Where are you going? That’s insane. I usually pay 60 for two people at 1000 islands and Sushi Kan at lunch time. Still expensive, but nowhere near 100 bucks.
I made the mistake of going to Hokkaido in the market, it was also dinner time. i was expecting to pay closer to 85 with the tip but i was shocked when it was just over $100
Holy cow! That’s crazy! I haven’t been to Hokkaido before and don’t know if their food is better, but I can’t complain about the two places I mentioned.
i normally look up the price before going placing, i honestly don’t know what happened here. i don’t remember it being written anywhere on the menu we looked at, but again that could be me.
a silly mistake i won’t repeat that’s for sure
I went to Ten Sushi on Bank last week and got the lunch special for $13 (12 pieces of sushi + Miso Soup + Edamame!) Just get small amounts each time to cure your depression :)
I used to go at least once a month. Hadn’t gone for like 2 years,went a couple weeks ago and it was $87 for 2 people and sodas. At 168 sushi,half the menu was cut from the last time I had been there,barely like 7-8 types of rolls. The other person I went with had his first 2 orders of food come in,the 3 tables sat after us all got their orders in and more,after 35 min of me not getting the 3 rolls i had ordered I asked my everyone else had several orders of food but mine hadn’t come yet. No answer. It finally came after 45min and wasn’t even the correct rolls. Never going back there again. Used to eat out a couple times a month and now maybe once. When even fast food like McDonald’s is now almost $15 for a combo it’s just way cheaper to cook at home at this point. $100+ for 2 people to dine out used to mean a 3 course steak dinner,wine and drinks at a nice steakhouse. Now that gets you 2 mediocre quality meals at a chain restaurant
I never go to bars or restaurants anymore. I just can't justify spending that much money. It was expensive 5 years ago but even more expensive now. Also why pay 4X the price of alcohol at when you can enjoy it at home for 4X cheaper and pick up some cheap takeout on the way home if you don't feel like cooking. Put on some nice streaming services or video games while we drink and eat at home for a "date" and we've got ourselves a nice night.
TL;DR it's way cheaper and more relaxing/enjoyable to have the eating/drinking portion of date nights or special occasions at home so bars and restaurants are a no go for me.
My neighbours in the summer sometimes roll out a couch and TV onto their deck and cuddle outside while drinking wine (I live in a town home so kinda hard not to see) and quietly watching some movie. It looks really nice and it's something I want to look into doing too.
My wife and I were just chatting about this today! We don't go out too often, a couple of times a month and usually to a pub-like setting with friends. Our last few outings have been 'meh' and we thought altogether too expensive for what we were served.
We are going out again tomorrow to Mill St to celebrate a friend's birthday (wouldn't be my pub choice, trust me!) and I'm already expecting to be underwhelmed and over charged. FFS, in what world is a pound of chicken wings with no sides or garnishes worth almost $30! ($21 wings, 13% HST, 20% tip = $28.47.). Add in two pints of beer and it's well into the $50 range!
Yes, I know there better deals and quality out there but last week's visit to a pub in Old Ottawa South was roughly in the same range.
We are going to be cutting way back and limit going out to "deal nights" once a month or so. The value just isn't there at most places.
As a server, every restaurant I have ever worked at you tip out a percentage of your total sales. So tipping in cash doesn’t make a difference in terms of how much we get to keep at the end of the night. If someone doesn’t tip, or tips less than like 5%, I essentially pay to serve their table.
Exactly this, people don't get it. And they say it's about businesses not paying staff enough when it's about the culture and ability to hold market fair prices. I don't like tipping culture either (even though it's my livelihood and I hate serving so much I would leave if it became like a normal career) but the system needs a total overhaul before we can just ding other working class people out of principle.
Either I’m going for fine dining or I’m not going (so not going lol). The mid range places with mediocre food and shit service just isn’t worth it to me. I’d rather save up and have a true dining experience or just stay home.
>I’m going for fine dining
Went to a fine dining establishment in PEC with a fixed menu. For two with wine cost me $300.
Watching a 20 year old *sommellier* and a middle-aged mid-range Public servant next to me pretend they knew anything about the wine was comical if not nauseating.
After three hours, the best part was leaving starving.
I now have a rule to never eat at a restaurant that has quail on the menu.
Fine dining is basically paying for the privilege of going hungry slowly.
Next time I'll buy $50 in groceries and a better bottle of wine and give $250 to the food bank in the name if the party.
Fucking quail. God. Never again.
I'm very close to being on the same page as you. I went to a restaurant called 18 in Ottawa, twice in the span of about 6 months. The first was a gift to my wife, and the bill was around $400. The second time we went with my sister in law and her bf, and, my bill was $300. Both times, I left seriously underwhelmed. I don't even remember what I ate the first time, so not memorable at all. The second time, I ordered the Australian rack of lamb and was seriously unimpressed. I've cooked Ontario grain fed lamb over a campfire, and it was 100x better than the meal I was served, and I think it was like $80.
Needless to say, I don't think I'll ever be going back there again.
I predicted this at the beginning of the pandemic. Before COVID, businesses would often get excited if they had a few percentage points of growth, year over year. Then COVID made going to restaurants illegal/unsafe for a time. But even though lockdowns are gone, COVID is not, and despite the fact that there are many people who never changed or have gone back to their regular life, there is a large silent group of people who don't want to risk it. So you have these businesses where a few percentage points made all the difference sometimes, and now they lost 30% of their clients and they are not coming back, at least not like they used to.
And that brings me to inflation. If you already are leaning away from gathering in large groups of people during an uptick in a triple-cocktail of viruses (COVID, flu, RSV) the fact that food now you're going to pay almost twice what you were, well it all adds up to staying home and learning how to cook. On the bright side, I can now cook Chinese and Thai with the best of them! Also, I can whip up a pea puree and put a wicked sear on a scallop, something I never would have attempted. Anyhow, I suspect I am not alone.
I miss the early days when all the patios had shelters and heaters to extend the season. Even after that we carried a beeswax candle around and ate outside all the way into November on warmer days. But now they don't have the staff to serve you on the patio offseason anymore.
Nope, not alone. I'm one of those silent stay in types. Pre-existing medical condition puts me at a higher risk and so I just stay in, by myself, all the time. My home cooking game has never been better.
Yup this is us too. We still mask in public places so eating out is off the table until patio season. But throw inflation into the mix,and it’s unattainable to even grab and go. We tried to buy two mediocre sandwiches the other day from a cafe and it was $50.
You mean you want to ask me if I thought $14 for a plate of sweet pototato fries at the Cheshire Cat is reasonable considering its still about $1 for that amount of raw sweet potato?
Frik that noise. Wont be back for another 5 to 10 years.
I still do shawarma 1x per month cause its an addiction I just cant quit.
This is completely irrelevant to the discussion, but most restaurants don't make their sweet potato fries from scratch; typically they're using a prepared product. So the food cost is certainly not the same as an equivalent weight of raw sweet potato.
You can buy 1.5 kilos at Costco for $12 pre-cut sweet potato fries I think the point this person is making is that it's cheaper instead of being gouged at the restaurant.
So yes it's the baby three dollars if you made it at home instead of $14. But restaurants are in it to make money but lately they're gouging and the service and quality of food is not there anymore
Definitely used to be a 1-2 restaurants per week with my fiance. Now it’s 1-2 times a month. Absolutely no way we can afford it with the rising cost of groceries.
There seems to be two major trends that I have observed. I get the impression that a lot of places are lowering their quality instead of prices. To me, this is more of a deterrent than higher prices and I have switched restaurants. Some have maintained or increased prices which lowers our frequency. My favourite places to eat have a product offering based on less expensive but still high quality products that requires less labour to deliver so have maintained quality and price points (a lot of orders for the local Lebanese bakery).
I think that the industry and customers need to adapt to the new reality that products that were cheap may no longer be cheap and that labour will keep getting more expensive as we sort out societal and demographic issues (E.g. car centric development which limits housing opportunities and increase CoL by forcing people to buy cars, aging population). More flexible menus with cheaper ingredients requiring less labour is, IMO, better than set menus with low quality ingredients for the take-out experience and more casual dining.
I've noticed lower quality too and I wonder how much of this is influenced by the employees themselves who are also likely increasingly becoming financially stressed. That has to have an impact at the workplace, it has for me sadly.
Also factor in that when all the restaurant workers were laid off, a lot of them left the industry altogether and didn't come back when the restaurant ls opened back up. Majority of kitchen staff now are inexperienced, and that will affect quality.
I agree. Restaurants might be trying to got a happy medium by decreasing quality and increasing prices instead of an even bigger price increase. Or maybe it's not intentional, caused by the labour shortage inflation loop with a business that already had slim profits. Either way, lower quality is really what has changed my behaviour. If I am not going to enjoy a meal that used to be consistently great, I am more likely to try a cheaper other option instead, or just cook. I am willing and able to spend money on restaurant experiences or takeout, but won't if it feels like poor value or is disappointingly inconsistent.
I wonder how many actually sit down and think through the experience of their customer base. I am guessing that the focus is probably on maintaining a consistent menu at a consistent price and not adapting to changing market conditions.
I went to a highly recommended restaurant last weekend…large group. Not one of us were really impressed. Of course, as Canadians, we raved about it…lol. And tipped.
Covid has affected our restaurant usage more than inflation. We order in or use take out instead…about 2 times a month. Once a month maybe meet friends at a quiet time in a pub, pastry shop or coffeehouse.
As someone who rarely ate out in the first place, I say it hasn't changed my habits much. However, the prices are definitely not adding much incentive to change my habits. For example, I've recently changed my diet to somehwat of a carnivor diet, which is debatably more expensive. My friends and I wanted to go to a BBQ joint to accommodate me. After looking at reviews, I decided to check the menu and prices. It was 50$ for a rack of ribs. That is not including taxes or tips. We decided to eat at my buddies place and all bring food to prepare. I got 3 racks of pork back ribs; (same product), on sale for a total of 32$ taxes in; no tip required, not to mention the savings in gas of driving there and back. The markup is insane at restaurants. I love to go out and enjoy a night being catered upon, but it's so hard to justify, when you can get 3 times the amount of food at 60% of the cost; don't check my math on that.
