What will happen to restaurants / cafes

[LaCouleurDeMonCiel]

Pre Covid / COL increase we would eat out as a family 1-2 a week. Eating out would often be spontaneous, places like Bills, Rosas Thai, pizzeria, etc. when we passed one while shopping or because we didn’t fancy cooking.

Now we have stopped the spontaneous meals because the prices are ridiculous. We still go out when we want to go to a specific restaurant or celebrate something but we don’t visit the casual low/mid range places because £100+ is too expensive for a quick ‘not that special’ meal.

Are we the only ones?
Will we see a change in the type of restaurants on the high streets? High end restaurants + cheap fast food ones but nothing in between?

@Crikeyalmighty I hope they enforce the law, too many buainess owners don't pass the tips on properly.

And agree about Sunday lunches, I love them, but on our family we all agree we (i) make a better one at home. We tend to pop out for a lunch now too. Where we live the population is generally older, I'm guessing they're using their savings which are getting better interest rates these days. The problem most places face is staffing, especially since brexit. There are several michelin starred places (one with 3 stars) around here, offering fairly decent wages, who still struggle to get staff. It's a massive problem and to my mind, effects service as most places are understaffed.

I've never been/seen a giraffes, we have a costa in my little town and that's it for chain cafes/restaurants! Thanks for the recommendation though.

@ChocolateMudcake well obviously, but as I said it was a mid range chain. That was the bull. Not maki g it up. Doh!

bill not bull.

Oof @WhiteMule were you drinking cocktails? You could get some reet fancy food around here for that.

£14 is Barely more than 1 hour at minimum wage now. Worth it, if you look at it like that.

The last Sunday pub lunch I had out in London was in a very busy, trendy ish pub. The meal consisted of two measly slices of tasteless meat, some soggy, roast potatoes (obviously frozen), a large supermarket Yorkshire pudding, and some overcooked vegetables. Of course there are places that do fantastic Sunday roast, but I think they are few and far between. It just puts me off eating out unless, as I said, it’s a very special celebration. I’m far from an amazing cook, but I can put something together so much better, and people can have as much or as little as they want. Also the service was poor, we just couldn’t get the busy waiters attention. It was stressful!

@Seaside3 All wine apart from one cocktail. But yes the booze definitely added, but still we could have had a bottle of wine at home for £10 lol, and better quality!

I own a couple of restaurants. People don't realise how much they cost to run. There is little to no profit. But we can't just stop as we have leases and commitments.

We are still busy but not as busy as pre covid and our costs have gone up. You just have to muddle along.

@WhiteMule for sure, but eating out can be fun, if you find the right places. Having read your posts I can see why you wouldn't be so keen to do so.

I'm a bit food obsessed so I must confess to always looking places up/researching the best cafes etc wherever we go. Because I like eating out, but I sure don't like wasting money on bad food and service.

You also offer employment. That’s a huge asset to a local community, not a reason to run at a loss, obviously!

@VegetablesFightingToReclaimTheAubergieneEmoji true! We pay a decent wage to and offer accommodation to some of employees.

Because we pay fairly though the tips situation actually kills us. We pass on all tips etc but you will be surprised how much people tip!

So a lot of our income goes to our employees. We are paying ourselves personally just under minimum wage at the moment to be able to pay staff fairly. It's not sustainable but all we can do at the moment. We both work 7 days a week, myself from home doing admin and accounts/social media and more and husband on sites.

It's extremely hard work with little reward. However we do enjoy it. But I can't see us still doing this in 5 years time.

@WhiteMule and the thing is the M&S meal in lots of cases will be just as good if not more so- that's always my mental dilemma.

Pet peeve of mine really. We used to like going out for a treat. Nice to sit in a restaurant and have a choice of food to eat, enjoy the atmosphere away from the usual. That became quite expensive so we downgraded to films and takeout night. Price of fish and chips for 2 adults and sausage and chips for 2 kids costs the earth. The food quality isn’t even there to justify it. I see people eating out and spending weekends away eating and drinking a heck of a lot (we do a once a month treat night) and wonder how the hell they are bankrolling it all. We aren’t skint and quite comfortable but couldn’t afford to do something every weekend.

We eat and drink out a lot because we choose to prioritise that. We have one car, we haven’t massively stretched ourselves with our mortgage, we buy our clothes on vinted, and so on. We both work full-time and quite frankly, if we were to cook every time we would need to cut working hours because we would be too tired to function!

@WhiteMule trendyish pubs are the worst. I have never had a meal in ine that justifies the price.

I used to go out for lunch a lot more. Now it's mostly bread-based things which I don't want as I'm diabetic. Also full of bagged salad leaves which are not healthy because of the pre-washing and tiny slivers of the cheapest chicken etc. If I go out I want something nice and not cheap crap. I'm prepared to pay more but not be fleeced. I mainly just meet up for coffee now and avoid lunch and dinner.

I remember around 2008/9 i think there was a recession? Anyway pizza express and others all started doing the 50% off vouchers

maybe they will bring that back to encourage people out

So what I don't understand is we went out to a chain place today.
A main was £14-15 , starter around £8 and dessert £7.50. if a dessert was around 4.95 and starter under 6 then we'd have ordered one or the other each. Surely it's better to sell some at only a small profit rather than none at all. That would have been over a third more on the take for our table.

We took the kids for a walk yesterday after school and we went past a pub I've heard good stuff about. Said to my partner 'I'd like to try the food there some time' then realised that we actually can't afford to spend £50-100 on one meal. We used to eat out quite a lot, now I can't remember the last time I ate in a restaurant that wasn't macdonalds 😬

Dogs saliver and bites is less harmful than human ones. People with dogs spend good money and always order something for the dog. Funnily enough they are good tippers. Dogs are not allowed in the kitchen so I can’t see the problem. So even though you were refunded( and so dealt with properly) you still ran and put on a bad review. I hope you felt proud, it’s hard enough for small businesses without people like you. You should not have gone in there if you don’t like animals.

The myth that dog saliva is less harmful than human saliva was debunked some years ago - both contain a similar number of bacteria. Dog bites are clearly more dangerous than human bites as they’re much more likely to bite a stranger, and much harder, with less advance warning than a person is. To underline that, having been bitten it’s important to check that your tetanus inoculation is up to date. So, while I’ve nothing against dogs at all, I think it’s irresponsible to pretend that they are all sweetness and light!

I think we just got out of the habit of eating out because of lockdown. We being me and DP. We very rarely eat out now, other than some birthdays. Before lockdown we'd have stopped randomly for a meal, but we just don't do that anymore.

Maybe they can’t sell a starter or desert for much less and make a profit? Or maybe the profit would be so low they rather have the table back and have someone spending more there once you’ve gone? In your case a third more turnover, with lower priced deserts/starters, might have meant a marginal increase in profit for the table being occupied for another 30/45 minutes. Better to get the table back quicker and sell higher margin stuff to the next group.

Completely agree with you!! We used to eat out all the time. Now it's a take away once a week. That's a stretch.

I don’t remember saying they were.
Just a bit of knowledge for you. I knew it was true because I was told so by consultant. My son was bitten by a human and the treated it as worse than a dog bite.