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?

Completely agree OP. I've started taking photos of my favourite pizza at Pizza Express. We go once every 8-12 weeks and O swear that nearly each time the price of said pizza has increased by another £1. Worse even is the lack of waiting staff - you're encouraged to order and pay via the app, but then get asked to pay 12.5% 'service' charge. We've had enough of it now.

Museum cafe were charging £4.40 for one cup of coffee! Just basic coffee in a cardboard cup to sit on plastic chairs in a draughty atrium. I thought I was seeing things.

I waited until I got home.

Yep sadly it's come full circle. Only the wealthy eat out regularly at decent eateries.

As kids we never ate out but did get fish and chips, maybe a takeaway occasionally. McDonald's was only for birthday parties!

Then in the last 20 years, eating out for the average family like us became far more normal and less of a 'rare treat'. Certainly for us. And many pubs turned from waterholes to eateries to cash in on the boom in people wanting to eat out more.

We've stopped again now. An average pub meal is now obscenely priced for what you get. It used to be nice to have an okay meal for a reasonable price and have the bonus of not having to clean up etc but most of the time, the price for the average pub/chain restaurant meal just isn't worth it. Paying £30 for a crap steak cooked badly? Nah, you're alright!

With the drop in footfall, I am surprised so many restaurants and pubs are still in business tbh.

Those are completely reasonable prices - hello? It's 2025, not 2015! As others have said, you're not just paying for the costs of the ingredients. Have you heard of the NI increase that businesses had to pay from April? And energy bills, rent bills, etc.

Honestly, I think some people are just better off at home, cooking.

It sounds like the good places with owners present and who care will do well and the big chains backed by corporates will slowly fade away. Although they seem to do ok if in a nice town or brand new shopping centre

I understand the costs of running the restaurant has gone up. I totally get staff, fuel, ingredients etc

But it is a worry on a wider economy level, as im hearing more and more people saying its got too expensive. I know there would always have been people it was too much for, but it seems that group has grown.

They have hiked their prices because the cost of employing someone has increased since Labour hiked employee NI.

How does the equivalent of NI compare to other European countries for employers? I always thought they paid more due to healthcare costs.

We don’t have dc at home now but used to go out regularly with friends to very average places and easily spend £50-60 each for total “boil in the bag” or pre prepared freezer fodder. No more. DH and me now go far less frequently to high class restaurants. Yes, we pay double but the difference is immense. Our favourite restaurant does a tasting menu for £70. Others are below £100 so around 1 meal out for 2 we would have done previously. Great tasty food costs money but it’s 1000% better.

As a chef I don't eat out as it's too expensive.
However this is what has happened.
Food costs are astronomical,gas electric etc too.
Then there seems to be regulars who expect to get a Sunday roast and why not.This used to be a treat thing now where I live it's the norm.
COVID and Brexit meant a huge loss of chefs and hospitality staff when people decided to not go back to the silly hours.
Pretty sure those losses are still being recouped years later.
Customers who book then don't show up.
Christmas bookings for staff do s reduced as companies cut back.
They will be more things I'm sure.
I think you pay your money and take your chances.
Chains....cheaper not cheap.
Or cooked from scratch locally sourced independent places you support and go to for treating yourself.
Remember someone has cooked prepared served cleaned and washed up .
You also often get nice surroundings but I take your point about tables close together.

As a chef it's still our pleasure to cook delicious food for you and your family though.😊

As a business owner, although not in the food industry it’s quite simple.

Firstly businesses were forced to close during Covid and most of us had little choice but to take out huge Covid loans. We are still paying those back.

Secondly, the minimum wage has risen to £12.21 per hour. That means if you factor in the national insurance rise it costs a business £15 for somebody to move the plates, clean up, make drinks etc as well as the increase in wages that has then come for the staff that are slightly more qualified.

Thirdly, utility prices have risen hugely and net zero doesn’t help. The increase in electricity prices is reflected not only in how much it costs the business owner but also the increase in raw materials because the supplier is experiencing similar costs to those I’ve outlined.

The fact is that lockdown, stupid I’ll thought out policies and economic policies made by customer service experts is destroying businesses and until people start to stick up for businesses rather than complain then things will not change !!