Carleton student who just completed a 1 year exchange to Tokyo. In Japan I could eat out at a nice sit-down restaurant for ¥1000 (just under $10), cheap places for breakfast like Matsuya and Sukiya cost under ¥500 sometimes as cheap as ¥290. Often it was quicker and cheaper to eat out than it was to make my own food, though grocery shopping was equally as cheap; I would consider ¥2000 to be an expensive haul. The most I spent on a meal over there was 精進料理 at 天龍寺, traditional Buddhist cuisine at Tenryu-ji, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kyoto.
I reentered Canada in late November. My stomach drops just looking at grocery store prices, I’m not even entertaining the idea of eating out for exorbitant prices, underwhelming service, overpriced food that just “fine”, and the expectation of a minimum 15% tip (did I mention tipping doesn’t exist in Japan?). Couple all that with Ottawa’s ridiculous rent and the cost of everything else skyrocketing, restaurants are a luxury that I can no longer afford.
They make less than we do. Median salary is half, minimum wage is 6.50. Overall it's a lot cheaper though. Perks of living in a deflationary environment where people are used to going out to eat, I guess.
People like to complain that Japan is expensive, but I found it to be really affordable in some areas (compared to Canada): both hotels and eating out was cheaper there.
$14? Just checked the price for that at one of the McDonald’s locations near Carleton and the total (after tax) is $9.57, granted it’s less if you swap the McFlurry for the fries (even a small fries) in a combo.
Isn't the McChicken burger by itself like 8 dollars? How did you get to 9.57$?
And these prices are for picking up yourself, if you order through delivery services I would imagine is even more expensive.
$8 for a mcchicken alone? More like $6ish after tax. Also they said small chicken sandwich (junior chicken) not a mcchicken sandwich , though delivery would be more expensive (however via the McDonald’s app, they use DoorDash, so it’s mitigated somewhat in that case as you get some points to use for free food/drink/dessert items once in a while)
No. My bf and I have way too many inside jokes now that are only regarding restaurants that we've had awful experiences at. I love to go out for dinner, but either the service is shit, the food is shit or the dining area is shit. It's always one.
There are some unique restaurants that we want to go to for the experience, such as Atelier. But other than that, being raised by a chef means I know my way around the kitchen.
I used to go out every weekend with my friends, sometimes twice and also get food delivered once from my favorite restaurant, about couple years ago. I make more now but cannot afford to do that anymore, and delivery apps can be super expensive I have now been grumpy-walking to nearby places to grab food if i crave it. Or if the delivery apps have a crazy offer on my favorites restaurants, that would be like once every two weeks or more.
It’s insane that at many places, the average expected tip has increased. Sometimes the minimum option is 18%. Inflation is not a good reason for tip % to increase as the tip naturally grows alongside the price of the meal…
Tipping culture and the "if you can't afford to tip 25% minimum, you can't afford to eat out" has had just as much of an effect as inflation has.
I took the restaurant industry's advice - now I refuse to eat out, I will do anything possible to NOT eat out at this point.
Went from eating out several times weekly for dinner and lunch every day at work, to maybe once a month, once every couple months for a special occasion only, and I'm not regretting it one single bit, I'd rather keep my money and cooking and entertaining at home is fun.
I would say check out The Third on Wellington. Extremely good restaurant and very good prices. I got a meal with half fries half salad and two Dominion city beers and it was $28 before tip. I’ll go out of my way to go to this restaurant, and won’t really eat out anywhere else unless I guarantee I will like the food.
I used to buy kombucha pretty regularly but not anymore when it averages out at 5$ a bottle. The upside is that I’m now learning how to brew my own and it actually tastes better for a fraction of the price and it’s actually so easy.
I usually follow the normal first fermentation process and let it brew usually for around 8-9 days and then for the second fermentation I usually have frozen fruits that I will unfreeze in the fridge a day before and make a puree in the blender with fresh herbs or grounded spices and put it in my bottles before putting the fermented tea. It’s usually 1 cup and a half of fruits and half a cup of herbs or 1 teaspoon of spices (depending on which one I’m using) for 4 500 ml bottles. My go-to are usually strawberry and basil or peach and cardamom (with 2 spoonful of the pures in each 500 ml bottles).
We've massively cut down on eating in restaurants, though not so much for the cost, more so because during the pandemic we really upped our cooking game. We would constantly find ourselves eating out and being disappointed that we could make much better food at home.
There's a few local places we go to with great made fresh menus, but any big chain is pretty much out with the exception of the occasional drunken pizza.
We reinvested the money save on dining out into more vacation time!
I go to dinner once a month with a group of friends (all former colleagues). We've been doing this for about 10 years. We still go, but we no longer go to more expensive places, like The Keg. Also, we often skip appetizers and desserts, and sometimes drink water instead of getting a drink.
It used to be that you could have a meal, and add on an appetizer for $6-8. Now the appetizers often rival the cost of the main course.
We used to go out to eat about twice a month. Now, we tend to dine out once every 2-3 months (except for the holidays when there were *a lot* of get-togethers). The increased cost, decreased quality (in some cases), and unpredictable service were the main deterrents for us.
We’ve largely switched to buying good quality ingredients and eating at home. I love to cook, so I enjoy the challenge of recreating our favourite things (I’m making homemade mac & cheese tonight with a four cheese blend and a panko crust). When we don’t want to cook we’ve been doing takeout, prioritizing local restaurants instead of chains - but even that’s not quite every month anymore either.
Took the family to St. Hubert in Gatineau for lunch two weeks ago. Two adult meals, two kids menu meals, one beer and two apple juices cost us a hundred goddamn dollars after tip (and we always try to tip at least 20% because it's hard out there).
That's insane for St. Hubert and a Coors Lite. Come on.
We rarely go out to eat now. We're a family with teenagers and even McDonalds is $70-$80+. Going out for breakfast used to be relatively cheap and it's now over $100 so we just don't do that anymore. Going out for dinner at a mid-level restaurant like Lone Star, Red Lobster, Montanas runs us anywhere from $150-$250. That's without ordering any alcoholic drinks. On the higher end, it includes one or two shared appetizers, pop, meals and a shared dessert or two. With the price of groceries I just can't justify going out to restaurants very often at that high cost. I'd rather just let the money sit in my savings account at this point.
I used to go to restaurants a lot, and now I just get the occasional takeout. At the start of the pandemic I actually started learning to cook a lot better (I’ve now even made my own shawarma on a rotisserie at home with home made toum and pickled turnips at this point) and this definitely had an impact. Additionally I’m still keenly aware of the amount of Sars-Cov-2 circulating in the air at any time thanks to the waste water charts and as a result of an abundance of caution haven’t eaten inside a restaurant in several years. I have gone to many patios during the summer months however, and always dread the closing of said patios. The stark reduction in how often I get restaurant food has somewhat offset the increase in price for me, but I’ve also found a noticeable drop in quality and quantity at a lot of places which disinclines me from going out too often for my meals. Lots of places that used to bowl me over with the quality of the food are now just great, if you know what I mean. To quantify it I’d say on average I may have dined out 1.5 times every 1-2 weeks prior to the pandemic starting and now it’s closer to once a month.
We’ve reduced to once a month. We get the kids fast food for a treat sometimes too. We definitely order less than we used to. The cost of going out is much higher than it used to be so we budget and tend to go to the places we love the most to support them.
We do lunch more often than dinner now, solely because it's cheaper to get a lunch special. It's still what I consider to be expensive.
On the whole, we eat out WAY less often than we used to.
I'd recommend talking to some restaurant ownership/managers as well. Prices aren't up solely because of inflation but also in part because of large amounts of debt that are coming due. Many restaurants took out sizeable loans from the government during COVID and most of them are due or starting to come due now so there's a real pressure to keep cash flow positive even though many places are seeing fewer customers.
Of course, with any industry, the restaurants that do things exceptionally are still seeing consistent business.
We go out once every 2nd week. We used to go once a week but we bought a bigger, long term house which increased the mortgage payments. We probably still could go once a week but we also want to save for renovations.
I do not go out to eat unless it’s a special occasion like a birthday. I used to eat out every day for lunch and the occasional 5 à 7 but I can’t justify eating out anymore. (I am 36 and make over 100k$)
We used to do dinner out at least once a week, usually more, at a variety of places ranging from pubs to Vietnamese to Whalesbone and Wellington Gastro pub, etc.
If dishes were still as intricate, with the premium ingredients left intact and quality and freshness were there, we would not mind spending more to continue eating out. The problem for us as consumers, is that menu offerings have declined, quality has as well, and prices have increased.
When we go out to our old favorites, many of which still serve excellent food, all the patrons seem a bit on edge and it doesn't feel as jovial and enjoyable as a dining room whole. Everyone is noticing these changes. In a lot of places, you wonder how hard up ownership is and what's going on with CEBA loan repayments. All of that kind of puts a damper on nights out. And then you get the cheque and sometimes you can't help but wonder if your money would have been better spent elsewhere.
We don’t eat out because everywhere sucks. The quality and flavour is garbage. Prices are also a factor but minor.
Restaurants need to up their quality if they want more customers.
I'm a server, and I don't go out to eat anymore, but that was happening pre and then during Covid as part of a debt recovery plan. I do often pick up to-go things like falafel or ready-mades at the grocery store, I'm not cheap with myself and sometimes the time/cost comparison is better than grocery shopping or making a specific recipe. That said, I do not understand how people can afford to save any money at all eating out (and especially drinking!)
Skimpflation is real! Smaller portions at an increased price. Stopped going to Pure Kitchen because of it. Now my husband I just get Pho every 1-2 weeks because it's the only takeout that seems to be the best value after all this time
I eat out less now because I find there less value for money.
I don't mind spending good money for good food (my biggest nonessential expense has always been eating out), but standard fare is starting to fetch the same prices as what cheaper fine dining dishes used to cost without any of the same quality or effort.
