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?!

I do feel sorry for hospitality businesses but I cant justify spending money on a meal out when it would pay for me to be warm and cosy for a couple of weeks. When we have birthdays we do get togethers at someones house, order takeaway and everyone pays their own and its BYO drinks if alcohol. It is so much easier and more relaxed. We play games, have nice food and meet up with family.

Sounds utterly normal. Went out for pizza recently, 3 pizzas,one starter, 4 soft drinks, one kids meal, one coffee, one dessert came to just shy of £100.

That was a new year's treat
I won't be going out again this month.

Such as?

Er, a formal Italian meal has 5-7 courses. Only the primo is possibly pasta. Just as likely risotto or polenta. So that’s six pasta free courses. If you eat just a main course in an Italian restaurant that won’t be a pasta course, it will be a meat or fish dish. I can’t remember the last time I ate pasta in an Italian restaurant.

Yeah, i can't work out too.. I only eat out if I need to meet someone.. I used to pay £15 per dinner with starter, main, glass of wine but now I cannot come out less than £40 for one person and it's not even the best dinner! It's going crazy!

6-7 courses is still not value for money,

a plate of the usual carbonara or lasagne,
Seafood linguine. £15-20. Its expensive for pasta. Not justified

Yes there have been huge price increases. It's understandable but I couldn't justify paying that sort of money for pizza.
We're lucky in so far as we only drink water with meals so no expenses here- soft drinks and wine add a lot.
Same with desserts. These can be £5-6 for a small slice of cake.

I have noticed that a few places near us have got special offers for January - 50% off main courses during the week.

Thinking about the prices of drinks - a lot of the Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants near us have a licence where you can take your own alcohol in - makes it the same price as a takeaway but with fresh food and makes it more of an occasion .

We have a good tapas restaurant that does special offer nights like 20% off for public service workers with ID and 2for 1 nights.

@GlassOnions it wasn't a bottle of wine, it was a glass of wine. Big difference.

@CeriB82 seafood linguine- it’s not just a bowl of pasta is it? It’s probably £3-£4 of seafood, 30p pasta, 50p sauce. So we are now at around £4/5 depending on portion size/ quality, then the hourly rate of the chef let’s say is about £10, the waiting staff - £9… then the cooking costs, the water to wash your plate and cutlery, tax etc etc and then they need to make a profit…..
Its just not as simple/ cheap as it seems.

Idiot round the corner was even charging for tap water.
They've closed down now.
The service was abysmal.
Oh well.

Exactly. So its not valid for money. No meal out is unless its 2-1.

There’s a difference between something being cheap and value for money.
Lets say pizza express is buy one get one free, you get 2 pizzas for £15/16 when they cost less then £1 to make but in another restaurant it’s £15 per dish that costs them £6 to make and is high quality, freshly prepared food and staff are paid well, surely that is better value for money?

Good points, but your wages are off. As the minimum wage is now £9.50 an hour, you're looking at £15 an hour for a chef and £10 for waiting staff (even allowing for young staff who may only be on £7 an hour, there needs to be experienced managers running the shift who bring the average rate up).

Nobody in hospitality is putting their prices up as much as is needed, as we are all aware that the balance of less customers could mean closure.

Yesterday I paid £16 at a greene king pub for main courses at lunch time. They have changed the dishes we had to be almost 50% salad in the case of the macaroni cheese with garlic bread and my dish was without all the salad it used to come with so we just swapped things about a bit on the plates. The flatbread was hard in places but I just removed those bits and for £16 we were all full and enjoyed our meals. I think their prices will go up because they can't be making a profit there. We drank water so no cost for drinks. Later on we were charged £15 for 3 hot chocolates and 2 flapjacks at the beach cafe!

I live in the US and we went out to eat for our anniversary. Fairly nice place not overly expensive and my husband ordered a steak. For $48.00 (39 pounds) he got a steak and maybe 3/4 cup mash potatoes. We went last year and at least you got two sides not one.

It annoys me. A few years ago, you could get a main meal in a mid range restaurant for about £10, now the same main meal is about £15/16 now.

Eating out use to be one of the small pleasures, but these restaurants are being really greedy. The service now is awful too!

Just met a friend in local town for lunch, I had a salad and a juice and came to £15.50! This is a small independent local cafe, nothing special.
Would have expected to pay no more than £10 for that a year ago.

I don't think restaurants are being greedy tho, this probably reflects increased running costs.

Should have sent it back

I can't believe people still haven't caught on either. We've had lots of warning about this and yet here we are beginning to see what was predicated and everyone is shocked it's actually happening. I despair

Running costs are insane.
Vegetable oil went up by about 80% recently. We had to stop buying in certain things and make them (pub grub type place) as for eg frozen slices of garlic bread doubled in price.

Footfall has massively slowed, most weeks we were running at a 45% wages bill versus turnover. And that was with minimum staffing levels. Profit margins are v low in hospitality. I’ve left the pub game and run a cafe now, people seem to prefer a coffee and scone to a three course meal if they are going out for lunch.

We are fortunate enough to be able to eat out a few times a month and we’ve definitely noticed the price rises but I didn’t begrudge the businesses and like to support them.

@SleepingStandingUp your prices are not liberal! Where can you get two fantas for £4? I've just looked at a cheap green king pub and the cheapest Fanta is £2.70. In most places now you are looking closer to £4 for a soft drink. So pricey.

We don't eat out as much now the children eat axing portions as it is so pricey. We think carefully if it's going to be value for money and enjoyable or don't bother. The other thing is looking for early bird set menus which can be reasonable