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 sometimes it's easy for people to overlook "behind the scenes" expenses. When covid happened I remember lots of people insisting businesses would be ok because "furlough"....but there were loads of other ongoing expenses other than staff wages that need to be covered regardless if it is open or not (rent, business rates, insurance, utilities, security etc) as well as payment for material or goods ordered in advance and then not able to be used.

Having said that it's not unreasonable for people to have a defined limit on what they are able to/or prepared to spend on a meal out. We generally go out for birthdays, on holiday, and maybe 2 or 3 other times during the year...but I often think if everyone went out as infrequently as we do, there wouldn't be anywhere to go.

I think the point of that is being made is the service sector is a big employer and it keeps money in the local area too. Its not your personal responsibility to solve it but if you think its greedy business owners then you might not think about whether its actually policy causing it.

Its not great if things like rent, business rates, green taxes on utilities and employment on-costs make lots of a group of businesses unviable that were previously thriving. We want economic growth to raise taxes rather than contraction.

I agree OP. I used to be able to go for a meal once a week on a much lower wage than I’m on now but I just can’t afford the prices more than once in two or three months. I understand they need to charge it, but it can’t be sustainable for only the well-off to be regulars or all us plebs only coming in once a quarter for a treat, rather than the vast majority being able to eat out as often as they used to. There’s obviously no solution now all those taxes have risen so I think we’ll see even more hard-working restaurateurs in debt or closing down. I understand why they charge what they charge, but I can’t justify paying it. Pubs are shutting down at mad rates too. I think cheaper utilities and lower taxes on the various business aspects would help but my sympathies don’t change the fact that it’s not value for money for my own pocket, so I’m just not paying it.

1 tomato?! Fucking cheeky sods!

I hope you complained and either got a full bowlful or got that sent back and taken off your bill.

Come on, it was sprinkled with a bit of salt and pepper…surely worth the price! (For anyone wanting to avoid this “dish” it was called “Vesuvian tomatoes”.)

I was so taken aback by it that I didn’t complain, actually — it was hot and I was tired and with DD and wanted to get home. I should have, though!

@Spinachpastapicker Here’s a pic of the tomato dish on their social media, but it didn’t even look this much — what I got was clearly one tomato that had been sliced and then just plonked in the (small) dish. Didn’t even appear to be any kind of special tomato, just a perfectly ordinary supermarket one! 🤷‍♀️

Think of the markup on one tomato to make £5, and honestly, no matter how stretched restaurants are with labour and overheads, that’s still bloody cheeky.

Yes so immensely true

Basically, you've answered yourself with this. Don't want to pay? Don't go to a restaurant. Stay at home and enjoy your meals without hitting your pocket.

That's exactly what has happened with pubs and shops. Everyone bemoans that so many have closed, but that's a direct result of people not using them. If people want to eat out, then they have to pay the price. If they don't then, fair enough. But don't moan when you want a Birthday meal and find your "local" restaurant has shut down!

Furlough only covered staff wages, it didn't cover rent, rates, utilities, security, loan repayments, leased equipment, etc. In fact it did virtually nothing for the business owners themselves, Staff were looked after, property owners were looked after, but often the business owners were excluded on spurious and illogical exclusions (Thanks Rishi you moron!). Even business owners eligible for support only got a percentage of "profit", not expenses, and seeing as fixed expenses are usually more than profit, the support they got only covered some of the ongoing costs, and not towards the profit they lost, loan repayments, etc.

Lots of restuarants took out loans for covid.

Lots of pus and restuarants are going pop NOW because the repayments on these loans have caught up with them and they can't afford to pay them.

Thats yet another reason prices are higher than they were.

Exactly, they had to take out loans to cover their ongoing fixed costs that weren't covered by support grants. Now they have to pay interest AND capital repayments to clear those loans. An appalling way to treat employers/businesses and completely inevitable and foreseeable that prices would have to rise to cover the repayments.

Just back from a fancy meal in town and thought of this thread. is exactly as people have said more money for less. I appreciate times are hard but they really are starting to talk the mickey

I got steak for £31 and the only thing I got with it was half a tomato @summertimeinLondon I feel your pain. Was extra for anything else. £3.50 for a mint tea teabag. I reckon it would have been leaves not long ago

best was a dessert boasting about the gold leaf on it. When we queried where it was we were told they had run out gold leaf. Still charged the same amount though.