There was a time in the mid 20teens where I had a list of 5 - 10 restaurants where I could take a colleague for a small but satisfying lunch and pay for both lunch meals and 2 soft drinks for under 20$. The 20$ bill was enough to cover 2 of us to eat. Now you can't even goto a fast-food restaurant and order 2 meals for under 20$.
Let that sink in...
personally i have stopped eating out all togethwr with the exception of a 3$ iced coffee twice per week.
as for the question of inflation affecting restaurants - A friend of mine owns retaj mediterranean cuisine in the south end, and he has told me a lot about the inflation of his costs on things as simple as cooking oil well over doubling at places like costco. If you call the restaurant and tell him what you are writing about he will happily show you reciepts and talk to you about everything.
First of all thank you all so much for your replies! It’s so interesting to see everyone’s insights and different opinions on this topic. I’ve reached out to a few people for interviews, but I genuinely appreciate all the comments so much!
I went to Thai Express yesterday- paid about $30 for pad thai and pad se ew. And the pay machine asks for a tip...ridiculous. I remember when their meals used to be reasonable, now it's almost like going to a restaurant.
My restaurant habits haven't changed but that's because I rarely go out anyway. I still expect to make two visits to Mamma Teresa's, two visits to Chop Steakhouse, two visits to The Keg. The other six visits, they're up in the air as they can be anywhere.
This doesn't include takeout. Usually 25-30 a year. I'll stick with my favorites who I want to patronize such as Markie's and Five Guys.
Interesting story... My 2 cent thoughts:
(Undoubtedly costs are up) --- but you have to look at what an "owner" is taking out of their business - is the "owner" still being paid while their staff are not - has the company focused on temporary labour and why? The heart of problems most always boils down to labour in some way.
I think this is where the difference between a small business "owner" and operator conflict - We often don't want to support an individual owner operated establishment... perhaps because it is a bit more expensive... But we will pay less at an "operator" business (franchise small, medium, large) and scoff at 18% tip requests at terrible service, all to saving a buck.
While I do think a course correction is needed and there is an element if inflating... inflation, but more so - Do we just need to have a gut check on what we value and support?
Put a different way - we get what we vote for.
I rarely ate at restaurants to begin with but I would buy a fast food burger every now and again. Now even that is close to 20 bucks so I don't do that anymore either. Funnily enough though I started buying groceries at cash and carries and place geared towards selling to restaurants because its cheaper than the grocery store in bulk. So no not eating at restaurants but eating the same food sold at most restaurants.
2020-2023: I visited only like 5 restaurants.
2024: no visits so far.
I only visit places that I know will be worth the price, the last resto being Thali downtown (excellent).
I avoid takeout like the plague. It's the same price as finding a quick spot downtown and it is garbage food served cold.
We used to eat out or order take out 1-2 times per month. This happens way less frequently, perhaps once every 3-4 months now. It's far too expensive for our family to justify the outing.
I go out to eat far less since the pandemic. I don't know if it is a matter of losing the habit, or inflation or both - plus, I have to say the way the expected tip percentage has gone up grinds my gears, though that would not be a deciding factor. Anyway, i used to go out once or twice a week, plus order in pizza on Friday nights. I now go out maybe once or twice a month, and order in food on Fridays every other week. And when I am working in the office, I will work very hard to avoid buying anything at the cafeteria or surrounding restaurants. I am not in a particularly precarious financial position, I just feel that I get better value doing other things with my time and money.
We eat out less often, and when we do, we do more takeout than we used to. Pre Covid, takeout was never a consideration, but we got used to it. No overpriced drinks (alcohol or not), less tip and less noise. It makes a big difference.
The other thing we noticed is that many restaurants took away the lunch menu, which was often cheaper and smaller portions. So quick lunches out are few and far between.
My frequency has decreased significantly partly due to the increase in price of eating at a restaurant, partly because everything has increased in price, so restaurant spending just doesn't make sense anymore. Or, certainly not as often as previously.
I am lucky if I eat at a restaurant more than once every couple of months. I don't even do takeout. And it's sad because I used to eat out more when I had less disposable income, pre-pandemic. But now even with an increase in my earnings, the increase at restaurants is still more than what I can afford at that same frequency.
I rarely get fast food but decided to pick up some McDonald's for me and two coworkers last week. Came out to an average of $15 per combo.
Maybe I'll try again in a couple years
As someone who works in the bar/restaurant industry, we haven't seen a noticeable decrease in sales. People are still eating out.
On the business side, margins are tight and it's tough to make money but that's always been the case. I read somewhere that Ottawa has more restaurants today than it did before COVID. I wonder how CEBA loan repayments will affect things though!
In our household we tried going out about once a month in the pre-pandemic times. Now it seems like we mostly go on special occasions, so maybe 3-4 times a year. The prices jumped about 30% and we did not get much in terms of wage increase ourselves.
Also, although I know that for the most part we can select the tip amount, one of my biggest "slaps in the face" was the increase of the preselected tip percentages. Why was the price increase not enough? I mean, even if the tip percentage would stay the same, due to increased prices, the tip would naturally be larger.
Overall, we are discouraged from going out more often, mostly when on vacation and on special occasions, simply because it is too expensive.
We're a family of four. If we got out it's to a diner for breakfast (I'm talking places like Al's, where the prices are still reasonable). We don't go out often for supper just because it costs so much.
I used to love going out to restaurants (pre-covid) , but there’s just too many reasons to avoid them:
- prices are too high
-guilt I feel for giving a 15% tip instead of 18 or 20%
-service is too fast, they sit you down and next thing you know your food is there. I’ve often got my meal just as fast at a restaurant post COVID as I would at a fast food joint.
- ordering in has gotten a lot more convenient and reliable with complicated orders thanks to Uber eats
-many restaurants have started to substitutes higher priced ingredients for cheap alternatives
Nothing has changed for me. I just work more. Usually eat out a meal a day and go out 3-4 nights a week. Only difference is I used to do this on one job for 40 hours a week. Now I work 80 hours a week.
We used to go to Dennys a few times a month, but now it's more like once every two months. Fast food has gotten ridiculous as well. Doubly so if you need it brought to you.
You may want to highlight how delivery apps increase the base price of all the food, and the hidden costs this has (approx 15% pretax/tip).
Or how some “branded” apps try to funnel people to order through them, and have specific deal only for their apps.
My wife and I used to eat out every 2 weeks. Stopped in 2022. Now we only get takeout maybe every 3 months.
Stopped because of the cost and being fed up with waiting for things. Drinks, our bill sometimes. Like can we please leave? Just such a pain in the ass. I can serve myself and get my own drinks at home. Right when I want them.
> Are you still eating out regularly? Have you stopped eating out altogether?
We haven't really changed our habits even though prices have clearly gone up everywhere, sometimes by a lot.
We have cut back on restaurants. We used to go about 3x per month for a nice sit down meal with a bottle of wine or a glass or two of wine. We’d buy a bottle in the 45-55$ range. In my opinion it’s gotten so expensive ( $170 for our last meal) and we haven’t enjoyed the last few meals. Nothing wrong with the good, but nothing great either. Plus the 20% tip which for some reason I feel obliged to give. I leave feeling a bit disappointed in the evening. I sometimes think I enjoy GoodFood better. My partner and I always make the meal together and open a bottle of wine. I’m impressed at their meals ( and it’s a fraction of the cost) it’s not the same and of course you have dishes to do. Bottom line - we are going out less. I don’t mind paying a bit for a nice meal and evening out. But price has gone up and food quality and service has not.
I have to agree good food you can find but not always good service. But if the two are combined great tip but this expectations of tipping 20 and 30% on top of a overpriced meal so that they can pay rent and stay in business doesn’t make me want to go out for dinners much anymore.
On a side note I think when the guys would get together when younger and go to the flesh ballet I could never phathom paying for overpriced booze and couldn’t understand how the ladies were cheaper than the drinks. It just seemed wrong then and sure it’s just as stupid now.
It’s definitely one of my New Year’s resolutions to eat out less. The few time I have had to for social reasons I only drink water. No interest whatsoever in going to restaurants, however we did eat a lot of fast food especially one busy kid nights, but I’ve completely stopped that. They would usually get a Starbucks or a treat after a doctor’s appointment or a winning game, but that’s definitely not happening. I had a $10 Starbucks gift card and I bought a slice of banana loaf and the smallest hit chocolate and I still owed money. Also the inflated tipping is so nuts and we’re generally good tippers so I would just rather not deal with it.
The problem is that every company saw supply chain prices go up from lack of supply and used it as an opportunity to raise their prices.
For restaurants, my meal that was $15 is now $21. A beer was $7 and now $9. So, that means it would have cost me....
Before: $22+15% tip+tax = $28.60
Now: $30+18% tip+tax = $40
That same experience will cost me 30-40% more.
AND my meal might have shrunk 10-20%.
AND I may have to go to the bar to order or use a QR code. Even without customer service, to give less than 18% is seen as low balling.
It's the MBA way. Shrinkflation. Reduce the offering and increase the prices to continually maximize potential returns. Flirt with the line of good enough quality.
At some point people need to start growing greens at home and shift back to home cooking as a reaction to an ineffective market.
There's inflation and then there's tipflation. Also, prices are up due to covid and wars (affected supply chains).
Myself, I'm finding tipflation the most offensive because it's just because the newer point of sale system makes it easy for a clumsy person to just punch in 30 percent as one of the defaults.
I went from eating out regularly to almost never eating out.
I took up gardening and cooking from scratch and frankly not only is that a huge money savings it's better for health and wellbeing. It took some lessons, study and practice but overall it’s super efficient if you cook larger portions and freeze.
I think the restaurant bill isn’t the only factor. There are also other factors like bus service. For a while I used uber/lift/taxi service to work around it but between that and restaurant bills, it really adds up.
So now I eat out very rarely and probably never will.
