To Wonder When Starters Got So Expensive

[AnotherBoringSaturday]

DP & I went out for dinner last night to one of local pubs.
It is a lovely country pub.
Starters were £8.50 + !!
I just had a main (£22.50) but DP has a starter as well. It was a piece of mackerel the size of my thumb (literally 2 mouthfuls) for £8.50
We did mention it to the waitress & they sent us another piece but I’m just shocked at how expensive it was.
Don’t even get me started at the price of pudding

Are there big regional differences?

I have eaten at 3 independent restaurants in the last couple of months and an independent gastro pub. I'm in the Midlands.

Nepalese two courses and one beer was 25
Vietnamese main and a sparkling water was 12.50
Pub was two courses and a soft drink 20
Quirky little restaurant main and a soft drink 15

I do a lot of pre theatre suppers and lunches as I like the price plus I hate eating late, it is substantially cheaper.

I'm more shocked at £22 for a piece of cod. Would have seen those prices and not bothered going in.

That is an insane price. £11 or £12 is my absolute maximum for a main course, I wouldn't pay more so I wouldn't have gone in either.

As people have said it is due to inflation. Restaurants are making less profit than in any other time previously.

I think it is mainly due to people now expecting to eat out more often.

My parents were middle earners in the 80s and would only eat out (in any fashion) once every couple of months in any (unless work entertaining). My peers will eat our once a week and have less money to spend on each meal. This coupled with high street chains employing people who can't cook to heat up microwave food has pushed the accepted meal cost down.

I stumbled across some old menus from the early 90s from a chef who was working in a good quality restaurant at the time. I adjusted the prices for inflation and they would have been about £50 for a main - they were full every night. They were still cooking to the same standard but charging about £20 per a main (c. 2013) ans struggling to fill mid week because people saw them as expensive.

Never mind the starters. They seem priced to match the main course.

There’s a pub near me which is part of a nationwide chain, that offers a 3 course meal for over 60s for £7 on weekdays. I would never dream of paying £22 for a main course and usually just stick to pub or restaurant chains. We like supermarket cafes too. If we go somewhere more expensive we share a dessert and avoid starters because we are on a budget (despite being baby boomers!). No starter is tasty enough to spend £8.50 so YANBU.

Bluesmartiesarebest, we're also in our 60's and on a budget. Would you mind giving the name of that chain you mentioned please (if you don't mind, of course) Sounds good value

I don't usually eat out, unless it's really special, because I like to cook (and do it pretty well so I'm told). I get really pissed off when I pay the price for excellent food, and get served something basic that I could cook at home. I'd rather spend the money on the prime, extravagant ingredients and all the new spices, put in the time to prep them beautifully and serve up restaurant/top chef quality food on our kitchen table. So, we eat out infrequently but when we do, it will be a meal that I could not cook at home (complex Japanese for example) or cooked by a chef with Michelin stars or aiming at them. And when I do eat out, I'd expect to pay £50 a head, maybe more in an expensive area.

Any one who wants to produce curry house food at home needs a copy of The Curry Guy. Once you have made the master sauces (quantities produce about 25 portions) you batch freeze them, and hoick one out to defrost when you fancy a curry, and then it's ready in 25 minutes. A lot of Asian food is easy once you have the basics ready prepped, but making them up in bulk will take an afternoon.

You should try eating out in Dubai, we’ve just got back from holiday there and it was costing £200 at a normal restaurant down the mall for 2 adults and 2 children and that’s excluding alcohol as my husband and I don’t really drink. I was going to move back out there but after seeing the cost of living we’ve decided to stay put in the UK!!!

That sounds about right for good pub food round here (Lancashire), with locally sourced, good quality ingredients. I’d rather spend that once a month and enjoy it than eat in a chain for half that and have a plate of food that I could cook better at home.

But... you only said your cod was ‘ok’.

I would expect starters and puddings to be priced at around half the cost of the main course. So if the mains are £10 then starter and pud would be £5. Given that you went to a place where the mains were £22.50 (!!!) the starters therefore seem a bit cheap, they should be £11.

some places are getting pricey yes but i wouldnt pay 22 for a cod unless it was michelin star

what sort of pub was it

I want to know the name of the place now, I'm nosey!

Restaurants are making their profit in the side orders, wine, water, bread and extras. We don’t eat out much now but if we do we have the main course only and one bottle or half bottle of wine between us. It has cut the cost down to less than half.

we have a tastecard now and use that quite a lot if we can. that saves us a heck of a lot.

