Are you eating out less?

[Solasum]

I work in London, and the lunchtime cafes etc are still very busy, though it seems to me mainly with a young demographic. As a household though, we are definitely eating out and getting take away less. It just doesn’t seem worth it unless it is something really special.

In your local area, is there evidence of people majorly cutting back?

If anyone works in hospitality, have things changed a lot in recent years?

Not a journalist, just curious.

Yes. I’d say we used to eat out twice a month but now it’s 2-3 times a year unless we’re on holiday.

I think that the portions thing will be the nail in the coffin of a lot of food outlets.

At our local McD's they're giving half portions of fries but they started reducing portions/sauces about 2 years ago. We stopped going after the manager refused to top up the small portion of fries to the full amount saying that that's what a small portion is even though it was barely half full. Unfortunately when you have T1Diabetes reducing portion sizes like this can lead to insulin overdose if you trust that it's the correct amount of fries according to MD's own published nutrition tables - the franchise manager couldn't have given less of a shit and used COL reasons. So we no longer go to any of the branches operated by this franchise group - but I had to educate DC on judging with eye compared to picture and we often have to guesstimate carbs but a common issue. When restaurants reduce portion sizes 99% of the time they are not updating their own nutrition records on websites to compensate and we've had a few near misses.
It's just another stress to eating out on top of COL.

Sadly supermarkets are doing the same which means that we now have to weigh so much because we can't trust that the packet is correct. I spent days communicating with one supermarket about this because DC nearly gave themselves double insulin after trusting the packet's details. We averted a hospital trip because DC asked me to double check the packet and I realised that it was wrong after the product was reduced in size. It's the same when ingredients change to 'new improved receipe' - the item is changed but the nutrition details are the same. In our case the supermarket agreed that we were right but a year later the packet is still the same! FFS it shouldn't be like this.

We eat out a lot still, there’s some great local independent cafes, restaurants and takeaways that were happy to support.

As a family I can probably count on one hand how many times we have gone out to eat. So we were never going regularly slightly more as just my dh and me. Its always been expensive but what I find now is restaurants are trying to cut back their costs. So it's smaller sizes and or quality. It’s definitely less value for money in that sense.

I completely stopped eating out a few months ago.

Because I find the food overpriced, poor quality and the environment usually too noisy and uncomfortable with surly service.

Plus I am trying to lose a bit of weight so I prefer to prepare all my meals so I can make sure I eat as healthy as I can.

No plan to start again beyond the odd visit to a local coffee shop for a hot drink.

Far less although I’ve been 3 times this week but generally I’m down to once or twice a month and it used to be 3-4 times a week if you include lunches. I don’t buy take away coffee at all and usually friends now for (sit in) coffee instead of lunch and when we do go for dinner it’s main course only rather than starter main and sometimes a shared dessert. I always take lunch to work too

I probably eat out a couple of times a week, but I’ve replaced most dinner occasions with lunch, and some that would have been lunch with tea and cake. Unsure whether that’s down to COL or retirement, but it works.

I really miss getting all dressed up to dine out, though.

Many places are still full.

Sounds to me that there is more division now.
People working in good jobs/nice pensions with their mortgages paid or no vision of buying a home are happily eating out, especially if single/childfree two income couple.

Families, especially families woth mortgages and younger children (childcare costs) don't.

Part of that is, that when eating out costs scale in linear way, every person costs more, while when cooking at home, it doesn't - time commitment is the same, energies similar, food is sold in multipacks ...

We’ve just been out for a pub lunch. Pub was pretty packed both inside and out.

100% we are eating out less! Just can't justify the prices. We definitely feel quality is lacking too.

Crap wages
rude customers
stressed back of house
huge workload

‘so get a different job then’
saying it is easy
the reality is hard

Hospitality is viewed as a low food chain job in the UK

Its an art form in parts of Europe - it’s a shame it’s not viewed the same here.

It’s not more cost effective to use prepared items from places like Bidfood.
The lack of skilled labour now, the bakers, the grill chefs, pastry chefs…so places have to use them because they don’t have a decent chef, anyone can fly a microwave. This type of product is more expensive, and that’s reflected in the high price.

We did eat at the local park cafe earlier this week- rare ‘treat’ as I’d been unwell- was surprised to see the prices hadn’t really changed much since I used to have the odd panini there when DS was a baby and napping in his pram 4 years ago.

I only had a Diet Coke but I ordered sausage and chips for DS. The chips tasted bitter like refried oil and honestly the sausage i probably wouldn’t have fed to a dog. They used to be proper meaty butcher style ones. This was reminiscent of the ones we’d get in a school dinner back in 1991.

So it’s not just about prices, the quality of things has absolutely nose dived.

This is a good point, I eat out fairly a lot on my own, with my friends or my DH. It’s the paying for three adult DC that makes the price seem crazy. Where as we’ve had some lovely BBQ’s and Pizza oven evenings which are little more cost or work however many of us there are.

Yes, but we do use first table for 50% off food for quieter times.

No, about the same, maybe three or four times a year.