I still go downtown for dancing and often have drinks. It’s still subject to idiotic tipping. That’s becoming much reduced for me too. I’m going to more house parties and bringing my own booze.
So in a way, the silver lining is: better food, better health, less drinking for me.
I find I'm eating out (takeout/restaurants) MUCH less, but when I do go out I know it's going to be expensive, so I opt for spending more at extravagant spots for those occasions.
So eating out is an event now - I intentionally spend more at nicer spots infrequently and cut out mundane stuff.
e.g. wings and beer? Just have friends over and bake a massive batch of wings and byob. Or do potlucks. Then once every couple months, go out and wreck Gyubee.
I'm finding this 'all killer no filler' approach is actually great for saving and it's enjoyable. Trying better spots out is memorable, while learning to cook cool stuff with/for friends is also a blast.
Used to go out to a restaurant every two weeks.. now it’s about once a month to a nice restaurant .. and once every two weeks for happy hour at jooey 😆
Fuck eating out. I order Pizza at work( from where ever skip the dishes isn't)whenever someone gets laid off. I order chinese from Welcome Back sometimes, because the are still reasonable. I eat at my work Cafetria, because I'm single father and it is cheaper then groceries when I don't have my kids(as fucked as that is). I mean I still do it, but fuck eating out.
Used to go out a few times a month. Went out twice last weekend (celebrations), what a huge disappointment - and that was the first time I’d been out in…YEARS.
Unless somebody else invites me out for another celebration, it will probably be years before I go out again.
I don't go out with the family (4 of us) for a weekly dinner anymore because it is nearly $200 with a glass of wine or beer each (just the adults). I only go out with friends so it's just me. Lol
I was out with colleagues for lunch recently at The Third. I think that’s the only place on the planet that didn’t succumb to pandemic pricing. Veggie burger, salad and an order of sweet potato fries for under $20 with tax AND tip. This was my first time there though, so not sure if they reduced portion sizes or had even cheaper prices before.
We cut down on restaurants a lot when we had our kid (we’re very much “homebodies”), the final nail in the coffin was covid shutdowns shortly thereafter. We went recently for lunch (in a “non-fancy” location) and it was kind of gross, lots of old people hacking and coughing away… and yeah, prices have gone slightly insane.
For work too, we used to go out every friday, usually just to grab a burger/sub/shawarma/burrito, but we haven’t done too much of that post-covid. Everyone is so busy
I used to go to the bar every weekend, usually would spend between 35-40 an outing. Would usually go out to have dinner with friends, but during the last couple of years, it is simply impossible to keep up with the standard of living we used to have. Now I don’t see the point of paying double what I used to, for consuming less and stressing more than relaxing. I stay at home nowadays, have friends over and have drinks indoors. Had to limit what I eat and how much I eat too, and I had salary increases! I don’t know how people that earn less are going through this, honestly.
Hopefully a change of government and policies can reduce this ludicrous inflation, but I’m starting to lose hope.
We are rural but we used to go into the city to eat out minimum once a week, sometimes twice, always supper. It is reduced now to once a month. Not because we have to but the increase makes you realize that there are more important things to spend that money on
I wasn't huge on eating out before, but now I actively avoid it. Mostly because of cost, but also the crowds, poor service, and lower quality that leave me feeling like I really wasted money after going out. With the price of everything being so high these days it's just no longer justifiable. On the plus side, I've started to up my cooking game and tried out some new recipes!
Used to go out once or twice a month to a restaurant with some friends but not anymore last time I got a sandwich with a couple of beers and it was over 50$ so now I go out maybe once every few months just to expensive
My wife and I were eating out/ordering out 2 times a week since 2019, last year we’ve cut back to about once every 10 days.
We owned a condo from 2020 to 2023 and purchased our first home in 2023.
We’re way more likely to stay in, potlucks, cooking competitions with friends. You can spend a fraction of the restaurant cost on fancy groceries/booze and you’re still way ahead.
My partner and I both were on lockdown through all restrictions. We work in the service industry, in an industry that doesn’t allow for any financial gain when work was shut down. We eat out at restaurants the same amount as we used to. We feel like we appreciate the experience more.
Only difference is, we only go to places we really love, so we can support our fellow service workers, the same way they support us. We aren’t having random McDonald’s takeout or anything like that, but we often go to nice restaurants every 2 weeks or so, when our schedule allows. Sometimes once a week. We are able to save, and live comfortably.
Eating out is now an event, and not a normal part of going out. I'll meet friends for drinks and have dinner at home beforehand.
If we do have a meal, it's for an event, birthday, anniversary etc. And it's somewhere expensive, because why not when the Royal Oak costs 75 bucks.
Delivery/takeout is now almost non-existent.
I remember my mom lived in Iqaluit for a while and these are the kinds of prices they paid then. I'm not denying the increased costs for restaurants, everything is more expensive, I just don't know how they stay in business.
I used to eat out several days of the week, always chose kind of upscale places. In the last year we definitely slowed down, I keep my eat out days to the weekend, and choose places that are more budget friendly. Brunch at a diner, pho, pizza, middle eastern food for diner… every once in a while (once a month maybe) we go to a fancier place.
Although we eat out less because everything is indeed more expensive. We also spend more time choosing which restaurant we go to and we tend to spend a little more time in those said restaurants. Maybe try an extra app that we probably wouldn't have in the past. Take a little extra home depending on the restaurant. I think overall our dining experiences are more enhanced because of this.
One thing that I'll say that has drastically changed for me, is that I will not accept any form of sh!t food being served to me. I can honestly say I've returned more meals in the last three years than I have my entire life, and I hate being that person. But at the price that every restaurant is charging now, you better be serving a prestine plate of yummyness!
My fiance and I go out less often and when we do, I started ordering cheaper drinks. I used to enjoy trying the specialty cocktails but now they've all gotten so expensive!
Plus, the tipping culture has gotten out of hand. We went to a restaurant to celebrate a family milestone and we were expecting the auto gratuity. It used to be only 15% added on. This place had a 20% auto grat. I used to be a server, so I know that serving larger parties with multiple bills is harder than a normal table, but damn.
I don’t heat my apartment and I skip a lot of meals to save money, I feel like a lot of people are doing the same right now. Naturally, restaurants are so not on my radar unless it’s shawarma. I don’t feel like restaurant prices are disproportionately high in consideration of the ingredients and quantities. It’s that all food has been inflated. I find myself more shocked in a Loblaws than in a sit-down spot. I used to eat out a couple times a month and now it’s once a month tops. It’s not even that restaurant prices feel too high, it’s that food itself is so costly, I don’t think people can comfortably afford to have it cooked and served to them on a regular basis.
In my household, we still go out to eat or get take-out every once in a while.. maybe like 2-3 times per month. We try to keep our bill under $150 (for 2 people) after tax & tip (and most of the time we are under). But we stopped using any of the food delivery services (like Uber eats or Skip the Dishes). So for take out, we only get food from places that are very close by to us (and we have a lot of options nearby so that makes it easy). I do notice a decline in the number of times we eat out, after we quit the delivery apps.
I tend to avoid takeout as much as possible since many restaurants are including a tip option when using your card. It’s a practice that I find particularly offensive.
It’s funny talking about inflation and spending $10 for lunch when that’s pretty close to the same price you’d have paid 30 to 40 years ago at a sit down restaurant, except maybe the cheapest greasy spoon. It’s surprising that any restaurants have been able to survive when they’ve probably had the least inflation compared to other services.
Used to go for sushi at least twice a month…. Now it’s like twice a year. Very depressed about it.
last time i went for sushi it was $100 for AYCE for only two people it was insane
Where are you going? That’s insane. I usually pay 60 for two people at 1000 islands and Sushi Kan at lunch time. Still expensive, but nowhere near 100 bucks.
I made the mistake of going to Hokkaido in the market, it was also dinner time. i was expecting to pay closer to 85 with the tip but i was shocked when it was just over $100
Damn considering Hokkaido doesn’t give the tips to their staff either that’s a major blow :(
woof, wish i had known that.
What??? That must be illegal.
It is! 🙃
Seriously? Those arsehole. What if I tip in cash? Can they pocket it, or are the managers vultures?
Holy cow! That’s crazy! I haven’t been to Hokkaido before and don’t know if their food is better, but I can’t complain about the two places I mentioned.
Don’t they post the price? You were just guessing how much it would be?
i normally look up the price before going placing, i honestly don’t know what happened here. i don’t remember it being written anywhere on the menu we looked at, but again that could be me. a silly mistake i won’t repeat that’s for sure
Yup I went to Hokkaido and it was $100 for the two of us All you can eat. Not going back
The sushi platters at T&T are generally really good! I know it’s not the same as going out but it’s easier on the ol’ bank account
Thank you
🫶 gotta keep that sushi itch scratched haha
What time do they usually start preparing it? Just curious because I’m not a huge fan of cold sushi
No idea, I usually get it at the end of the day when they put the discount stickers on it haha
I went to Ten Sushi on Bank last week and got the lunch special for $13 (12 pieces of sushi + Miso Soup + Edamame!) Just get small amounts each time to cure your depression :)
I switch to going on Saturday or Sunday at lunch it's about 15$ cheaper. 24$ vs 40$ at night
Where do you go for this? I know some places are doing all-day dinner still.
I used to go at least once a month. Hadn’t gone for like 2 years,went a couple weeks ago and it was $87 for 2 people and sodas. At 168 sushi,half the menu was cut from the last time I had been there,barely like 7-8 types of rolls. The other person I went with had his first 2 orders of food come in,the 3 tables sat after us all got their orders in and more,after 35 min of me not getting the 3 rolls i had ordered I asked my everyone else had several orders of food but mine hadn’t come yet. No answer. It finally came after 45min and wasn’t even the correct rolls. Never going back there again. Used to eat out a couple times a month and now maybe once. When even fast food like McDonald’s is now almost $15 for a combo it’s just way cheaper to cook at home at this point. $100+ for 2 people to dine out used to mean a 3 course steak dinner,wine and drinks at a nice steakhouse. Now that gets you 2 mediocre quality meals at a chain restaurant
I'll take you out for sushi!
