Finding it increasingly difficult to justify eating out at pubs etc

[JupiterJa]

This is something I’ve always enjoyed doing, but I just find the financial outlay to be hard to justify now. A fairly average meal is now usually between £17-£20 (say a burger, or fish and chips) with a pint or glass of wine usually over £6. I just don’t feel the experience warrants the outlay now, especially midweek, so these trips are becoming rarer and rarer.

Not so long ago £15 would comfortably cover everything and I felt that was good value.

Does anyone else find themselves making less frequent visits now?

I agree. I'm not a vegetarian but I look at the vegetarian options and wonder how they have the nerve to charge so much for a slice of cauliflower or a few mushrooms. I buy only one piece of meat or chicken a week because meat is so expensive now. I eat loads of vegetables - I love them and they're cheap.

We eat out at least once a week, but I agree it’s become really expensive.

We went to a pub on Monday for lunch, nothing special, and the bill for 2 was £80.

This thread makes me very sad. I worked in hospitality management from the early 90’s right up until 2017 when I career changed into teaching. Keeping afloat was never easy, and profit margins were minuscule. Then came Brexit and Covid, and the Ukraine war. It must be a living nightmare now to be running a pub or restaurant.

Food in general is so much dearer - my average supermarket shop is about 2x what it used to be a decade ago. A small fillet of salmon is over £2 per head. A decent steak around £5. When you add overheads, it’s no wonder restaurant prices are so high.

I really love eating out, but I agree it’s now a rare treat/luxury for birthdays or special events. I only choose decent venues, avoid “pub grub”. A bowl of pasta is £15, something more “extravagant” for a main is more like £20. A bottle of basic wine can be almost £20. We took a short break in mid Wales at Easter, the local gastro pub charged well over £30 for a steak, and desserts were £11 each.

Yes it is crazy now. We eat our regularly, but have been discussing how shocked we are at the rising costs for a while now.

We’ve cut out alcohol and soft drinks and the adults skip starters/dessert. This reduces the bill by £30-40 easily. What triggered this was when we were noticing some places were charging over £4 for a soft drink, when beer was sometimes less than a pound more. We very quickly got used to not drinking alcohol and then that meant we could drive everywhere and try new places.

It feels liberating and everywhere we go now it’s tapwater! Feel healthier too LOL!

we didn’t do it in one go, it started with not buying soft drinks, which initially saved £15-£20. Then I decided to cut down on alcohol and my partner followed. Then we started noticing starters and deserts were close to £10, so we cut those out too. We don’t feel like we are missing out and we are eating a few calories and feeling better for it.

Totally agree, we went to a local cafe last week for breakfast and it was £32 for two scrambled eggs on toast, a latte and orange juice. We also used to love going to our local pub but that is a rarity now. The kids have outgrown kids meals and last time we went it was over £100 without starters and deserts. We tend to just call in for a drink now but even that is £16 for two cokes, small wine and bottle of beer.

We eat out at least once a week but we don’t live together so it’s a bit more like dating

We’re quite lucky in that we live in a seaside town with a number of good independent restaurants and cafes

It, certainly, isn’t always cheap but we’ve found more and more places are doing lunch deals. Last Saturday eight of us were out at our local Thai which is extremely good. We all had two courses of high quality food plus drinks

£22 a head including service. Very good value in our opinion

Totally agree about takeaways . I ordered Chinese the other month , sweet n sour chicken and rice used to be around £8 but this time just the chicken was £8 and far more veg far less chicken .
Fish n chips is now £12.80.
Went to our local garden centre and a slither of Victoria sponge wax £7.95. I’m just not going to pay it.

It’s the poor quality and choice for me. We have totally stopped getting takeaways because they are all crap now.
My BIL/SIL still eat out a lot. But that’s because they have zero interest in cooking and they don’t really care what the food is like, they just want to go out all the time.

We definitely eat out a lot less than we used to. We have also noticed that prices have massively increased but quality is lower in a lot of places.

