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?

Added to that, lots of people don't want to work hospitality hours. So it's hard to get staff, especially chefs.

We dont get takeaways but eat out up to 4 times a month. Always independent places or as close as possible.
Certainly gone up but there's only 2 of us.....we love food!

we eat out at least twice a month and we have a few favourite places

If it’s me & DH I expect to pay around £100 - £120 for the two of us inc drinks starters main & a shared dessert

However we are going to an amazing steakhouse on our anniversary in a few weeks and I expect that to be around the £170 -£200 for both of us
but we tend to only eat there 3-4 times a year as a treat

My last two restaurant meals were both around the £100 mark for two of us

if it’s a big group of us we tend to go to the all you can eat buffets 😂
where it’s a set price of around £25 plus you buy your own drinks

I paid last time for a group of 12 in one of those all you can eat buffet types I think the bill was £280 not including drinks as everyone bought there own drinks or did the refillable soft drink option
And to be fair the food was fine
lots of choice of different food so something to suit everyone

As a child, I can't remember eating in a restaurant as a family ever. We simply couldnt afford it. If you can only afford to eat out as a very occasional treat I don't think that's a terrible thing. Restaurants need to make a profit, they don't have a duty to be affordable for all.

Not having a go, OP, because your experience is an important example of something that I struggle to get my head around these days. I wouldn't have a go at restaurants in particular though, because even when you take into account the cynical profiteering that goes on with many of the bigger names and chains, the problem to my mind goes much deeper. Basically, I look at pretty much any amount of money nowadays - a fiver, a tenner or twenty, a hundred etc - and it shocks me how little you get for it. And the problem is, I wouldn't have that scary feeling if it wasn't for the fact that, for many of us, we don't have fivers, tenners, fifties, etc coming out of our ears. Comparatively speaking, though, it feels like we used to.

That's the scary thing.

We find the Miller and Carter lunchtime deal good value - 2 courses £17.95, 3 courses £20.95, available 12-3pm on a Saturday as well as weekdays. We just have main course plus dessert and as the dessert options include 'hot drink plus mini dessert' there's no need buy extra coffees.

^ Exactly this, the current government has made it a lot harder for employers and Raynor's proposed Employment Rights Bill is going to make it a lot worse.

So, OP, prices are going to continue to rise, for reasons that are mostly political choices by the present government because they won't raise employee taxes.

Also, a PP has mentioned that 'eating out' used to be mainly for the rich, and a rare treat for anyone else. That's so true, I'd forgotten that.

Back in the 70s/early 80s, eating out was uncommon unless you were 'very' middle class. Things changed in the mid/late 80s. Food used to be more expensive back in the 70s/80s than we've got used to in the last 20 years or so.

If you're in your 30s now, you've spent most of your life in a period of cheap food, mortgages, electrical goods, food deliveries, etc.

Things are re-balancing now and it's going to surprise and hurt quite a few people as food, labour and related costs return to their old levels.

First time I went to a restaurant it was 1976 and I was 18. We simply didn't have the surplus money growing up.

There has been a huge social change towards eating out.

for many of us, we don't have fivers, tenners, fifties, etc coming out of our ears. Comparatively speaking, though, it feels like we used to.

It's not a good thing when standards of living fall and it's hard if you've grown up eating out often to find that suddenly it's a significant cost.

We eat out maybe half a dozen times a year if that. It's usually with adult DC and we always pay. I've noticed a big jump in cost in the last 4 years

It’s the norm but you’re correct it’s so expensive! Pizza to me is the worst as it’s so cheap to make. I never have pizza if we go out as I want to get my monies worth!!

The NI ERs increase went from payable over £9k down to 5kper employee per year.
For the company I used to work for, that's and NI bill increase on ers alone of 2billion pounds. Per year. 2 billion.
Staff are losing jobs and businesses are closing.
If you can't afford to eat out, then don't. But look further than the businesses trying to stay afloat.

It's the £6.50 for 2 scoops of ice cream with a bit of bottled sauce squeezed over it which infuriates me!

Starters and desserts were £4.95 five minutes ago - now they're £8.95!

I felt I was living it up as a child when we went into a Wimpy once or some fish and chips as a takeaway, but that was so rare.
There wasn’t the amount of places around to eat , I didn’t have a McDonalds until I was about 21 ! My parents were appalled by the throw away cartons and refused to go into one ‘ I can’t drink tea out of a paper cup ‘ ! At least the Wimpy had cutlery and proper cups.
They just couldn’t justify the cost when you could go home and have a drink there instead!

Eating out used to be for treats - birthdays and celebrations. Growing up I think our family went out to eat four times a year - usually to the same restaurant because there wasn't much choice. We probably couldn't afford more than that either.

Even through the eighties when I was a teen, then student and then starting to work, it was an occasional thing. Now it seems people eat out much more regularly. But it hasn't always been the case.

