their doors? It’s sad.

The running costs of restaurants and pubs must be sky high now, with food and fuel inflation. And many places find it impossible to get staff, which I guess pushes wages up.

We have plenty of disposable income and used to eat out as a family often. However, the price:quality just doesn’t justify it any more. We eat out for special occasions at a couple great independent gastropubs, or restaurants we know to be good in London. Other than that it’s a very rare curry, London street food or fish by the sea. The days of nipping to the pub for lunch, taking mum to the garden centre or meeting another family for a restaurant meal are long gone. I can cook well and entertain at home and spend my disposable money elsewhere.

I think many, many pubs and other eating venues will close in the next few months, which is a great shame.

Noticed this for a while like pp, with 2 teens, it's expensive and the food often isn't that good.

I recently ordered the salmon dish in a nice pub. The fillet was about 2inches wide- in Aldi 2 of these is £4 so the cost price to the pub for one must be very small. It was served on a carrot purée with about 4 halves new potatoes. £18!!

I work in hospitality, and I can't afford to eat out very often, and certainly not in a place with prices in line with where I work! But I'm also experiencing the other side with prices for everything needed to provide the meals and service, ambiance etc rising massively and that causing issues.

We're doing ok footfall wise - but only because sadly so many other places nearby are either only open a few days because they can't afford to be open all the time, are booking only so they aren't open literally burning money for no custom, or have closed all together. People are complaining about the lack of choice of places or that they prefer to be spontaneous - but this is the reality, places can't afford to be open on the off chance that enough people decide to be spontaneous to make it worthwhile.

People are complaining about the price increases and that they're not getting more because they're paying more, but that's a bit unreasonable in the current climate, we're all paying more for the same stuff, the restaurants are paying more for the same amount of gas and electric and the same food from the same suppliers - they're not getting any more for the money they're paying either.

And as for the people who are moaning to hospitality 'floor' staff about it, people who are well known to be on low wages, and struggling for essentials, while moaning about paying for a leisure experience....... I had someone sarcastically ask me the other day if I'd heard of the cost of living crisis when complaining about the price of a luxury they chose to have, with prices displayed so they knew what they were paying, after ordering the most expensive stuff on the menu, I smiled and apologised and was accused of being 'uncaring'.
Yeah mate, well known that hospitality staff are so well paid that the COL crisis doesn't affect us at all 🙄.

But that said, I really don't know what the answer is, I'm the same as many people who can't afford the prices of eating out, but also can see that unless places make changes to their prices, portions, quality or service (less staff so poorer service) they just won't survive. It's an impossible situation in many ways.

We noticed that meals in places like Pizza Hut and Bella Italia had gone up sharply a few years ago pre covid.

Just recently, we've been shocked at the price rises of McDonalds and Morrisons in store cafes. Nearly £20 in both for just the two of us, basic meals, nothing "special" at all. Last time we went to Morrisons for "tea" pre covid it was under a tenner (2 for a tenner) so basically doubled. Same with McDonalds, pretty sure "meals" were something like £4.99, now £7.99 (or more if you want something fancier!).

No surprise really. Minimum wage has risen more than inflation, food raw materials risen due to inflation and Ukraine, power costs rocketed.

VAT is a big killer at a whopping 20% which just "accelerates" price increases due to the cost increases, i.e. not only extra costs of power, staff and overheads, but 20% on top of those extra costs to HMRC!

When i eat out i go to table table. Always vouchers to be had for a great offer

i dont like stuff like tapas etc and they are too expensive for what they are.

Italian is never value for money. Its pasta after all.

like a proper meal.

I'm always amazed when people say they can't afford fillet steak or something considered similarly expensive then spend £50-100 for very ordinary meal out or £20-40 on a takeaway.
We rarely eat out now and when we do it's often been disappointing. These days I'd rather have a lovely meal at home that I know I'm going to enjoy.

I reckon the restaurants I've been to in the last six months have increased prices by c40%

@CeriB82 Italian is much more than pasta!

It's just off putting.
We'll all eat out so much less, as the prices continue to rise. Surely that just defeats all concerned 🤷🏻‍♀️

We get a margherira pizza and 2 milk shakes from the local takeaway every Friday- 21.50uro which im thinking we need to cut back on BUT the other side of coin we had 3 mains plus sides from the Chinese last Saturday which came to 38 euro
It has got nuts expensive here in Ireland. We go out the odd tine and order strategically. 2 started plus a side of fries between us. That type of thing. Feel really sorry for restaurants. Went to a gastro pub on the 30th Dec. Starters at 12 euro.
Desserts at 9.50. Every one left commenting on the bill
As for alcohol. I drink gin- would NEVER buy one out now or ever let anyone buy me one.i drink it at home and have Heineken zero when out.like the gastro bar had beefeater at 7 50 plus the tonic then MADNESS

Unfortunately I think for a lot of people eating out will now just be for special occasions rather then a regular thing, but what do we expect? Every bill has gone up, I don’t think everyone understands the cost of running a restaurant. It’s not just the food on your plate or the drink in your glass. It’s the wages, the energy bills, the new equipment, the engineer when the dishwasher breaks, the napkins, the soap in the toilets, the waste when people book and don’t show up. The costs are huge. It’s a shame because eating out is such a sociable thing and something that was missed so much during lockdown.
The service/quality is the restaurants fault if not up to standard but the cost is simply necessary.

Well that's the dilemma isn't it, going to really struggle to survive either way, either through losing money for not putting prices up in line with rises (or cutting back) or through doing that and losing custom because people can't afford to pay for it because they've got less disposable income.
I'm a bit worried about the future of my job, not immediately, I'm experienced and good at it, and where I work is popular, but I have the feeling we're at the start of all this still with more to come.

I agree. But when I was a child in the 70s and 80s, going out to eat or a takeaway was a rare treat, a special occasion that we savoured. I don't feel like I missed out. In fact, I have memories of those times as it was special, not routine.

Then eating out became the norm for many. I'm not sure I appreciated it as much. As such, I don't mind stripping this back, although not to the point of once a year etc.

Sounds fine to me.