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?

Sorry @taxguru I didn’t mean they shouldn’t have increased prices, but I’d rather pay more for the same thing than more for less.
Even if the price increase in the first place is higher.
Re energy prices though, the yearly thing is a
bit disingenuous as we were all aware it was happening. I don’t believe anybody continued to pay the same not knowing it would be adjusted and roughly by how much.

@LaCouleurDeMonCiel you obviously live in a well off area. People need to have the money to spend it in the first place.

I agree, but unless utilities, taxes and food prices decrease and wages increase, I don't see much of a future for some of these businesses.
It's very sad to see. 😣

They’ll go out of business if they drop their prices to - have you seen what happened to the fuel prices of businesses? They weren’t protected by the price cap. Plus produce and business rates etc have gone up massively.
I try to support small local businesses though - I always thought Pizza Express etc pretty poor.

We’ve stopped eating out full stop. The last time we went for a meal was September for my 30th and even takeaways have gone from once a week to once a month if that.

We definitely have noticed all the prices going up and :

• Takeaways - we no longer order take aways every week as we used to, more like every other week
• Cheaper eateries - instead of going to more expensive restaurants, we stop at fast food places or get ready meals at the shops
• Restaurants - we go much less often

🤷🏻‍♀️ I can’t say I’ve noticed an increase in prices.

What a gloomy forecast. You may well be right. The only good restaurant in my town has closed down, it's a minor tragedy.

Like so many medium-sized market towns outside the South-East, this one's dying on its feet. Most still-functioning retail businesses show every sign of being fronts (no customers, little stock). I'm no help though: I buy nearly everything online, and have stopped popping out for lunch. I'm turning into a Wall-e human 😬

Lucky you!
It's little things like a £3.50 coffee now costing £4.25 and being smaller half foam.
And if the price remains technically the same, the portions are smaller or you have to order vegetables separately.
I know it's very 'first world problems' but who's going to go out for expensive dinners or drinks and just accept cocktails doubling in price? At some point people will feel more ripped off than happy to be out and will stop going.

We used to eat out a lot but really finding not getting value for money now. Had an Indian at the weekend and it cost nearly £80 for 2. That would have been just over £40 a couple of years ago.

My food was vegetarian and one of the dishes was aubergine with potato. It was full of potato, the cheapest food you can buy.

We never have deliveries apart from The Good Earth Chinese once in a blue moon.

How does Pizza Express survive? We used to go but it's now nearly £20 for a pizza.

Blimey. My regular coffee out is £3.20!

There’s a bakery near me which I stumbled across for the first time. Sandwiches looked nice, then realised they were £8 each for a take away bap.

I mentioned to the woman I hadn’t realised they were there (while thinking surely they will go bust as nobody will pay that much) and she said they’d been open two years. So people obviously are paying that much. Small northern town, not London.

I paid £5 for a pint of Diet Coke last week and forgot to say no ice (they didn’t ask), it was over half ice. I was quietly fuming at paying £2.50 for frozen tap water!

Where on earth are you getting charged £4.25? I'm in central-ish London (Zone 2) and a flat white from my two local artisan indie cafes is £3.20. That's with a keep-cup, admittedly, but I think full price is only £3.50.

There was no price cap for business energy, so costs spiralled massively. Huge numbers of businesses have been caught out by it. A small B&B (just 4 bedrooms) found themselves £15k in debt even with their monthly direct debit doubling.

When convenience stores and garages charge £3-£4 for mass produced production line crap sandwiches often using imported low quality ingredients, I don't think paying double for a hand made one with (presumably) fresh/local ingredients is unreasonable.

@MarkWithaC I'm in Wales. Tbf it's not a flat white, it's an oat milk dirty chai latte. But it's not very big for the money.

£8 for a take away bap is mad. Fair enough if you are taking up space, but if you aren't even eating in, that's an absolute piss take!

I have oat milk too. And I think a dirty chai latte is about £3.60 or so in my cafes. So yours still seems REALLY expensive!

In my town the clothes shops are all shutting down and being replaced with food outlets.

£8 for a takeaway bap is bloody extortionate, I certainly wouldn't pay that, but some people must be buying them otherwise the shop wouldn't bother.

We don’t go anymore.

Just go for coffee and cake. Or sometimes lunch.

I’ll make a note not to go to pizza express at those prices

Where? I’m also in Wales. 😮

@cardibach if I give the town it will definitely out me, but it's a nice touristy place, so I think they get a fair bit of trade from people who are visitors and inclined to spend on meals/drinks out. I do think there are a lot of quite well off people who live here too, so probably priced for the market.
But I am going to drastically cut down on this kind of spending - it's ridiculous how much money I sink into take away drinks and snacks in cafes if I go out with the kids.