Restaurant prices are just ludicrous

[Mummyhokey]

I know that this is hardly breaking news, but seriously what the actual fuck is going on with prices in restaurants?

Went out to a High Street chain restaurant last night for DD’s birthday. So whilst the food was cooked fresh on site there was absolutely no local chef input into the menu etc. There were also only two waiting staff working a busy place so the service was slow even though they were doing their best.

The cost of the meals was, in my opinion, completely unrealistic in terms of what we were getting. Little change from £20 for a basic burger or chicken dish. Another fiver for a side order. So for the four of us, £100 gets us one course each. Drinks on top, £3.95 for a glass of watered down Diet Coke. Twice that for a beer. £6 for a slice of cake for dessert.

This seems typical now for restaurants. It’s just totally unaffordable for most families to do this more than very occasionally, surely? I get that utilities and wages have gone up, as have the cost of ingredients. But have they gone up by that much? The increases seem outrageous. That slice of cake works out at about £50 for the entire cake. I could buy the ingredients for that burger for well under a fiver.

And then the 12.5% optional service charge added to the bill so that the options are ‘Pay it’ or ‘Ask for it to be removed and feel like a dick for doing so’.

No offence to hospitality business owners or the people working in them, but this just can’t be sustainable surely?

I think that sounds pretty reasonable.

The cost isn't really linked to the cost of the ingredients - you're paying for the experience i.e. someone else to cook, wash up, serve you, provide the surroundings etc. If you went to the cinema, theatre or a football match you'd also pay a lot for a family of four.

Growing up we only went out to dinner about twice a year when my gran came to visit and she paid. I think the notion of going out to eat regularly for average people is a fairly new one.
I eat out about once every few months. I spend a lot of money on food at home though as we like to cook and try and eat healthy nice food.

I budget £40 per meal out per person. We don't go often though.

I think eating out is an occasional treat for most people. Its always been that way.

If it's a chain, you should look for vouchers and deals, most of them have these available and menu prices are unusually high to compensate for this.

I agree it is expensive but the people working there need to live too - we’re paying for their time as much as the food costs

Same here op in Dublin. Any burgers around 19 to 20 euro. I dont go out as often now!

I go out every week and it’s definitely going up but I don’t care. I enjoy it

Since the NI increase for employers it’s definitely being passed on to the customers in places like restaurants ( or hours being cut, hence less staff)

My ds had a tiny slice of cheescake at a restaurant chain. it was as part of a Groupon offer but normal price would have been £7.99. It was tiny.

Yes OP it's more expensive now and is becoming the preserve of higher earners again, like it used to be decades ago. Some of the answers on this thread show that those who regularly go to restaurants are a bit out of touch with how much a regular family earns or expects to spend dining out, and I think restaurants like Prezzo etc will either have to improve their offering to justify that price point to the sort of people who can afford what they're charging, or they're just going to disappear.
Of course the servers have got to live too, but the servers still aren't being paid enough compared to the cost of things and generally wouldn't be able to afford to eat out at the places they work at very often, if at all.
The money is going on overheads, that national insurance increase, etc, not into staff's pockets.
If we want to eat out, we go for fast food because at least we can afford that still (just). But even that's gone up massively.

Restaurants have super high bills so no - it’s not sustainable for them in many situations. Some will have to close if they can’t make it work. I would expect to pay more if my family of 4 went out to eat so we mostly don’t. We splurge on a takeaway every few weeks and otherwise cook at home or do picnics and such.

The NI increase was 1.2 percentage points. I don’t think that this alone makes a huge difference even if it is passed on entirely to customers.

We eat out much less often than we used to, for exactly this reason. It’s not that we can’t afford it; we are comfortably off, but not wealthy. It’s because we got fed up of walking out of restaurants feeling like we had been mugged.

I completely understand & sympathise with the financial pressures facing the hospitality industry. As I should, because I used to work in it. But that’s not the point. Value for money is the issue, and it has become a major problem for the industry. More restaurants will close because fewer customers being able to afford their prices will make them financially unsustainable and eating out will revert to being a treat for special occasions, as it was for my parents’ generation.

Middle of the range chains are the worst value. Cheap and cheerful, and the odd upgrade to higher end is much better r

In my mind largr chain restaurants feel like the worst value.

You aren't getting food that relies on the particular skills of the chef, as its food designed to be easily replicated by people with moderate cooking skill. So it doesn't really feel like a great quality, beautifully crafted meal in the same way you'd get at an independent place.