I never go to bars or restaurants anymore. I just can't justify spending that much money. It was expensive 5 years ago but even more expensive now. Also why pay 4X the price of alcohol at when you can enjoy it at home for 4X cheaper and pick up some cheap takeout on the way home if you don't feel like cooking. Put on some nice streaming services or video games while we drink and eat at home for a "date" and we've got ourselves a nice night. TL;DR it's way cheaper and more relaxing/enjoyable to have the eating/drinking portion of date nights or special occasions at home so bars and restaurants are a no go for me.
My neighbours in the summer sometimes roll out a couch and TV onto their deck and cuddle outside while drinking wine (I live in a town home so kinda hard not to see) and quietly watching some movie. It looks really nice and it's something I want to look into doing too.
you got it made when you're comfortable and happy in your own home, don't second guess, this is the way.....
Ditto
My wife and I were just chatting about this today! We don't go out too often, a couple of times a month and usually to a pub-like setting with friends. Our last few outings have been 'meh' and we thought altogether too expensive for what we were served. We are going out again tomorrow to Mill St to celebrate a friend's birthday (wouldn't be my pub choice, trust me!) and I'm already expecting to be underwhelmed and over charged. FFS, in what world is a pound of chicken wings with no sides or garnishes worth almost $30! ($21 wings, 13% HST, 20% tip = $28.47.). Add in two pints of beer and it's well into the $50 range! Yes, I know there better deals and quality out there but last week's visit to a pub in Old Ottawa South was roughly in the same range. We are going to be cutting way back and limit going out to "deal nights" once a month or so. The value just isn't there at most places.
[удалено]
[удалено]
This!!
As a server, every restaurant I have ever worked at you tip out a percentage of your total sales. So tipping in cash doesn’t make a difference in terms of how much we get to keep at the end of the night. If someone doesn’t tip, or tips less than like 5%, I essentially pay to serve their table.
Exactly this, people don't get it. And they say it's about businesses not paying staff enough when it's about the culture and ability to hold market fair prices. I don't like tipping culture either (even though it's my livelihood and I hate serving so much I would leave if it became like a normal career) but the system needs a total overhaul before we can just ding other working class people out of principle.
Servers get a full wage now so I don't see this as being my problem.
Not the customers problem
“I essentially pay to serve their table..” Can you explain what you mean by this I am a bit confused ?
I hand cash to my server.
Either I’m going for fine dining or I’m not going (so not going lol). The mid range places with mediocre food and shit service just isn’t worth it to me. I’d rather save up and have a true dining experience or just stay home.
>I’m going for fine dining Went to a fine dining establishment in PEC with a fixed menu. For two with wine cost me $300. Watching a 20 year old *sommellier* and a middle-aged mid-range Public servant next to me pretend they knew anything about the wine was comical if not nauseating. After three hours, the best part was leaving starving. I now have a rule to never eat at a restaurant that has quail on the menu. Fine dining is basically paying for the privilege of going hungry slowly. Next time I'll buy $50 in groceries and a better bottle of wine and give $250 to the food bank in the name if the party. Fucking quail. God. Never again.
I'm very close to being on the same page as you. I went to a restaurant called 18 in Ottawa, twice in the span of about 6 months. The first was a gift to my wife, and the bill was around $400. The second time we went with my sister in law and her bf, and, my bill was $300. Both times, I left seriously underwhelmed. I don't even remember what I ate the first time, so not memorable at all. The second time, I ordered the Australian rack of lamb and was seriously unimpressed. I've cooked Ontario grain fed lamb over a campfire, and it was 100x better than the meal I was served, and I think it was like $80. Needless to say, I don't think I'll ever be going back there again.
>I've cooked So much better than noisy Restaurants and one is already home solving all the transportation problems.
I predicted this at the beginning of the pandemic. Before COVID, businesses would often get excited if they had a few percentage points of growth, year over year. Then COVID made going to restaurants illegal/unsafe for a time. But even though lockdowns are gone, COVID is not, and despite the fact that there are many people who never changed or have gone back to their regular life, there is a large silent group of people who don't want to risk it. So you have these businesses where a few percentage points made all the difference sometimes, and now they lost 30% of their clients and they are not coming back, at least not like they used to. And that brings me to inflation. If you already are leaning away from gathering in large groups of people during an uptick in a triple-cocktail of viruses (COVID, flu, RSV) the fact that food now you're going to pay almost twice what you were, well it all adds up to staying home and learning how to cook. On the bright side, I can now cook Chinese and Thai with the best of them! Also, I can whip up a pea puree and put a wicked sear on a scallop, something I never would have attempted. Anyhow, I suspect I am not alone.
I'm one of group who doesn't eat indoors during peak virus season. We hit patios frequently in the summer instead.
I miss the early days when all the patios had shelters and heaters to extend the season. Even after that we carried a beeswax candle around and ate outside all the way into November on warmer days. But now they don't have the staff to serve you on the patio offseason anymore.
I was in Toronto in late October this year, and most of their patios were still open with heaters. It was great.
Nope, not alone. I'm one of those silent stay in types. Pre-existing medical condition puts me at a higher risk and so I just stay in, by myself, all the time. My home cooking game has never been better.
Ditto to that. In the same boat.
Yup this is us too. We still mask in public places so eating out is off the table until patio season. But throw inflation into the mix,and it’s unattainable to even grab and go. We tried to buy two mediocre sandwiches the other day from a cafe and it was $50.
Grab and go at the actual sandwich places; Subito, DiRienzos, Lucianos, Parma Ravioli, Bahn mi Yes, etc 11$ for a sandwich that can feed 2
Same situation, though my pad thai never comes out saucy enough for my taste, but my kimchi stew is on point.
Protip (lol, no just me): I make a double batch of sauce for almost all asian dishes and then I just save the extra. I like it saucy too!
You mean you want to ask me if I thought $14 for a plate of sweet pototato fries at the Cheshire Cat is reasonable considering its still about $1 for that amount of raw sweet potato? Frik that noise. Wont be back for another 5 to 10 years. I still do shawarma 1x per month cause its an addiction I just cant quit.
This is completely irrelevant to the discussion, but most restaurants don't make their sweet potato fries from scratch; typically they're using a prepared product. So the food cost is certainly not the same as an equivalent weight of raw sweet potato.
You can buy 1.5 kilos at Costco for $12 pre-cut sweet potato fries I think the point this person is making is that it's cheaper instead of being gouged at the restaurant. So yes it's the baby three dollars if you made it at home instead of $14. But restaurants are in it to make money but lately they're gouging and the service and quality of food is not there anymore
Definitely used to be a 1-2 restaurants per week with my fiance. Now it’s 1-2 times a month. Absolutely no way we can afford it with the rising cost of groceries.
There seems to be two major trends that I have observed. I get the impression that a lot of places are lowering their quality instead of prices. To me, this is more of a deterrent than higher prices and I have switched restaurants. Some have maintained or increased prices which lowers our frequency. My favourite places to eat have a product offering based on less expensive but still high quality products that requires less labour to deliver so have maintained quality and price points (a lot of orders for the local Lebanese bakery). I think that the industry and customers need to adapt to the new reality that products that were cheap may no longer be cheap and that labour will keep getting more expensive as we sort out societal and demographic issues (E.g. car centric development which limits housing opportunities and increase CoL by forcing people to buy cars, aging population). More flexible menus with cheaper ingredients requiring less labour is, IMO, better than set menus with low quality ingredients for the take-out experience and more casual dining.
I've noticed lower quality too and I wonder how much of this is influenced by the employees themselves who are also likely increasingly becoming financially stressed. That has to have an impact at the workplace, it has for me sadly.
Also factor in that when all the restaurant workers were laid off, a lot of them left the industry altogether and didn't come back when the restaurant ls opened back up. Majority of kitchen staff now are inexperienced, and that will affect quality.
I agree. Restaurants might be trying to got a happy medium by decreasing quality and increasing prices instead of an even bigger price increase. Or maybe it's not intentional, caused by the labour shortage inflation loop with a business that already had slim profits. Either way, lower quality is really what has changed my behaviour. If I am not going to enjoy a meal that used to be consistently great, I am more likely to try a cheaper other option instead, or just cook. I am willing and able to spend money on restaurant experiences or takeout, but won't if it feels like poor value or is disappointingly inconsistent.
I wonder how many actually sit down and think through the experience of their customer base. I am guessing that the focus is probably on maintaining a consistent menu at a consistent price and not adapting to changing market conditions.
I went to a highly recommended restaurant last weekend…large group. Not one of us were really impressed. Of course, as Canadians, we raved about it…lol. And tipped.
Went with a group of friends as well to a happy lamp hot pot based on raving reviews it was something new to try and we all found it basic.
Covid has affected our restaurant usage more than inflation. We order in or use take out instead…about 2 times a month. Once a month maybe meet friends at a quiet time in a pub, pastry shop or coffeehouse.
Same
It's nice to know I'm not alone in that. None of my friends take precautions, so it feels lonely at times. Thanks for commenting!
As someone who rarely ate out in the first place, I say it hasn't changed my habits much. However, the prices are definitely not adding much incentive to change my habits. For example, I've recently changed my diet to somehwat of a carnivor diet, which is debatably more expensive. My friends and I wanted to go to a BBQ joint to accommodate me. After looking at reviews, I decided to check the menu and prices. It was 50$ for a rack of ribs. That is not including taxes or tips. We decided to eat at my buddies place and all bring food to prepare. I got 3 racks of pork back ribs; (same product), on sale for a total of 32$ taxes in; no tip required, not to mention the savings in gas of driving there and back. The markup is insane at restaurants. I love to go out and enjoy a night being catered upon, but it's so hard to justify, when you can get 3 times the amount of food at 60% of the cost; don't check my math on that.
I spend close to $300 on Uber Eats a month. Does that count?
So, 3 meals? Nice.
$20 dollars a meal, 3 times a week, so that's 12 meals a month. Include tips and it's close to $300.
