Anonymous wrote:Bidenflation. There will be huge layoffs. McDonald’s will be the only thing left. I really feel bad for restaurants where people work really hard and then on top of it the financial squeeze they are under. It must be a living hell for managers and owners for most restaurants.

Please go back and retake high school government class, as you were clearly socially promoted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:*are getting more empty

But, are they really?

Yes, they are, really.

Anonymous wrote:We’ve cut down on eating out AND in. My husband and I regularly skip lunch bc of cost (with a very healthy six figure HHI). Breakfast at our local coffee shop yesterday was over $60. I just can’t.

Grocery shopping tomorrow and aggressively pursuing nearly zero meals out. More work for us (me) but these prices are disgusting - and usually the service sucks and the food is meh. So wtf.

You’re doing something wrong if you cannot afford to make yourself a sandwich for lunch on a “very healthy six figure HHI”.

We cut back on eating out and then in December ended up getting together with a lot of friends at different restaurants. It just confirmed to me that I will continue to eat out at a handful of favorites and skip everything else. I will say that most places had great service, but the food at most of them wasn’t very good and definitely not worth the money.
I have favorite Chinese, Thai, ramen, pizza, and kabob places in my town that have been consistently good and despite the increased prices are worth the money to me, just not as often as before.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WSJ touched on this theme in an article yesterday about how people are shifting to eating mainly appetizers when they eat out to save on costs and now restaurants are changing their menus. Buried in the article was that average spend per check has declined at about half the restaurants and profits have also declined.

While places may seem packed, there's clearly more to it than meets the eye.

Could you share a gift link, please?

I read this article the other day. While I suppose people are looking to save money, I have a different perspective: my DH and I share apps mostly because food portions are so enormous, and we are in our 50s and don’t need to eat like that. We will often sit at the bar, order drinks, and share shrimp cocktail and a salad. A regular salad is waaay too much food, and I do’t like to save dressed salads for another day.

When we lived in Europe, they used to serve what I thought of as “right sized” meals (i.e., a 5 oz steak, 1/2 cup rice, small salad, and a 1/4 cup dessert). No restaurant in America is going to do that because Americans, with the ‘Costco buy-in-bulk to get more for your money mentality’ would never spend their money like that.

Europe is a continent not a country (just an FYI so you know) and eating customs differ from country to country. This was NOT my experience when we were stationed in Italy. The serving sizes were absurd. Same in Germany.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get takeout more often than I’d like because cooking feel’s unmanageable after a long day.

But at the end of the meal I often feel like the food was meh and not worth it.

We do plenty of easy meals like ramen with tofu. Any other quick or frozen ideas that aren’t pizza?

Salmon, rice, veg. Dinner in 30 minutes.
Chicken thighs and veg on a sheet pan. Dinner in 40 minutes.
Steak, steak fries, salad. Dinner in 30 minutes.

There is literally no excuse for not cooking. It's always faster, cheaper, healthier, hotter, and tastier.

Reasons to eat in a restaurant
- enjoy the atmosphere and service
- eat foods that are too technical, too much labor, difficult to procure the proper ingredients for, require cooking apparatus that I don’t have, involves prepping several days beforehand, etc. Off the top of my head, this includes dim sum, sushi, bbq, paratha, dosas, dishes that require wok stations, professional pastries, wood fired items, coal fired items, true neopolitan pizza, ramen with broth that requires 12h of boiling pork bones, homemade tofu, etc
- the opportunity to try new foods and cuisines that I would never attempt at home. I would never eaten tayoyaki, or dal makhani, or doner kebab if not for restaurants.
- enjoy the occasion of eating out and conversing without distractions

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get takeout more often than I’d like because cooking feel’s unmanageable after a long day.

But at the end of the meal I often feel like the food was meh and not worth it.

We do plenty of easy meals like ramen with tofu. Any other quick or frozen ideas that aren’t pizza?

Salmon, rice, veg. Dinner in 30 minutes.
Chicken thighs and veg on a sheet pan. Dinner in 40 minutes.
Steak, steak fries, salad. Dinner in 30 minutes.

There is literally no excuse for not cooking. It's always faster, cheaper, healthier, hotter, and tastier.

Sometimes I do not want to spend 30 or 40 minutes cooking, or planning and shopping. Plus it’s not usually tastier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is Gordons? What is a food service store? Is this open to the public or restaurant supplier?

