When you have a day out, do you eat out or take a pack-up?

[TwoMagnificentLabradors]

Until a couple of years ago, we used to think nothing of dropping into a low- key restaurant ( Pizza Express, Giraffe etc.) on a day out. Then three things happened:

All hospitality shut for months and we got used to taking a packed lunch on our barely-legal day-long hikes.

The kids got enormous and started ordering from adult menus. No more humous, carrots, breadsticks and a teeny pizza for £4.99.

Restaurants and cafes put their prices up to cover rising costs.

I have become the proud queen of the pack-up. We were the family shamelessly scoffing our cheese and ham rolls on the forecourt of Liverpool Street Station today. Our new ways mean healthier food, saving 80-100 pounds on a day out and everyone getting what they like to eat.

We still eat out. But save those outings for special occasions and decent (not food pinged from a microwave) venues (or street food markets, I love those!)

Anyone else changed their ways of late?

We love a picnic, got really into it during covid and now we actually find it a pain if we can’t take our own stuff. We’re a family of five and we love days out but we wouldn’t be able to have anywhere near as many if we had to buy food out. A top tip is to get a beach blanket from Amazon which is much bigger than a picnic blanket but packs up really small, that gives you loads more space.

It depends where we are going and where can we put the picnic bag - at the moment DS has a pushchair so the picnic bags can go in the basket and over the handles but after this summer DS won't need the pushchair anymore. Nobody will want to carry a picnic bag around all day - I guess we would all have a backpack and carry our own....

Always done packed lunches, if we had to factor in eating out too we couldn't afford the days out!

We go everywhere by public transport so the kids have Always carried their own backpack with lunch and drinks. Or if its a park or something i use my pull along trolley to carry it all!

Today we did London zoo, they had a lunch box for lunchtime and then dinner for the way back. And I carry one of those tiny squirty squash bottles so we can refill our water bottle free and they still have squash.

Depends where we are. Last year we had season passes for a local theme park and we spent £35 on a burger meal for 3 of us and it was shocking. So since then we took a pack up or grabbed a boots meal deal on the way.

More to the point, where did the expression "pack up" come from? I've genuinely never heard it.

Usually take a packed lunch/picnic. If it's a long day we'll have the packed lunch then go out for dinner in the evening. However it can be a hassle finding somewhere decent and it is nearly always disappointing! and overpriced. I love a picnic and it's much easier when you have fussy eaters.
Would still buy ice creams/coffees out though.

Packed lunch 80% of the time. DD has allergies so eating out has to be carefully researched. Plus you can feed small children parts of the lunch throughout the day so they can have crisps or carrot sticks if they start moaning for snacks without "spoiling their lunch". We go on a lot of day trips to free and cheap places and I couldn't afford for us to eat out that much.

@goldenbag "pack up" is a regional thing. I say "pack lunch" (Oxfordshire). My sister in law says "pack up" (Northamptonshire).

Dh would always take a pack lunch. I would always prefer to eat out.

Part of it is that I have a bit of a food phobia about bread. I can only eat white bread in certain circumstances without being sick. Brown bread is definitely off limit and pack lunch is definitely one that is guaranteed to turn my stomach. He now knows to get me a pork pie or something.

Growing up we never ate out. We were also never allowed to eat in the car, so my memory of days out were eating pack lunch in cold/rain/wind on the side of the road with my parents telling us how lucky we were to have parents that cared so much about what we ate that they wouldn't have us eating rubbishy chips from a dreadful café. I desperately wanted to be unlucky.

The pack lunch would start with having to wipe hands with a cloth with milton on. So everything smelt of milton to start with. We'd then have brown bread (which I definitely can't eat without vomiting almost ever) sandwiches made with ham from the freezer. So the ham would be put in frozen and the bread would be a soggy paste (just retched at the thought then). After that we'd have salad (mostly lettuce with a few pieces of cucumber, both speckled with tomato seeds. and skin of tomatoes where they'd been cut into 1/8th and the middle had spread itself over the rest of the salad.
For pudding we'd have home made cake. Or rather crumbs from said home made cake. normally fruit cake. So a handful of crumbs and raisins. Followed by soggy fruit which attracts all wasps for miles around if warm enough.
There were sometimes biscuits, but they were normally all hogged by my brother who desperately needed food always. Apparently. Although he wasn't ever desperately hungry when all was left was a spare sandwich. Funny that.
For drink, dm would have put the bottles of squash in the freezer overnight, so it would be too sweet (if we could get any out) at the beginning and very weak by the end. At any rate normally the parents preferred places that were away from anything a civilised as a toilet, so I wouldn't drink in case I needed to go.*

I am an expert in disposing of an entire packed lunch without anyone knowing.