Just saw this on LinkedIn and wanted to share.

Just paid $36 for a haircut and beard trim at a local barber. No fancy salon. Add a tip — that’s $40. No complaints. Barber’s got a chair, a comb, a $45 machine, and a mirror. Deserves every penny.

Now imagine opening a restaurant today:
Fit-out? $250K–$500K minimum.
Staff? Chef, sous chef, helper, manager, hostess, dishwasher, cleaner — all on payroll before you even flip a patty.
Then you’ve got the food: meat, bun, toppings.
Behind the scenes? linen service, refrigeration, wear and tear, menus, marketing, random repairs, and trust me — the list doesn’t end.

And somehow… your $25 burger is “too expensive”?
And if it’s not cooked exactly how your cousin’s uncle’s neighbor likes it — you want it free.
Because “the customer is always right.”

Let’s get real.
Support your local restaurants like you support your barber.
Or your therapist.
Or your $7 iced coffee.

We’re not just feeding you — we’re surviving.
End of rant.

I went food shopping yesterday. I noticed that most everything I bought seems to have gone up in price and/or packet sizes have shrunk etc. At this rate, I dunno about eating out, I won’t be able to afford to eat in either!

Yep.

I think the model we had for the couple of decades preceding was probably unsustainable anyway, as the labour market changed. The sector was quite reliant on EU labour and people having to accept jobs with unsociable hours. That's no longer the case. So I reckon this would've happened at some point anyway, but covid, lockdown and the impact of those made it sooner.

@mathsquestionsi appreciate the sentiment but it’s not quite a fair comparison. Barbers unusually against other businesses have a high profit yield and very low running costs. Even compared to a unisex salon and much lower utilities bills. They are a v effective business model. Visiting a barber is generally v reasonable for the customer.

Restaurants have an extremely high running cost which is why I think I read most catering business sadly fold in the first couple of years.

Completely empathise with you
God Bless You&Yours
💚🌼💚

Did a bit of digging online looking at images of pizza express menu in 2017 vs today. Then checked against the Bank of England inflation calculator.

prices have gone up pretty much perfectly in line with inflation.

the pain is that most wages haven’t grown in line with inflation.

I can’t cut my hair but I can make a burger. £25 for a burger is ridiculous when it’s something a person can cook at home. However I would pay more than that for authentic food that’s not easy to replicate at home such as the Japanese restaurant we recently went to.

I'm unmoved.

You have to provide something people want at a price they are prepared to pay. Not expect them to do things they aren't that keen on so you can have the business you've always dreamed of.

People's disposable income has gone down. They are having to cut things and it's the things that offer the least value that they will cut first.

If the experience of going to a restaurant had stayed the same, more people might make their own coffee and keep going to restaurants. But it's gone down hill considerably, whereas getting coffee is still as good as it was most places.

I think the main issue is that people’s disposable income is constantly shrinking. People just don’t have the money to spend like they used to. So when things like eating out are too expensive, it just has to go. Likewise with independent shops. There’s a small local sweet shop near me where the owner is always posting on Facebook about how she’s going under and we all need to support local businesses. I really sympathise, but what she charges £10 for, I can buy in Aldi for £2. When you don’t have much disposable income, obviously you’re gonna go to Aldi.

The thing is that people aren’t going to bankrupt themselves eating out at your expensive restaurant.

If you have £500k to spend on setting up a business selling something at a price most people aren’t able to afford then it’s a bad business idea. This isn’t the fault of the general public 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yep this annoys the crap out of me. Local businesses set up by folk that have a dream of being their own boss but choose pointless random items to sell. We’ve got it in my town. A hat shop, a candle shop, a sweet shop, a pet accessories and treats shop, they’re all moaning that they’re not getting support from local people but what they are selling is mostly overpriced pointless products.

Around twice a year I go to a really good restaurant for a special occasion and expect to pay a lot. Other than that, I don't eat out at all because, as far as most pub grub and chain restaurants are concerned, i can do better myself and for a fraction of the cost. Dining out has never been a regular occurrence for me, because I'd be constantly disappointed. That aside, I have no idea how anyone can afford to run a restaurant those days - rent, business rates, VAT, staff costs, gas/electricity, and all the other associated costs.