+1

NP here. Have you ever seen a Sysco truck behind a restaurant. Seems like it’s a large food supplier. I assume the same for Gordon’s
I think what pp was is that so many restaurants are serving prepped stuff. Reheat and done.

Why eat out if we can reheat groceries at home?

Yep. They are both restaurant food providers. Gordon’s is open to public, Sysco is not. Both are full of factory made food that majority of restaurants heavily utilize- for both ingredients and tons of pre-made stuff they just heat up and embellish

How can we tell if a restaurant just heats up pre-made stuff versus cooking it in house? Especially at these current prices, I don’t want to visit any restaurant that does that. I can just go to chipotle which makes its own food and is cheaper than sit-down restaurants.

Very high end or an independently operated place that takes pride in/emphasizes the freshness of their food in their marketing.

And small menu. Restaurants with many items across several categories are using tons of pre-made components

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Restaurants also charge 2.8%-3% of ‘admin fees’ for credit card payments here in the south. I think this is new? Hopefully we won’t see this for a while back on DC metro.

Visa and MasterCard charge every business 3% on their transactions, so in these cases it’s being passed on to the consumer. Amex charges even more - 5% (or more).

its illegal to pass this on to the customer its part of the credit card agreement. 3% is minimal when considering the accounting savings

How do you report restaurants passing on the charge to customers?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is Gordons? What is a food service store? Is this open to the public or restaurant supplier?

+1

NP here. Have you ever seen a Sysco truck behind a restaurant. Seems like it’s a large food supplier. I assume the same for Gordon’s
I think what pp was is that so many restaurants are serving prepped stuff. Reheat and done.

Why eat out if we can reheat groceries at home?

Yep. They are both restaurant food providers. Gordon’s is open to public, Sysco is not. Both are full of factory made food that majority of restaurants heavily utilize- for both ingredients and tons of pre-made stuff they just heat up and embellish

How can we tell if a restaurant just heats up pre-made stuff versus cooking it in house? Especially at these current prices, I don’t want to visit any restaurant that does that. I can just go to chipotle which makes its own food and is cheaper than sit-down restaurants.

Very high end or an independently operated place that takes pride in/emphasizes the freshness of their food in their marketing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is Gordons? What is a food service store? Is this open to the public or restaurant supplier?

+1

NP here. Have you ever seen a Sysco truck behind a restaurant. Seems like it’s a large food supplier. I assume the same for Gordon’s
I think what pp was is that so many restaurants are serving prepped stuff. Reheat and done.

Why eat out if we can reheat groceries at home?

Yep. They are both restaurant food providers. Gordon’s is open to public, Sysco is not. Both are full of factory made food that majority of restaurants heavily utilize- for both ingredients and tons of pre-made stuff they just heat up and embellish

How can we tell if a restaurant just heats up pre-made stuff versus cooking it in house? Especially at these current prices, I don’t want to visit any restaurant that does that. I can just go to chipotle which makes its own food and is cheaper than sit-down restaurants.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Restaurants also charge 2.8%-3% of ‘admin fees’ for credit card payments here in the south. I think this is new? Hopefully we won’t see this for a while back on DC metro.

Visa and MasterCard charge every business 3% on their transactions, so in these cases it’s being passed on to the consumer. Amex charges even more - 5% (or more).

its illegal to pass this on to the customer its part of the credit card agreement. 3% is minimal when considering the accounting savings

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is Gordons? What is a food service store? Is this open to the public or restaurant supplier?

+1

NP here. Have you ever seen a Sysco truck behind a restaurant. Seems like it’s a large food supplier. I assume the same for Gordon’s
I think what pp was is that so many restaurants are serving prepped stuff. Reheat and done.

Why eat out if we can reheat groceries at home?

Yep. They are both restaurant food providers. Gordon’s is open to public, Sysco is not. Both are full of factory made food that majority of restaurants heavily utilize- for both ingredients and tons of pre-made stuff they just heat up and embellish

Anonymous wrote:Restaurants also charge 2.8%-3% of ‘admin fees’ for credit card payments here in the south. I think this is new? Hopefully we won’t see this for a while back on DC metro.

Visa and MasterCard charge every business 3% on their transactions, so in these cases it’s being passed on to the consumer. Amex charges even more - 5% (or more).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it’s a generational thing. Among my younger neighbors and coworkers, no one cooks. Eating at home just means ordering Uber eats. Every meal, including coffee for breakfast.

And yet then they complain that they can’t afford to live on whatever wage they’re making.

And they want free college/loans forgiven plus free healthcare- so all they have to pay for is their own takeout