I rarely eat out , my husband hates restaurants . But when I am on holiday I will make sure that I have at least one Michelin starred restaurant in my sights. Going at lunchtime for a set lunch can mean a superb gastronomic experience for a reasonable outlay., even so I would expect to pay around £50. including a couple of drinks !! (each)

Inflation, shinflation. The UK is renowned for being extremely expensive, regardless of the dollar/euro/pound balance. 8-10 quid for an appetizer in a regular restaurant is a lot of money.

That seems usual to me, went for lunch today for dads birthday in the south. Nice, good reputation, fresh cooked food but casual, Turkish restaurant, starter and main and one soft drink £33 a head. Last week in Manchester for work, fab Thai restaurant £8.50 main (others were £7) £2.50 starters, food was lovely, obviously home cooked not bought in. Area plays a big part, in terms of rent, rates, wage expectations etc.

"TheoryPractical

I almost never eat out.

I know they have overheads. But its rarely for the cooking, just sitting down somewhere. The foods usually frozen, mass produced stuff I could buy for £1.99 at Tescos, M&S etc. Even if its "home cooked" you can tell they are cutting corners at every opportunity, tiny bits of poor quality meat etc etc.

A. Con."

I really have to take issue with this. We run a small community pub. Before we took over Sunday lunches had been tried a few years and it was indeed mainly frozen crap.

We completely refurbed the kitchen, on a budget, with family help and using equipment we have purchased over the years also.

I currently offer 2 meats for Sunday Carvery (customers can have a bit of both if they like), PROPER roast potatoes (peeled, parboiled and then roasted), new potatoes, stuffing, 3 veg (of which the peas are the ONLY frozen items on the carvery) and homemade Yorkshire puddings. I use a square yorky tin just to be a bit quirky and to emphasise the fact they are home made. Gravy is made with the meat juices. £5.95 a head and £3.95 Kids and OAPs.

I personally select the joints each week and If, for example, there is a promo on rump then it will be slow roasted roasted rump. So no it's not cheap, poor quality meat and veg is fresh. We now also have an allotment (which is another expense on top of everything else along with extra work but one which we hope pays off longterm) so we ultimately hope to also provide home grown veg (or as near as dammit...its 1/4 mile from the pub, on the same road).

I think we offer fantastic value for proper home cooked grub and we also do a roaring trade in takeaway Sunday meals, mainly but by no means limited to single widowers, with people bringing their own plate or paying a £1 deposit for one of ours.

We are agonising over increasing the price by £1 at the moment, as our prices for veg etc from the wholesaler have increased alot in the last 12 months. Then you get folks who come in, as a couple of weeks ago, and ask for the OAP meal and then pile their plates up past their noses..or the guy today who had 9 roast potatoes (which aren't small ones) and 7 large new potatoes. It was a good job I had another tray of roast potatoes ready immediately as he took the last 9...leaving none for his wife who was next to be served! So selfish and greedy.

This sealed it for us as such gluttony is increasing and we are indeed going to put prices up £1. I still believe we are excellent value for money so comments such as the one I quoted really boil my piss.

Keep going to chain pubs that offer "ping" food. You'll soon have no alternative as those of us running small pubs without the massive buying power are driven to the wall because people can't be arsed to find a better alternative or , worse, hold such ridiculous views that we are a con.

/rant over !!

Slightlyconfuddled, you need a polite notice reminding people to take reasonable portions unless they want to pay for two meals. If they look as if they are going to be greedy, discreetly point at it. Nine roasties and more new potatoes on a plate is a gross breach of manners.

Restaurants should not rip off customers but nor should customers be greedy.

I am.considering that. Something along the lines of "We are a Carvery, not an all you can eat buffet".

The guy who left his wife no spuds really gobsmacked me!

What annoys me with people like that @Slightlyconfuddled is when they take piles of food and then leave most of it.

Agreed iklboo. Apart from the fact that I detest the gluttony and waste, my catering kitchen is only about 8ft x9ft so I only have a double oven, not a massive catering range. Everything is freshly cooked and as Yorkshire puddings do not hot hold particularly well I am constantly churning them out in trays of 12 at a time. When you tyen get greedy twats grabbing 2 or 3 it's a challenge to keep up and very disheartening when they come back as waste as people has made eyes bigger than belly.

I love the fast pace and challenge of keeping everything topped up and the feedback we get is great but some idiots do frustrate us. It's only myself and my daughter that work the Carvery and kitchen so we graft extremely hard but on the whole it's rewarding, with mainly regular faces, which does prove that what is offer is spot on ( We have a very high repeat rate). That's why I challenged the comment posted, there ARE bloody good pub offerings out there, and it's insulting to know that some people have the type of mindset above when I and others like me graft our arses off to be the best we can be.

I will add, although its beside the point regarding people being wasteful, that we don't actually have any waste on a Sunday. Peelings etc go to compost and I have 2 mutts that enjoy any waste food at the end of the afternoon!