@Mummyhokey

I could buy the ingredients for that burger for well under a fiver.

Could you cook it without your kitchen, power, your house, cooker, etc?

There's 20% VAT on the selling price. Minimum wage has gone up by more than inflation for the past few years, and you need serving staff, cleaners, chefs, pot washers etc in a restaurant. They also need expensive kitchens typically costing tens of thousands, not a £500 cooker from Currys!

Power, waste disposal, water rates, etc is all ridiculously expensive - even some small cafes have to pay over £1k per month for gas and electricity, so a bigger restaurant will be paying a few k per month.

Bank charges, insurance, security, etc all need paying.

But the big one is rent - landlords can often charge a decent sized restaurant or pub a few thousand per month in rent!

What you can buy ingredients for is really irrelevant and trivial compared with the costs incurred by a restaurant!

I understand that restaurants have lots of costs that have gone up, and provide a service beyond simply the food.
But the point is that as a result of that their offer becomes poor value for money, so I may as well save a fortune and just cook it myself.

was the restaurant empty other than you though?

because people keep moaning about prices (there's another thread on here now about the cost of a jacket potato at a garden centre), not only in restaurants but the cost of gigs, clothes, food shop, pubs etc. - but whenever I go out to eat everywhere is rammed. Oasis just sold a million tickets for an average of a few hundred quid each and there were many more willing to pay that but couldn't get tickets. Same with the big coldplay/taylor swift tours the year before. David Lloyd charges a fortune p/m but when I tried my local one it was really busy. Every time I go to the theatre the show is pretty much sold out. I think the price of a coffee out is insane for something you can make yourself but the multiple starbucks and costa on every single high street suggest most people disagree.

There's a difference between YOU not being prepared to pay something and everybody else doing so. As long as enough people are willing to pay, they'll keep charging. It's not unreasonable for business owners to not just break even but to want or even expect to make a decent profit. Otherwise why bother? They aren't a charity. Would you go to work if you only got paid the cost of driving there and back?

Yes I forgot rent.Where I live in a nice place the rent is so high shops move out let alone pubs.
Also I can see many head chefs jobs advertised...I'm not a head chef.
Not many people want the gig as the pressure is enormous so I think lots of places have used agencies which again a v expensive.
Sad to see really.

Yep pretty typical now.
Main courses are £15-£20 minimum. Drink £5/6 minimum. I’m talking outside London.
I say around £30 per person without a starter or pudding.
Thats who we only eat out maximum twice a month and avoid really expensive restaurants.

Yea said this just earlier today after eating out. Prices are going up and food quality is going down.

because people keep moaning about prices (there's another thread on here now about the cost of a jacket potato at a garden centre), not only in restaurants but the cost of gigs, clothes, food shop, pubs etc. - but whenever I go out to eat everywhere is rammed.

I've noticed footfall is down a bit. We are away at the moment visiting friends & would normally eat out every night. We only ate yesterday & it wasn't full. Tbh it's not just the price, I find a lot isn't worth the money taste wise.

@Oscarsmom71 The more expensive restaurants actually do better food though. Who wants yet another rubbish burger?

Thats a reasonable price for 4 but people always forget that it involves more than just putting a burger on a plate, also if you can make it yourself why bother going out right? There are people serving you, taking the time to welcome you, take your order, bring your food, make sure you got everything you need and are having a good time, you got the barista making your drink, you got the chef cooking your food.

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 ?

This. Plus insurance and utilities sky rocketing, as well as the cost of the raw ingredients if they are good quality.

It is the result of a badly managed economy with low productivity leading to almost two decades of little real-terms salary growth at all combined with high taxes meaning businesses have high costs to cover so prices go up, and people have lower real-terms net pay so feel relatively poorer.

We had this conversation just this week after paying £120 for very average food in a nicely decorated pub.

Absolutely I'll still be going out for my birthday, celebrations but I'll be saving my £120s and paying for fine dining. We paid £250 for 7 amazing courses and a bottle of wine with attentive, friendly and knowledgeable service recently.

The chains can stick it. I'm sure they'll survive without us.

Indeed. And that’s £2k per week profit just to cover fixed costs, not £2k revenue.

I'll bite. How?