And whilst all restaurants run to make money, I feel places that are run with greater input from their ultimate owners have a bigger focus on the quality of food itself. It's not the cheapest thing we could reasonably get away with serving for X price, often decided with pressure from a big corporate hospitality company for profits from the independent chains.

So to me, it feels closer to "fast food" but with prices closer to independent restaurants. All owned by corporate chains. Lose:Lose - and makes the perception of a nice enough meal feel poor value for money.

I budget £100 for 2 having 2 courses and alcohol (less for my teen dc as they obviously have soft drinks) so I think you’re unrealistic. Overall when 5 of us go out I don’t expect much change from £200 and often dh and I don’t have desserts.

Agree they are more & more expensive, I don’t actually think the prices you mention sound too crazy though in comparison to some we’ve seen. I’d say £100 for 4 meals, assuming none are kids meals, is pretty standard pricing.

But the threshold from when employers pay NI was reduced from £9100 to £5k. And the minimum wage has increased considerably.

£100 for four meals may well be the going rate for high street restaurants these days but that’s my point. That’s really appalling value for money unless those meals are exceptional (which they won’t be at that price). I barely spend more than that on a weekly supermarket shop for the family ie the other 20 meals each of the four of us has in the week.

It's not so much the prices going up that bothers me, but the quality going down. It's so hard to find anything that isn't basically a ready-meal, or that it would be complicated to cook for yourself.

DH and I don't eat out often and we keep the cost down by - rarely having a starter (unless there's a 'wow' item on the starters) not ordering 'sides', sharing a pudding (and again not having one for the sake of it, only if there's something that sounds great) and just having one drink each.

Perhaps, but the 'experience' isn't great at most places anymore.

Understaffed resulting in slow service. And they've cut their staff because of the NI increases ... yet still raised food prices.

Loud due to the removal of soft furnishings everywhere so you can't even hear the people you're eating out with. Crowding makes the noise even worse as they squeeze in as many tables chairs as they can.

I've lost track of the number of times you hear 'we've run out of that' or 'we don't have that today' on numerous items on menus, too, when we do go out. Meaning you're not even getting to enjoy the food you've hoped for.

And don't get me started on being asked how you want your steak for example and then not getting it even close to the way you've ordered ... generally quite over cooked ... and being made to feel bad as wanting it done properly. Or your 'salad' being a handful of lettuce leaves and a singular tomato or cucumber for a fiver.

I think the problem though is that you’re just looking at the actual food, and comparing it to the cost of your weekly food shop. When you eat out you aren’t just paying for the food, you’re paying for the building you sit in, the lights you sit under, the heating/air con that’s on, the chef who cooks the food, the waitress who brings it out, the cleaner who cleans the table before & after you sit down etc. Yes, you could buy the food much cheaper from Aldi and cook it yourself but that’s sort of the point.

I don't think it's crazy prices at all. I enjoy a meal out and choose the restaurant based on mid range price, reputation, and ambience. There's just the two of us though, so it's different with a family I know. Usually something around 40 - 50 a head including drinks (for him) and dessert (for me) is ok once a fortnight or so. A treat, not an endurance test and no grumbles. The restaurant has rising costs also.

I was in Dublin last week ( had an absolute blast) and was very wary of the prices given the bad press about how expensive it is there. Anyway had a lunch on the terrace at the Hilton Hotel opposite Kilmainham Jail (a big tourist hub). Various breads + dips to share, lemon sole and trimmings, fish n chips, a large latte, one very large glass of wine and a Hennessy brandy ( it was his birthday), all came to €76. I was very pleasantly surprised. It was not cheap, but it wasn't extortionate either and similar to what I'd be happy to spend at home.

This is a good point. My family only ever ate out on holiday and even then it was probably only on one evening and a fairly cheap place (1970’s). I didn’t eat in a really good restaurant until I was in my early twenties.

Yeah you’re right. It is the point. And sadly the experience and ambience don’t match the price increase. If I’m paying £100 for anything that’s a big deal so I want it to be really worth it. Increasingly it’s not.

Maybe it’s my age as well. I guess I’ve been an adult for 20 years so can remember paying for meals in restaurants myself 20 years ago and now see that prices have gone up wildly since then (as things naturally do over time). Whatever the reason I now just think ‘No thanks’ most of the time when it comes to restaurants because they’re just poor value.