As a family we value quality and so eat out far less than the norm. And frankly understand why prices are high. Restaurants must be walking a fine line. I think people need to be more realistic or just eat out less often.

Desserts are now the same price as the drinks! It’s all catering packs too. Cut up into tiny pieces and a blob of cream or ice cream made to look a bit fancy.

Service is usually so basic as well, how hard is it to ask staff to take away empty glasses etc
Also the music is usually rubbish and tinny
Unfortunatly because these places are chains within chains there is no one person who loves each restaurant and takes proper care of it

Istheresomethingishouldsay. You are right ,A friend and I went for lunch a few days ago .Hardly any staff,and my friend asked for a certain salad to be told sorry it's not on today! Service was very slow and an American couple had to find the waitress ! We only eat out on birthdays TBH. "Steak and cake" at home is often better .Decent meat from SB or M and S ,chips and salad .A big birthday cake as well. My DGP rarely ate out when I was growing up Restaurants were seen as a bit "posh" Fish and chips was the closest thing in the 70s .I think Harvester is good value though it depends which one .

You have the increase in rent, power, minimum wages, national insurance, food inflation and soon the additional costs associated with the incoming employment rights bill.

Not just restaurants but even cafes etc too. I used to think nothing of grabbing coffee and cake but it’s always with careful consideration these days. In the school holidays it can blow the budget pretty quickly , especially if you have a few children.
I had coffee at a market stall recently (nothing special, northern town) .Their cheesecake was £9.99 a normal sized slice.
I try to upgrade my options for dining at home, so buy really good coffee, try to stock up on unusual ingredients at ethnic stores , try lots of new recipes and invest in tools for cooking.
My adult child works in hospitality though and they are always being asked to pick up extra shifts as its so busy. They see some enormous bills go through the till. Expensive champagne, fine wine , the best steaks.. all very much within reach for many people, just maybe not the same people who were buying it twenty years ago.

@Mummyhokey I do empathise with you and I’m single and childfree! 😅

Recently a friend decided on a whim she fancied a catch up at a local pub chain and I was just nah! let’s do a ‘walk and talk’ instead with a coffee along the way!

A lot of ‘ chains ‘are owned by foreign investors and trade on their name. I can remember when Pizza express was good, but once it was sold on it lost its appeal of something a bit different. I worked there for a while years ago now and it is soulless , when it was founded the owner just wanted good food and nice wines and probably tasted a lot better than you would get now, but that was in the 1960s.
( Even the top managers there admitted this, but chain restaurants can absorb the costs better. )

I’d like to know when eating out was considered entertainment like PP said it ‘the experience’

I feel like you, the experience leave me feeling mugged -

Local pub here used to charge £12 for burger and fries now it’s £18 burger and £6 for a small tin of chips. Plus drinks.

We can have over food at home for a fraction of the price,

I’ve noticed that many (if not most) pubs serving food are dead from about 9.30pm with only a couple of customers drinking at the bar.

Oddly enough out of the blue on my X (Twitter) feed right now a thread has come up from “The Winston Arms Pub Landlord” - I live nowhere near the place as it’s in a village in the Winchester, Hampshire area. It says:

”Saturday 05.55pm mid service and we had no customers it’s Mad!…..gorgeous sunny evening. Can’t believe this is happening. Consumer behaviour changing on top of Government actions to make hospitality taxed out wow - we are all amazing folk operating hospitality venues at the moment” (accompanied by a video)

The replies to the above post on X are eye-opening and saddening to read :(

Things have changed so much since the 70s.

The ingredients available to cook at home were quite limited and food depended on your family's skill at cooking.

There were not that many restaurants available and even the cheapest (Berni Inn etc) were very expensive for an average family - so a birthday treat.

Then there was a massive expansion in eating out at all levels - cheap, medium and gourmet over the next 30/40 years and also food availability due to globalisation. At the same time there was an increase in people coming to work in the UK, often for quite low wages, or even later on for subsidised wages. Food became much cheaper generally so costs for businesses allowed growth of the sector.

I think we're heading back into a contraction. Food costs/staff costs/energy costs have expanded at the same time as a cost of living crisis - so less disposable income.

At the same time I think people have got better at cooking - the internet is amazing at helping people build cooking skills with cook along videos to help us use the huge variety of new ingredients and cuisine styles available to us.

So why go out? It's more expensive than ever, for reduced disposable income availability and for many people the food is no better than at home. The ambience is made infinitely worse by screaming children and loud conversations so again - better at home

Yes, it was a fairly rare event when I was growing up. The idea of eating out at least once a week being ‘normal’ is a relatively new one - except of course for those who’ve always had loadsamoney.

Many years ago I worked in a fairly smart hotel restaurant for a while (we used to make things like Crepes Suzette (flamed) at the table) and IIRC the standard mark-up on the actual cost of the food was 60%. Maybe it’s more now, I wouldn’t know.

The extra cost for any ‘sides’ make me laugh when it was part of the actual meal years ago. Just another rip off.