To feel ripped off

[Bunny2607]

Nipped out to a local cafe at work today for some lunch to take back and eat at my desk. Very rarely buy lunch as either take it with me or nip home but circumstances today meant i ended up buying it.
small independent cafe, i got a mocha coffee, flapjack slice and a soup to take away. £12.60!!! I paid and didn’t say anything but i was so shocked at the price. Its been bugging me all day and tbh i don’t think i will go back due to the prices, it was only average at best as well.
when did you last feel ripped off?

£12.50 - £15 is the going rate for a set lunch round here. and im in central London

I had a flat white and a cheese and ham toastie at a local independent cafe a couple of weeks and was shocked when it came to over a tenner.

That seems quite reasonable compared to some of the prices I've read on here.

Coffee and soup!

I'm in the office today and I usually bring left overs to heat up but didn't have anything in the fridge this morning. Went for a wander around the city at lunchtime, thought about Pret, local cafes etc, all the usual places. Ended up in Rosa's Thai .... a massive plate of basil chilli chicken with rice for £15.

Wouldn't normally spend that on lunch but when you compare it to the OPs, it's a bargain.

As a treat we went to burger king today... I almost fell over when I realised it was £9.79 for a chicken royale meal! My daughters happy meal equivilant was almost £6!

Is the cost of living everything is going up quite a lot. You have noticed it because you don't go often to buy your lunch.
I don't know how small shops of coffees are going to make it. Most of the people can't afford to go out any more.

Its drifting into dessert prices too...have a look at Pizza Express for example. £8 for a chocolate cake thingy. So pricey!

Always order from the website. 2xWhopper meals for a tenner. Other stuff too but I have a weakness for Whoppers 😉

This was 10 years ago or so. Went to a posh garden centre/restaurant and queued for a cup of tea at their takeaway counter. It was 5 quid. For 1 (one) tea bag and hot water. I walked out again. I thought it was ludicrous. Dread to think how much they are charging now.

£27 for cod and chips twice. Ridiculous.

Yes this is about right. But it depends on the portion size and quality as well to a certain extent. If it was a miserable Flapjack and the soup was nothing more than lentils and knorr I'd be disappointed but if it was full of veg and or meat and the flackjack was full of fruit, nuts, seeds, chocolate, then - nice things cost money

That is the price these days; we don’t eat out as much as we used to for that reason. I treated myself to a tea and cake the other day and it was £9

I'm shocked at the amount of people, especially young people, that buy lunch out daily. I think it is so expensive and I earn decent money!

I always bring my own lunch to work.

I had four drinks (two adults, two children) and two bits of cake at the weekend (outside London) and it came to £25!

Eating out is ridiculously expensive these days. I was in Italy last week and 2 pizzas (proper pizzas), a beer and a glass of wine came in at just over 30 euros. The same (and less good) meal at our local pizzeria would leave little change from £50.

Same for our local sandwich shop. I paid £10.50 for a piece of cake (4.50) and the rest a sandwich. Cheaper to go to the co op which is what I will be doing from now on

Sounds about right. Most people aren’t also getting a takeaway coffee and a dessert if they buy lunch at work.

For sure! Its crazy.

I can't believe that that place seems to be flourishing!

I had an out of date cuppa soup, potato and leek I think, a boiled egg and a banana. Even that was probably over a quid.

We rarely eat out anymore as it always feels like a rip off, but we occasionally go to one family run cafe where the food is all locally sourced and/or made on the premises.
I find the price of a sausage roll there quite dear, so I wouldn't buy one myself (£4), but it did taste as though I'd made it myself (my daughter had one).
The tea/ coffee is reasonably priced and the meals are really nice.
The quality of the ingredients really shines through, so as an occasional treat, I'm happy to pay it.
The fry up was £13, as was the ham, egg and chips. The ham is cooked on site and all meat products are from a local artisan butcher (free range). The poached eggs are from the free range chickens roaming around the site and were done to perfection.

The soup was homemade (French onion) with sourdough bread and lurpak butter, and it was very tasty, too. That cost £7.50.

@Tamrastarr
I'm quietly impressed by my daughter, who's in her twenties, and religiously takes her lunch to work. Her work pays a daily lunch allowance whether they use it or not, but she prefers to save it rather than spend it on food on the go. (She's on the road a lot of the time).
She makes wraps, salads and hearty soups that she takes in a food flask, and a flask of coffee and a large bottle of water. She's saved a fortune!

But you had soup and a coffee! (And the flapjack but the other two are substantial on a normal day!)

I'd want the soup to be quite a big portion and for it to be chunky and preferably having plenty of both veg and chicken or beans etc. if it was just like the thin soup you get like covent garden ones then it should only be about £3. Everything is too expensive now. The greasy spoon I use charges £12 for a cappuccino and four items of cooked breakfast. And that's cheap for my area. A posh cafe would charge £20 for that.

It seems like a lot of money to me. Good Luck to you OP if you fancied a change from bringing your own, why shouldn't you?
I very very rarely eat out any more. Anything.

I paid 11.50 for two very small cups of black coffee and a teacake recently, at a small independent cafe. (I rarely eat out, this was a meet up with friends)

I had a regular cappuccino, a cheese and chutney sandwich which came in a very cheap quality, small, white breadbun, and a small piece of caramel shortbread- £12.85 to take away. Would have been more to sit inside. It's ridiculous- I won't go back.
I can get a cheese and tomato toastie and a decent size cappuccino for £5.10 at my usual cafe and sit inside- which was closed today.