Unfortunately I also get migraines with hunger and dehydration so I'd normally come back home with a migraine.

So that's why I prefer to eat out. 🤣🤣🤣

*Love my parents very much, and totally understand why they wanted to take a packed lunch. I have less sympathy with liking long walks far from anywhere.

At least you were in the car away from wasps, flies, dogs on the loose, unexpected rain storms and gusts of wind.

I spent £35 on lunch bits for today for me and 2 dc and every last bit got eaten bar a couple of wraps from a pack so really I don't save a huge amount but definitely eat out far less than we used to. This wasn't even for a day out, just for a day spent at the stables

Also it's usually much healthier to take a picnic. Even if we're going swimming/soft play I take bananas/fruit/nuts with us as I rarely see them for sale at these places. It's all crisps, choc and fruit shoots

@TwoMagnificentLabradors but do you have a lightweight picnic blanket?

My husband's random birthday gift which has proved to be my favourite present ever. The smugness you feel spreading it over a damp bench and being able to sit down or using it for a sit by the beach is amazing.

It is always in the bottom of my bag.

So it goes without saying that I'm in the pack up camp. Rather spend the money on the activity than the food.

My parents were huge fans of the car picnic. I am not.

I am like @Sparklingbrook and can’t be bothered carrying it around. DS is also not brilliant with sandwiches so that is difficult. But he is still only little.

I did wish we had one when we went to a wildlife park a while back and the only thing available to eat was hot dogs, which DS wouldn’t eat. I ended up having to cobble ‘lunch’ for him of cake, an Ella’s kitchen cereal bar I had in my bag and a tangerine. Poor child.

No bloody animals though , not sure where they had gone , we literally sat in a queue of slow moving cars for about 2 hours and saw a couple of deer , a giraffe and some monkeys - was rubbish .

Love a picnic in the summer but mainly we’ll eat out because I’m disorganised and a bit lazy.

We tend to do a picnic in the summer when it's warmer and eat out over winter when it's colder. I love a picnic & as PP have said I find it great for picky eaters but I hate having to lug the ice blocks etc around.

Used to always eat out but now we are saving for a house we do a packed lunch. X

Oooo do you have a link for the blanket Calmdown?

We're not a million miles away from the West Midlands version. We did it once. That was plenty, I can't remember what we saw, but I know they had to get the little jeep thing to get the rhino out of the way. The theme park bit was more popular.

Depends where we are going plus we live in wales so the weather is unpredictable!

We normally take a packed lunch and then stop on the way home for something else, normally McDonald's but the kids don't get if often.

We did go to techniquest (maybe only a welsh thing 🤣) recently and went to Wetherspoons and it was cheaper that McDonald's

Usually a packed lunch and snacks, but that's just because with 5 of us I get annoyed at paying £5 for just a sandwich etc of £2 for a bottle of water.

But we Normally buy a coffee & a treat

We do enjoy meals out but prefer to go to places we enjoy

I have never brought a packed lunch with me, except maybe something for the kids when they were toddlers and would attempt to murder me if they didn’t get fed within a minute of starting to feel peckish.

It would especially not cross my mind bringing a packed lunch into London where there’s somewhere to eat every 10 steps you take. If I was out on a hike somewhere remote I guess I would have had to but if it’s possible to avoid it I always will.

@PoppyBlunt just something like this www.amazon.co.uk/BeiLan-Portable-Lightweight-Waterproof-Activities-Picnic-Blanket-Blue-Black/dp/B073S5KG8M/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1FFZ6REKXHOYA&keywords=lightweight+picnic+blanket+waterproof&qid=1675026770&sprefix=lightwe%2Caps%2C352&sr=8-3

They come in various sizes depending how you want to use it.

We did enjoy being the only people sitting on a bench in princess st gardens last time we went to Edinburgh when it brightened up after rain

I literally can’t think of a time I’ve ever taken a packed lunch anywhere other than work
or for a specific ‘let’s go to the river and take a picnic’ type thing (rare, we’d usually just eat first or later). We are a family of 5 and the dc have all eaten adult portions since they were maybe 6.
It’s a convenience thing for us, can’t be arsed making stuff, then packing it into boxes, then carting it to where we are going, carrying it about, carrying the empty containers around, then getting it home and washing it all up… can’t be bothered/lazy.
more than happy to pay for food out.
We go for days out most weekends and have lunch somewhere while there. Theme parks, trips into the city, out for a long walk, you name it, I ain’t traipsing soggy sandwiches there!!