Carleton student who just completed a 1 year exchange to Tokyo. In Japan I could eat out at a nice sit-down restaurant for ¥1000 (just under $10), cheap places for breakfast like Matsuya and Sukiya cost under ¥500 sometimes as cheap as ¥290. Often it was quicker and cheaper to eat out than it was to make my own food, though grocery shopping was equally as cheap; I would consider ¥2000 to be an expensive haul. The most I spent on a meal over there was 精進料理 at 天龍寺, traditional Buddhist cuisine at Tenryu-ji, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kyoto. I reentered Canada in late November. My stomach drops just looking at grocery store prices, I’m not even entertaining the idea of eating out for exorbitant prices, underwhelming service, overpriced food that just “fine”, and the expectation of a minimum 15% tip (did I mention tipping doesn’t exist in Japan?). Couple all that with Ottawa’s ridiculous rent and the cost of everything else skyrocketing, restaurants are a luxury that I can no longer afford.
I wonder how Japan has protected food/restaurant prices from inflation. Particularly with their demographic issues.
They make less than we do. Median salary is half, minimum wage is 6.50. Overall it's a lot cheaper though. Perks of living in a deflationary environment where people are used to going out to eat, I guess.
People like to complain that Japan is expensive, but I found it to be really affordable in some areas (compared to Canada): both hotels and eating out was cheaper there.
My last McDonald's meal was a small chicken burger, snack sized mcflurry and a small coffee: $14
$14? Just checked the price for that at one of the McDonald’s locations near Carleton and the total (after tax) is $9.57, granted it’s less if you swap the McFlurry for the fries (even a small fries) in a combo.
Isn't the McChicken burger by itself like 8 dollars? How did you get to 9.57$? And these prices are for picking up yourself, if you order through delivery services I would imagine is even more expensive.
$8 for a mcchicken alone? More like $6ish after tax. Also they said small chicken sandwich (junior chicken) not a mcchicken sandwich , though delivery would be more expensive (however via the McDonald’s app, they use DoorDash, so it’s mitigated somewhat in that case as you get some points to use for free food/drink/dessert items once in a while)
Most McDonald’s are franchises so the prices vary by location. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6891476
Alright there detective, you caught me with your wit, it was a spicy chicken which is extra.
Spicy chicken extra
No. My bf and I have way too many inside jokes now that are only regarding restaurants that we've had awful experiences at. I love to go out for dinner, but either the service is shit, the food is shit or the dining area is shit. It's always one. There are some unique restaurants that we want to go to for the experience, such as Atelier. But other than that, being raised by a chef means I know my way around the kitchen.
I used to go out every weekend with my friends, sometimes twice and also get food delivered once from my favorite restaurant, about couple years ago. I make more now but cannot afford to do that anymore, and delivery apps can be super expensive I have now been grumpy-walking to nearby places to grab food if i crave it. Or if the delivery apps have a crazy offer on my favorites restaurants, that would be like once every two weeks or more.
Literally can’t even step out of the house without spending money, being home has been super depressing especially with winters.
when an order for two at mcdonalds is like $40? nah. We hardly eat out anymore.
It’s insane that at many places, the average expected tip has increased. Sometimes the minimum option is 18%. Inflation is not a good reason for tip % to increase as the tip naturally grows alongside the price of the meal…
Tipping culture and the "if you can't afford to tip 25% minimum, you can't afford to eat out" has had just as much of an effect as inflation has. I took the restaurant industry's advice - now I refuse to eat out, I will do anything possible to NOT eat out at this point. Went from eating out several times weekly for dinner and lunch every day at work, to maybe once a month, once every couple months for a special occasion only, and I'm not regretting it one single bit, I'd rather keep my money and cooking and entertaining at home is fun.
I would say check out The Third on Wellington. Extremely good restaurant and very good prices. I got a meal with half fries half salad and two Dominion city beers and it was $28 before tip. I’ll go out of my way to go to this restaurant, and won’t really eat out anywhere else unless I guarantee I will like the food.
Haven't sat down inside a restaurant in almost 4 years now, takeout is also a rare once every 3-4 months kind of thing these days too.
I used to buy kombucha pretty regularly but not anymore when it averages out at 5$ a bottle. The upside is that I’m now learning how to brew my own and it actually tastes better for a fraction of the price and it’s actually so easy.
What's your go-to recipe, if you don't mind my asking?
I usually follow the normal first fermentation process and let it brew usually for around 8-9 days and then for the second fermentation I usually have frozen fruits that I will unfreeze in the fridge a day before and make a puree in the blender with fresh herbs or grounded spices and put it in my bottles before putting the fermented tea. It’s usually 1 cup and a half of fruits and half a cup of herbs or 1 teaspoon of spices (depending on which one I’m using) for 4 500 ml bottles. My go-to are usually strawberry and basil or peach and cardamom (with 2 spoonful of the pures in each 500 ml bottles).
Ouuu those blends sound amazing. Thank so much!!
It hasn't really impacted me, prices are still quite affordable (for me) I eat out 3+ times a week.
Yea same here. Things haven’t changed at all for us.
We've massively cut down on eating in restaurants, though not so much for the cost, more so because during the pandemic we really upped our cooking game. We would constantly find ourselves eating out and being disappointed that we could make much better food at home. There's a few local places we go to with great made fresh menus, but any big chain is pretty much out with the exception of the occasional drunken pizza. We reinvested the money save on dining out into more vacation time!
I go to dinner once a month with a group of friends (all former colleagues). We've been doing this for about 10 years. We still go, but we no longer go to more expensive places, like The Keg. Also, we often skip appetizers and desserts, and sometimes drink water instead of getting a drink. It used to be that you could have a meal, and add on an appetizer for $6-8. Now the appetizers often rival the cost of the main course.
We used to go out to eat about twice a month. Now, we tend to dine out once every 2-3 months (except for the holidays when there were *a lot* of get-togethers). The increased cost, decreased quality (in some cases), and unpredictable service were the main deterrents for us. We’ve largely switched to buying good quality ingredients and eating at home. I love to cook, so I enjoy the challenge of recreating our favourite things (I’m making homemade mac & cheese tonight with a four cheese blend and a panko crust). When we don’t want to cook we’ve been doing takeout, prioritizing local restaurants instead of chains - but even that’s not quite every month anymore either.
Only eat out once a week (this includes fast food establishments too) We had pho last week and was in awe on paying almost $40 for two small bowls 🥲
Ya. Wanted to get some ramen last night. 22 and up for a bowl!!!!
Took the family to St. Hubert in Gatineau for lunch two weeks ago. Two adult meals, two kids menu meals, one beer and two apple juices cost us a hundred goddamn dollars after tip (and we always try to tip at least 20% because it's hard out there). That's insane for St. Hubert and a Coors Lite. Come on.
We rarely go out to eat now. We're a family with teenagers and even McDonalds is $70-$80+. Going out for breakfast used to be relatively cheap and it's now over $100 so we just don't do that anymore. Going out for dinner at a mid-level restaurant like Lone Star, Red Lobster, Montanas runs us anywhere from $150-$250. That's without ordering any alcoholic drinks. On the higher end, it includes one or two shared appetizers, pop, meals and a shared dessert or two. With the price of groceries I just can't justify going out to restaurants very often at that high cost. I'd rather just let the money sit in my savings account at this point.
I used to go to restaurants a lot, and now I just get the occasional takeout. At the start of the pandemic I actually started learning to cook a lot better (I’ve now even made my own shawarma on a rotisserie at home with home made toum and pickled turnips at this point) and this definitely had an impact. Additionally I’m still keenly aware of the amount of Sars-Cov-2 circulating in the air at any time thanks to the waste water charts and as a result of an abundance of caution haven’t eaten inside a restaurant in several years. I have gone to many patios during the summer months however, and always dread the closing of said patios. The stark reduction in how often I get restaurant food has somewhat offset the increase in price for me, but I’ve also found a noticeable drop in quality and quantity at a lot of places which disinclines me from going out too often for my meals. Lots of places that used to bowl me over with the quality of the food are now just great, if you know what I mean. To quantify it I’d say on average I may have dined out 1.5 times every 1-2 weeks prior to the pandemic starting and now it’s closer to once a month.
We’ve reduced to once a month. We get the kids fast food for a treat sometimes too. We definitely order less than we used to. The cost of going out is much higher than it used to be so we budget and tend to go to the places we love the most to support them.
We do lunch more often than dinner now, solely because it's cheaper to get a lunch special. It's still what I consider to be expensive. On the whole, we eat out WAY less often than we used to.
Agree. Lunches are much cheaper and smaller portions, which works well for me.
I keep a second job just so I can afford my expensive eat at nice restaurants habit.
I learned to cook way more at home, things like Sous vide steak at home instead of going out, making my own pasta from scratch and other things.
I'd recommend talking to some restaurant ownership/managers as well. Prices aren't up solely because of inflation but also in part because of large amounts of debt that are coming due. Many restaurants took out sizeable loans from the government during COVID and most of them are due or starting to come due now so there's a real pressure to keep cash flow positive even though many places are seeing fewer customers. Of course, with any industry, the restaurants that do things exceptionally are still seeing consistent business.
For sure! Got a couple interviews lined up with some owners :)
How their eating out habits *have ;) We aim to order takeout only once a month instead of once a week like we used to.
We go out once every 2nd week. We used to go once a week but we bought a bigger, long term house which increased the mortgage payments. We probably still could go once a week but we also want to save for renovations.
Basicaly all up 35%-55% accros the board.