There is an Italian place near us (not chain) and the starters in there are around £10-13 now!
I saw a menu for another local pub the other day, charging £7.50 for desserts - things like apple crumble, cheesecake etc.

DS is 11 but extremely tall for his age, with hollow legs, so he is on adult meals now which adds to the cost.

So, we mainly cook at home now.

Totally agree. Single parent to two teens so you're talking £50 just for a quick meal out.

And the service is non existent, most you have to use an app on your phone - then they ask for a service charge! And it's busy and loud and seats are rammed together and everyone is on phones or kids on iPads. It's just not fun anymore.

Most recently, the meals were all ready at different times but they just bring them out when they're done so no one even ate together.

I think you can still get nice meals if you go to smaller independent restaurants. There’s a great one near us that’s BYOB (and they don’t charge corkage!) which really keeps the coat down, the food is tasty and plentiful, and they offer to bag up your leftovers to take home.

I also recently had a delicious brunch at a small independent cafe that was unsurprisingly packed out. It wasn’t cheap but I was only paying for myself as a treat with friends.

Pub meals I have been quite disappointed with recently. Vegetarian options are now always vegan and bland. For example I had a roast dinner with supposedly ‘stuffed butternut squash’ which was some slices of roasted undercooked squash with some stuffing balls on the side, not the same thing.

I don’t mind paying to eat out if it’s home-cooked, and as good or nicer than I would make at home, but if it’s just reheated catering ready meals I am not interested. Maybe people are getting better at home cooking now?

I also don’t believe all the online reviews!

Agreed, I love eating out and don't really have to watch what I'm spending but even I've flinched a bit at some of the bills I've been presented with recently.

It was my son's 18th inApril and five of us went to Hawksmoor, we certainly weren't depriving ourselves, a cocktail each, shared a dozen oysters, starters, two bottles of decent wine (mid-list about £50 each), mains with a few sides, pudding and pudding wine, coffee and a liquer.

And the bill was...

£978.

I did raise my eyebrows a little.

I'm so glad you've posted this because I feel exactly the same.
We have a lovely village pub opposite us that wd just can't afford to eat in.
Ditto any pub at all.
Family of 4, both DC are too old now for the little 'kids menus' as their appetites need adult sized meals. So 4 adult meals, and I'm talking basic stuff - pasta dish for DD who is vegetarian, simple burger & chips for DS, and 2 simple mains for DH and me (sausage & mash), drinks for the 4 of us (1 pint of beer, the rest were soft drinks) and 2 desserts for the kids (simple kids ice cream) came in at £150 last time we went and I nearly fell off my chair.
That was a year ago and we haven't been back since.
Went to stay with family a few months ago and we went out for pub meal at their suggestion. It was a very basic pub in a very non descript area serving very standard food. Yet we paid similar prices to the experience at our pub last year.
I really miss eating out as it's something we used to really enjoy as a family. DC often say "Can we go for dinner at the pub like we did last year?" and I have to give a straightforward No.
There's no way we can afford to do it.
A basic pub meal has become a luxury.

Another ‘ trend ‘ I’ve noticed is celebrating friends birthdays has gone from a meal out to brunch out .

My parents live in Spain and we do all our eating out when on our visits there. Their small town has numerous fab restaurants which tasty fresh produce, for half the price we’d pay for worse quality at home. When my parents visit us they’re shocked at the prices and shit quality when eating out.

I promised my 3 youngest kids pizza hut this weekend just gone while their dad and big brother were at motorcycle racing - looked on my app for menu prices and said hey kids lets get a takeaway and use the difference to go to the cinema. £30 for a pizza eating in whereas i got 3 large pizzas, chips and onion rings for £30 takeaway.

The price of everything has increased that's needed to deliver a meal out, everyone knows this, because everyone is paying more for their supermarket shop, their gas and electric, for life really, but there seems to be a mental block when it comes to hospitality and the fact that they're not magically immune to paying more for those things too, meaning that the price to the customer rises. When it comes to paying more for the same in hospitality, suddenly it's being ripped off and extortionate and resentment.

