Would you pay £11 for a baked potato in a cafe?

[NeverAlways]

I went to a garden centre today and teen dc wanted a drink and a lunch/snack. There wasn’t much choice on the menu at the cafe apart from toasted sandwiches and cakes so dc chose a baked potato with beans which was £11. I nearly fell over. They don’t even particularly like baked potatoes. I said, No sorry I’m not paying that for a potato. I’ve got a four pack of Tesco baking potatoes at home that cost 79p. We left the cafe and went somewhere else where a proper meal was £13.

Anyway am I behind the times with prices or does that seem a lot to you?

That’s nothing. I was charged £18 for a glass of wine! Place wasn’t even that posh! I thought it was a mistake and said not a bottle a glass but yep that was the price for a glass!

I work in a naice garden centre and stately home type place and we charge around that .
Cakes,mains everything done from scratch.
You would be amazed how absolutely busy we are.
Coffee and cake would be around 10 pound.

No. What part of the country was this?

I’ve seen them for even more - it’s bonkers! You’re paying over a tenner for a simple cheese sandwich in lots of places now. I rarely eat out!

This was in South Wales. Not a flash place. Just a little cafe although some pps have said garden centres are expensive.

It definitely puts me off eating out. I am always thinking I may as well make that at home myself!

Not unless there was no other choice and I needed to eat something right now!

We went to a garden centre yesterday and my ham ploughmans was £14. I thought that was really expensive but it was a VERY nice ploughmans. Well worth the money. Good thick slices of real ham. A proper portion of salad of the kind I like, (no arty farty leaves drizzled with balsamic), 2 pickled onions, home made coleslaw, a good portion of pickle, a handful of grapes and a small baguette.

Eating out will always be more expensive as you are also paying for the numerous overheads, but that said I wouldnt pay this for a baked potato either. At a push if it had a more premium filling along with salad/coleslaw and there was a really decent atmosphere so could enjoy the unique setting alongside it then maybe. But just if I needed something to eat as I was hungry nope.

That's ridiculous for a jacket and beans. For that money I would expecgt a massive potato with really good chilli filling, nice cheese on top, coleslaw and a big fat side salad.

M&S Cafe Baked spud with cheese is £6.75, and very nice it is too. (IMO, before the usual pile on).

I think most places are over priced and horrid now. I’ve worked in restaurant management most of my life and I genuinely think standards have really gone downhill in the last few years. Hardly anywhere cooks from scratch now, everything is semi prepared which means it’s always half dried out and nearly stale. I have got to the point now where I’d rather eat at home which is unusual for me as I’m quite a foodie and really enjoy the whole thing of eating out.

Every garden centre around here - and there's quite a few - start with good, popular cafes and restaurants, then they undertake huge refurbishments and extensions (presumably because they were so popular) and end up with much worse food and higher prices. Management greed.

Blimey what was the cost of the one topped with prawn mayo?

I recently posted this on another thread.

Actual numbers may vary, but you get the gist:

There was a post in my local FB group with a link to an ad for a shop in the local High Street (suburban Brum). 1890 sq. ft : £52,500 pa Call it £1,000 a week.
That's before:
Business Rates (which don't cover refuse).
Utilities
Insurance
Which will easily combine to be an extra £1,000 a week.
So that's £2,000 a week (c. £300 a day) that you need to make before you even open the door.
And note- not a single mention yet of staff, wages etc.
This isn't rocket science. This is simple back of a fag packet in-my-head sums. What business venture can deliver £104,000 a year before profit ?

I worked in a food takeaway place by the time all costs had been taken into account staff, rent, consumables, delivery vehicles etc. the break even point was 16K a week. Bonkers to think you could be turning over 3/4 of a million pound a year and still not make a profit.

Would you pay £11 for a baked potato?
Only if it comes with a steak!

The problem is a lot of people just don't get it.

I grew up help my DF run his business. I knew very very well exactly what is involved. Which is why I am happy telling anyone who cares that "the High Street" we grew up with is dead and never coming back. And anyone who comes up with a marvellous scheme to "revitalise" one is either deluded or crooked . And from what I've seen it's always the latter.

Incidentally, eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that my doom laden accounting above avoided any discussion of staff and their sourcing and wages. The business model is flawed from the get go.

That could be another £3 in raw materials and another £3-4 to have the equipment (properly serviced and inspected) and staff (hopefully with some qualifications) to provide it. And those are very conservative guesstimates ...

I know cafes have high overheads but I am so over eating out. It's just not worth it compared to the slog to earn the money in the first place.

And VAT! Nearly £2 of the OP's baked potato goes straight to HMRC.

as a one off now and then maybe but then id also think i could make it cheaper etc so id be 50/50

Most of what you pay for a hot meal in a cafe, garden centre, restaurant or wherever will be covering the costs of overheads - running the building, lighting, gas/electricity used in actually cooking the food, advertising, staff wages, food hygiene & first aid training, cleaning materials, water rates, the costs of all the large kitchen equipment and tables & chairs, cutlery, plates etc over time, and who knows what else. The actual cost of the food is minimal (can you tell I used to do the finances for a hotel?)

Oh yes, and the total bill will include VAT at 20% as well.

When mine say this sort of stuff I offer to let them pay. Usually shuts them up!

I understand the economics but they have to deliver a product worth buying and that enough people want, can afford and think is worth the money. If not, they don't have a viable business.

I like eating out, but a non negotiable for me is that the food has to be worth the money and its not if I can make it at home with little time or effort or the quality is not good, eg badly cooked.

I made avocado and halloumi on ciabatta for breakfast this morning. The ingredients will have cost £1-2 for a larger portion than you'd get in a cafe and it took about 5 minutes.

I wouldn't pay the £10-15 that a cafe would charge for that but I would pay the same or more for other food with lots of ingredients and/or takes longer to make.

I agree, especially that the High Street is never coming back. And yes, most of the schemes to revitalise High Streets are just money making schemes for the consultants or brown envelopes for the decision makers. In our town, millions were spent on a Mary Portas scheme and it's made things worse. A decade or two ago, the council had a bright idea to pedestrianise a very busy shopping street at the other end of town - it's now even more run down, infested by druggies, and most of the shops are boarded up - it took the council six months to do the pedestrianisation during which time the customers couldn't access shops due to barriers, road works, etc., and even when finished, the car driving shoppers just went elsewhere leaving a vacuum. We need to accept the end of the High St as we know it, repurpose the empty shops (and empty flats above) back into residential use, as most High Streets used to be several decades ago!

I do think. majority of independent eateries are doomed to fail. They tend to have high fixed and variable costs, demand is elastic. It’s a challenging industry.

That said I still wouldn’t pay £10+ for a spud. I am not very well paid and by the time I’ve forked out for tax/NI / pension I’m probably taking home about £10 an hour. Whenever I’m contemplating non essentials my question to myself is would I be happy to put in an hours overtime to pay for this and the answer tends to be no. I’d go find a supermarket get a meal deal with a Costa, salad and a snack pot for £3.60 and eat it on a bench. If I was meeting people I’d just have a pot of tea.