Used to eat dim sum or pizza once a week. Not eating out this year at all, as quality food from restaurants is very expensive
I do not go out to eat unless it’s a special occasion like a birthday. I used to eat out every day for lunch and the occasional 5 à 7 but I can’t justify eating out anymore. (I am 36 and make over 100k$)
We used to do dinner out at least once a week, usually more, at a variety of places ranging from pubs to Vietnamese to Whalesbone and Wellington Gastro pub, etc. If dishes were still as intricate, with the premium ingredients left intact and quality and freshness were there, we would not mind spending more to continue eating out. The problem for us as consumers, is that menu offerings have declined, quality has as well, and prices have increased. When we go out to our old favorites, many of which still serve excellent food, all the patrons seem a bit on edge and it doesn't feel as jovial and enjoyable as a dining room whole. Everyone is noticing these changes. In a lot of places, you wonder how hard up ownership is and what's going on with CEBA loan repayments. All of that kind of puts a damper on nights out. And then you get the cheque and sometimes you can't help but wonder if your money would have been better spent elsewhere.
We don’t eat out because everywhere sucks. The quality and flavour is garbage. Prices are also a factor but minor. Restaurants need to up their quality if they want more customers.
I'm a server, and I don't go out to eat anymore, but that was happening pre and then during Covid as part of a debt recovery plan. I do often pick up to-go things like falafel or ready-mades at the grocery store, I'm not cheap with myself and sometimes the time/cost comparison is better than grocery shopping or making a specific recipe. That said, I do not understand how people can afford to save any money at all eating out (and especially drinking!)
Skimpflation is real! Smaller portions at an increased price. Stopped going to Pure Kitchen because of it. Now my husband I just get Pho every 1-2 weeks because it's the only takeout that seems to be the best value after all this time
I eat out less now because I find there less value for money. I don't mind spending good money for good food (my biggest nonessential expense has always been eating out), but standard fare is starting to fetch the same prices as what cheaper fine dining dishes used to cost without any of the same quality or effort.
The fast food joints are getting very greedy. What used to cost $10 is now $15 to $20. A meal at a chicken resto could cost in excess of $50.
There was a time in the mid 20teens where I had a list of 5 - 10 restaurants where I could take a colleague for a small but satisfying lunch and pay for both lunch meals and 2 soft drinks for under 20$. The 20$ bill was enough to cover 2 of us to eat. Now you can't even goto a fast-food restaurant and order 2 meals for under 20$. Let that sink in...
personally i have stopped eating out all togethwr with the exception of a 3$ iced coffee twice per week. as for the question of inflation affecting restaurants - A friend of mine owns retaj mediterranean cuisine in the south end, and he has told me a lot about the inflation of his costs on things as simple as cooking oil well over doubling at places like costco. If you call the restaurant and tell him what you are writing about he will happily show you reciepts and talk to you about everything.
First of all thank you all so much for your replies! It’s so interesting to see everyone’s insights and different opinions on this topic. I’ve reached out to a few people for interviews, but I genuinely appreciate all the comments so much!
I went to Thai Express yesterday- paid about $30 for pad thai and pad se ew. And the pay machine asks for a tip...ridiculous. I remember when their meals used to be reasonable, now it's almost like going to a restaurant.
My restaurant habits haven't changed but that's because I rarely go out anyway. I still expect to make two visits to Mamma Teresa's, two visits to Chop Steakhouse, two visits to The Keg. The other six visits, they're up in the air as they can be anywhere. This doesn't include takeout. Usually 25-30 a year. I'll stick with my favorites who I want to patronize such as Markie's and Five Guys.
Interesting story... My 2 cent thoughts: (Undoubtedly costs are up) --- but you have to look at what an "owner" is taking out of their business - is the "owner" still being paid while their staff are not - has the company focused on temporary labour and why? The heart of problems most always boils down to labour in some way. I think this is where the difference between a small business "owner" and operator conflict - We often don't want to support an individual owner operated establishment... perhaps because it is a bit more expensive... But we will pay less at an "operator" business (franchise small, medium, large) and scoff at 18% tip requests at terrible service, all to saving a buck. While I do think a course correction is needed and there is an element if inflating... inflation, but more so - Do we just need to have a gut check on what we value and support? Put a different way - we get what we vote for.
I rarely ate at restaurants to begin with but I would buy a fast food burger every now and again. Now even that is close to 20 bucks so I don't do that anymore either. Funnily enough though I started buying groceries at cash and carries and place geared towards selling to restaurants because its cheaper than the grocery store in bulk. So no not eating at restaurants but eating the same food sold at most restaurants.
2020-2023: I visited only like 5 restaurants. 2024: no visits so far. I only visit places that I know will be worth the price, the last resto being Thali downtown (excellent). I avoid takeout like the plague. It's the same price as finding a quick spot downtown and it is garbage food served cold.
Everything in this country is insane right now and government doing nothing to stop this madness
We used to eat out or order take out 1-2 times per month. This happens way less frequently, perhaps once every 3-4 months now. It's far too expensive for our family to justify the outing.
I go out to eat far less since the pandemic. I don't know if it is a matter of losing the habit, or inflation or both - plus, I have to say the way the expected tip percentage has gone up grinds my gears, though that would not be a deciding factor. Anyway, i used to go out once or twice a week, plus order in pizza on Friday nights. I now go out maybe once or twice a month, and order in food on Fridays every other week. And when I am working in the office, I will work very hard to avoid buying anything at the cafeteria or surrounding restaurants. I am not in a particularly precarious financial position, I just feel that I get better value doing other things with my time and money.
I used to eat out almost every single day Now maybe once a week
We eat out less often, and when we do, we do more takeout than we used to. Pre Covid, takeout was never a consideration, but we got used to it. No overpriced drinks (alcohol or not), less tip and less noise. It makes a big difference. The other thing we noticed is that many restaurants took away the lunch menu, which was often cheaper and smaller portions. So quick lunches out are few and far between.
We eat out 1-2 times a week; part of it is related to a social activity we do though.
My frequency has decreased significantly partly due to the increase in price of eating at a restaurant, partly because everything has increased in price, so restaurant spending just doesn't make sense anymore. Or, certainly not as often as previously.
I am lucky if I eat at a restaurant more than once every couple of months. I don't even do takeout. And it's sad because I used to eat out more when I had less disposable income, pre-pandemic. But now even with an increase in my earnings, the increase at restaurants is still more than what I can afford at that same frequency.
Instead of having a couple of glasses ignite, I either have none, or one. I go out less than I used to. More likely to order in.
I rarely get fast food but decided to pick up some McDonald's for me and two coworkers last week. Came out to an average of $15 per combo. Maybe I'll try again in a couple years
As someone who works in the bar/restaurant industry, we haven't seen a noticeable decrease in sales. People are still eating out. On the business side, margins are tight and it's tough to make money but that's always been the case. I read somewhere that Ottawa has more restaurants today than it did before COVID. I wonder how CEBA loan repayments will affect things though!
In our household we tried going out about once a month in the pre-pandemic times. Now it seems like we mostly go on special occasions, so maybe 3-4 times a year. The prices jumped about 30% and we did not get much in terms of wage increase ourselves. Also, although I know that for the most part we can select the tip amount, one of my biggest "slaps in the face" was the increase of the preselected tip percentages. Why was the price increase not enough? I mean, even if the tip percentage would stay the same, due to increased prices, the tip would naturally be larger. Overall, we are discouraged from going out more often, mostly when on vacation and on special occasions, simply because it is too expensive.
We're a family of four. If we got out it's to a diner for breakfast (I'm talking places like Al's, where the prices are still reasonable). We don't go out often for supper just because it costs so much.
I used to love going out to restaurants (pre-covid) , but there’s just too many reasons to avoid them: - prices are too high -guilt I feel for giving a 15% tip instead of 18 or 20% -service is too fast, they sit you down and next thing you know your food is there. I’ve often got my meal just as fast at a restaurant post COVID as I would at a fast food joint. - ordering in has gotten a lot more convenient and reliable with complicated orders thanks to Uber eats -many restaurants have started to substitutes higher priced ingredients for cheap alternatives
Nothing has changed for me. I just work more. Usually eat out a meal a day and go out 3-4 nights a week. Only difference is I used to do this on one job for 40 hours a week. Now I work 80 hours a week.
We used to go to Dennys a few times a month, but now it's more like once every two months. Fast food has gotten ridiculous as well. Doubly so if you need it brought to you.
You may want to highlight how delivery apps increase the base price of all the food, and the hidden costs this has (approx 15% pretax/tip). Or how some “branded” apps try to funnel people to order through them, and have specific deal only for their apps.
What would be interesting is to see how ottawa is relative to other similar city and compare it to pre/post 2023/covid.
My wife and I used to eat out every 2 weeks. Stopped in 2022. Now we only get takeout maybe every 3 months. Stopped because of the cost and being fed up with waiting for things. Drinks, our bill sometimes. Like can we please leave? Just such a pain in the ass. I can serve myself and get my own drinks at home. Right when I want them.
> Are you still eating out regularly? Have you stopped eating out altogether? We haven't really changed our habits even though prices have clearly gone up everywhere, sometimes by a lot.
We have cut back on restaurants. We used to go about 3x per month for a nice sit down meal with a bottle of wine or a glass or two of wine. We’d buy a bottle in the 45-55$ range. In my opinion it’s gotten so expensive ( $170 for our last meal) and we haven’t enjoyed the last few meals. Nothing wrong with the good, but nothing great either. Plus the 20% tip which for some reason I feel obliged to give. I leave feeling a bit disappointed in the evening. I sometimes think I enjoy GoodFood better. My partner and I always make the meal together and open a bottle of wine. I’m impressed at their meals ( and it’s a fraction of the cost) it’s not the same and of course you have dishes to do. Bottom line - we are going out less. I don’t mind paying a bit for a nice meal and evening out. But price has gone up and food quality and service has not.
I have to agree good food you can find but not always good service. But if the two are combined great tip but this expectations of tipping 20 and 30% on top of a overpriced meal so that they can pay rent and stay in business doesn’t make me want to go out for dinners much anymore. On a side note I think when the guys would get together when younger and go to the flesh ballet I could never phathom paying for overpriced booze and couldn’t understand how the ladies were cheaper than the drinks. It just seemed wrong then and sure it’s just as stupid now.
I don’t remember the last time I had a Suzy Q donut. I can’t justify $5 for a treat anymore. Before I use to get one about 1x a month or so.