A really popular and always busy place in the town I work in has just announced it's closing, which is the 3rd or 4th this spring/summer alone. A lot of other places just didn't reopen after the winter period. And this is a town where on a sunny day you can't get a parking spot for love nor money, there's loads of foot traffic, people are lamenting the loss, and the owners have commented saying they can't even break even on what they need to pay out to keep the place going unless prices rise more, which people aren't willing or able to pay, and clearly resent paying, even though that's what it costs.

I've no doubt there's some who are profiteering, someone certainly is somewhere in the chain of supply. As an example we're paying 3x more for the oil we use to cook with than we were pre covid, we're not getting more oil for that increased price. So we either put up the prices to cover it or lower the quality of the oil we use to keep the price lower. People complain at both. They want the highest quality but they don't want the price tag that goes with it.

And that's just one element of many that would go into a dish and all elements have increased. Not passing that increase on to the person actually ordering and eating that food is a really quick way to go bust, but people resent that cost being passed on - why do they feel like someone else should be subsidising that increase?

I get not having the disposable income to eat out, I'm one of those people, I can't afford to even use the most modest of hospitality places.

I think it's the resentment that finishes off places tbh, I said on another thread that it's like people hate hospitality venues, they want to use them but they're not willing to pay what it costs to do so.
The staff are doing more work, the owners barely break even to keep prices as low as they can and then you're faced with the resentment and accusations of ripping people off, be enough to convince most people that it's not worth the hassle being in the industry.

It's no wonder we're ending up with chain places that serve microwave meals, the whole industry and the skills within it have been devalued, there's not an endless supply of people willing to work long hours for little pay or reward and then be resented for it as well.

I find this interesting as I am actually eating out now more than I have ever done. Possibly once a month if you include holidays

when the kids at home finances meant never eating out. I couldn’t bear ro waste money on food that I could cook better myself. This is still true but I am surrounded by people who feel a meal out is a treat so I can now afford to go with the flow sometimes

I’ve been thinking this too. Medium glass of house wine at our local (north London) is now over £8, burger £18, fish & chips £18, a meal such as shepherds pie £19 and steak £27. Even a measly bowl of chips is £6! It’s just getting to be way too much. I am so sad though, as it used to be something affordable and fun, and now I see our local almost empty most of the time, when it used to be heaving. I worry that it will shut down, which would be a terrible shame and loss for the community

I agree to a large extent. However even if people can afford it, they’re not going to spend money on something that doesn’t represent value to them. I know it’s not the fault of the pubs and restaurants that their prices have increased so dramatically. I feel a lot of empathy for them. But I’m not going to pay a large amount of money for something which has seen a big decline in quality, even if I can afford it. It just makes more sense to buy better quality ingredients and cook at home.

We barely eat out now, just for special occasions or on holiday.

We both HATE cooking so eating out regardless of quality is always preferable 😂

Agree. I understand the math behind prices, but if I am spending a large chunk of my disposable income on something it has to be worth it.

Ohh the ice cream van stops outside our school.
I taught my son age 7 the price difference, between ice cream van (£3.50 for a standard cone cheapest option) and buying a whole box of the non brand cornettos from sainsburys or liddle. That you can get a pack of 4 from the supermarket for the same price as one from the van.
Now every rime we walk past the ice cream van he shouts 'rip off' which I have to tell him not to shout it😂 but I am pleased he has realised the difference and no longer asks for the ones from the van 😂

It seems we are with the majority here in no longer being willing to pay for indifferent food that we could buy cheaper and cook better ourselves, unless we're travelling or on holiday. And even last week, in Scotland, the three best meals we ate were cooked in our chalet with a very basic kitchen.

So unless it's our not-quite-local-enough Michelin rated gastro pub or our favourite sushi place, we don't waste the money.