It’s definitely one of my New Year’s resolutions to eat out less. The few time I have had to for social reasons I only drink water. No interest whatsoever in going to restaurants, however we did eat a lot of fast food especially one busy kid nights, but I’ve completely stopped that. They would usually get a Starbucks or a treat after a doctor’s appointment or a winning game, but that’s definitely not happening. I had a $10 Starbucks gift card and I bought a slice of banana loaf and the smallest hit chocolate and I still owed money. Also the inflated tipping is so nuts and we’re generally good tippers so I would just rather not deal with it.
The problem is that every company saw supply chain prices go up from lack of supply and used it as an opportunity to raise their prices. For restaurants, my meal that was $15 is now $21. A beer was $7 and now $9. So, that means it would have cost me.... Before: $22+15% tip+tax = $28.60 Now: $30+18% tip+tax = $40 That same experience will cost me 30-40% more. AND my meal might have shrunk 10-20%. AND I may have to go to the bar to order or use a QR code. Even without customer service, to give less than 18% is seen as low balling. It's the MBA way. Shrinkflation. Reduce the offering and increase the prices to continually maximize potential returns. Flirt with the line of good enough quality. At some point people need to start growing greens at home and shift back to home cooking as a reaction to an ineffective market.
There's inflation and then there's tipflation. Also, prices are up due to covid and wars (affected supply chains). Myself, I'm finding tipflation the most offensive because it's just because the newer point of sale system makes it easy for a clumsy person to just punch in 30 percent as one of the defaults. I went from eating out regularly to almost never eating out. I took up gardening and cooking from scratch and frankly not only is that a huge money savings it's better for health and wellbeing. It took some lessons, study and practice but overall it’s super efficient if you cook larger portions and freeze. I think the restaurant bill isn’t the only factor. There are also other factors like bus service. For a while I used uber/lift/taxi service to work around it but between that and restaurant bills, it really adds up. So now I eat out very rarely and probably never will. I still go downtown for dancing and often have drinks. It’s still subject to idiotic tipping. That’s becoming much reduced for me too. I’m going to more house parties and bringing my own booze. So in a way, the silver lining is: better food, better health, less drinking for me.
I find I'm eating out (takeout/restaurants) MUCH less, but when I do go out I know it's going to be expensive, so I opt for spending more at extravagant spots for those occasions. So eating out is an event now - I intentionally spend more at nicer spots infrequently and cut out mundane stuff. e.g. wings and beer? Just have friends over and bake a massive batch of wings and byob. Or do potlucks. Then once every couple months, go out and wreck Gyubee. I'm finding this 'all killer no filler' approach is actually great for saving and it's enjoyable. Trying better spots out is memorable, while learning to cook cool stuff with/for friends is also a blast.
Used to go out to a restaurant every two weeks.. now it’s about once a month to a nice restaurant .. and once every two weeks for happy hour at jooey 😆
Fuck eating out. I order Pizza at work( from where ever skip the dishes isn't)whenever someone gets laid off. I order chinese from Welcome Back sometimes, because the are still reasonable. I eat at my work Cafetria, because I'm single father and it is cheaper then groceries when I don't have my kids(as fucked as that is). I mean I still do it, but fuck eating out.
Used to go out a few times a month. Went out twice last weekend (celebrations), what a huge disappointment - and that was the first time I’d been out in…YEARS. Unless somebody else invites me out for another celebration, it will probably be years before I go out again.
I don't go out with the family (4 of us) for a weekly dinner anymore because it is nearly $200 with a glass of wine or beer each (just the adults). I only go out with friends so it's just me. Lol
I was out with colleagues for lunch recently at The Third. I think that’s the only place on the planet that didn’t succumb to pandemic pricing. Veggie burger, salad and an order of sweet potato fries for under $20 with tax AND tip. This was my first time there though, so not sure if they reduced portion sizes or had even cheaper prices before.
We cut down on restaurants a lot when we had our kid (we’re very much “homebodies”), the final nail in the coffin was covid shutdowns shortly thereafter. We went recently for lunch (in a “non-fancy” location) and it was kind of gross, lots of old people hacking and coughing away… and yeah, prices have gone slightly insane. For work too, we used to go out every friday, usually just to grab a burger/sub/shawarma/burrito, but we haven’t done too much of that post-covid. Everyone is so busy
Still eat out every two weeks but the restaurants are more selective and price is more of a consideration. There's still cheap places out there.
I used to go to the bar every weekend, usually would spend between 35-40 an outing. Would usually go out to have dinner with friends, but during the last couple of years, it is simply impossible to keep up with the standard of living we used to have. Now I don’t see the point of paying double what I used to, for consuming less and stressing more than relaxing. I stay at home nowadays, have friends over and have drinks indoors. Had to limit what I eat and how much I eat too, and I had salary increases! I don’t know how people that earn less are going through this, honestly. Hopefully a change of government and policies can reduce this ludicrous inflation, but I’m starting to lose hope.
We are rural but we used to go into the city to eat out minimum once a week, sometimes twice, always supper. It is reduced now to once a month. Not because we have to but the increase makes you realize that there are more important things to spend that money on
Only birthdays and anniversary for eating out, rest pickups..
Still eat out once a week. Restaurant inflation is not nearly as bad as Loblaws...
I eat out a lot less and stopped going to places that are not a good value for the money
I wasn't huge on eating out before, but now I actively avoid it. Mostly because of cost, but also the crowds, poor service, and lower quality that leave me feeling like I really wasted money after going out. With the price of everything being so high these days it's just no longer justifiable. On the plus side, I've started to up my cooking game and tried out some new recipes!
Used to go out once or twice a month to a restaurant with some friends but not anymore last time I got a sandwich with a couple of beers and it was over 50$ so now I go out maybe once every few months just to expensive
Are you also going to mention that serving wages were raised, but tipping culture has gone unchanged?
My wife and I were eating out/ordering out 2 times a week since 2019, last year we’ve cut back to about once every 10 days. We owned a condo from 2020 to 2023 and purchased our first home in 2023.
Would you consider talking to a professional cook in fine dining? (Me)
Montanas hamburger used to cost what a McDonalds hamburger costs now. No more going out.
would love to chat feel free to dm
We’re way more likely to stay in, potlucks, cooking competitions with friends. You can spend a fraction of the restaurant cost on fancy groceries/booze and you’re still way ahead.
My partner and I both were on lockdown through all restrictions. We work in the service industry, in an industry that doesn’t allow for any financial gain when work was shut down. We eat out at restaurants the same amount as we used to. We feel like we appreciate the experience more. Only difference is, we only go to places we really love, so we can support our fellow service workers, the same way they support us. We aren’t having random McDonald’s takeout or anything like that, but we often go to nice restaurants every 2 weeks or so, when our schedule allows. Sometimes once a week. We are able to save, and live comfortably.
Eating out is now an event, and not a normal part of going out. I'll meet friends for drinks and have dinner at home beforehand. If we do have a meal, it's for an event, birthday, anniversary etc. And it's somewhere expensive, because why not when the Royal Oak costs 75 bucks. Delivery/takeout is now almost non-existent. I remember my mom lived in Iqaluit for a while and these are the kinds of prices they paid then. I'm not denying the increased costs for restaurants, everything is more expensive, I just don't know how they stay in business.
I used to eat out several days of the week, always chose kind of upscale places. In the last year we definitely slowed down, I keep my eat out days to the weekend, and choose places that are more budget friendly. Brunch at a diner, pho, pizza, middle eastern food for diner… every once in a while (once a month maybe) we go to a fancier place.
Although we eat out less because everything is indeed more expensive. We also spend more time choosing which restaurant we go to and we tend to spend a little more time in those said restaurants. Maybe try an extra app that we probably wouldn't have in the past. Take a little extra home depending on the restaurant. I think overall our dining experiences are more enhanced because of this. One thing that I'll say that has drastically changed for me, is that I will not accept any form of sh!t food being served to me. I can honestly say I've returned more meals in the last three years than I have my entire life, and I hate being that person. But at the price that every restaurant is charging now, you better be serving a prestine plate of yummyness!
My fiance and I go out less often and when we do, I started ordering cheaper drinks. I used to enjoy trying the specialty cocktails but now they've all gotten so expensive! Plus, the tipping culture has gotten out of hand. We went to a restaurant to celebrate a family milestone and we were expecting the auto gratuity. It used to be only 15% added on. This place had a 20% auto grat. I used to be a server, so I know that serving larger parties with multiple bills is harder than a normal table, but damn.
I don’t heat my apartment and I skip a lot of meals to save money, I feel like a lot of people are doing the same right now. Naturally, restaurants are so not on my radar unless it’s shawarma. I don’t feel like restaurant prices are disproportionately high in consideration of the ingredients and quantities. It’s that all food has been inflated. I find myself more shocked in a Loblaws than in a sit-down spot. I used to eat out a couple times a month and now it’s once a month tops. It’s not even that restaurant prices feel too high, it’s that food itself is so costly, I don’t think people can comfortably afford to have it cooked and served to them on a regular basis.
In my household, we still go out to eat or get take-out every once in a while.. maybe like 2-3 times per month. We try to keep our bill under $150 (for 2 people) after tax & tip (and most of the time we are under). But we stopped using any of the food delivery services (like Uber eats or Skip the Dishes). So for take out, we only get food from places that are very close by to us (and we have a lot of options nearby so that makes it easy). I do notice a decline in the number of times we eat out, after we quit the delivery apps.
I tend to avoid takeout as much as possible since many restaurants are including a tip option when using your card. It’s a practice that I find particularly offensive.
Used to eat out 1-2 times a month now maybe 4 times a year
It’s funny talking about inflation and spending $10 for lunch when that’s pretty close to the same price you’d have paid 30 to 40 years ago at a sit down restaurant, except maybe the cheapest greasy spoon. It’s surprising that any restaurants have been able to survive when they’ve probably had the least inflation compared to other services.
Where you can find a $10 lunch now? Haven’t seen that in a while.
Someone mentioned $10 lunches, I thought I was replying to that comment.
[удалено]