Is it just me, or have (local) restaurant prices gone way up?

[clifffaith]

I'm starting to feel like my dearly departed MIL. We'd take them out to dinner and she'd choose her meal by looking at the prices and choosing the cheapest item, whether that was what she wanted or not. If prices were too high for her she'd declare they weren't hungry and would just have soup.

Dinner at a Mexican restaurant, including two beers --$60; what happened to $40? Nice meal out for our anniversary -- $120, $25 of this was for a $14 martini and an $11 glass of wine; what happened to $80 buying a nice meal? Cliff brought a large pizza and a salad home on Wednesday. That used to be just over $20 -- his receipt, which is what set me off this morning, was $34. When we are traveling, we generally don't worry about prices. Dinner for two at Commander's Palace was $200, and we can't wait to go back. But at home I have a basis for comparison and it frosts my behind to see the prices so much higher than they were 10-12 years ago. I think I hear kids on my lawn, better get my cane and go wave it at them to chase them off.

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

When labor costs go up, so do restaurant prices.

 

[VacationForever]

If you want to eat out you just have to get used to ever increasing prices.

We eat out all our lunches and we used to pay $30 to $35 including tip. Now it is $35 to $40 at most places. We also enjoy lunch at higher end places like Tommy Bahamas and then we are looking at $60 for the 2 of us.

Now that we are retired we do try to have dinner at home at least 5 nights a week and that helps. Breakfast is usually at home.

 

[WVBaker]

Rising prices haven't ruined everything. A dime can still be used as a screwdriver.
Same as paying thirty dollars for the ten dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.

 

[silentg]

I still use coupons, groupons and restaurant.com have been good deals. Also look for places near my timeshare vacations to try, have found many good places this way.
Silentg

 

[WinniWoman]

Yes- you are right. Same with food in general. We rarely eat out. We might get Chinese take out once every couple of months or maybe a pizza. If we do eat out like when we are on vacations, we try to do an early bird- or have dinner for lunch. When we are on a road trip- I pack our lunch.

Of course, there are situations where we have no choice, like when our son is visiting with us at our timeshare we take him out maybe once or twice.

Alcohol is really a killer. So- I drink at home and eat at home or in our condo timeshare,

 

[CalGalTraveler]

We've noticed this too. We had pizza, salad and drinks at a local restaurant and it was $60 with tip. We have started to use takeout more to avoid having to pay extra for alcoholic drinks that we can make at home, and tips and save dining-in restaurant for special occasions.

 

[Luanne]

We try to find restaurants that are more "reasonable" (and reliable) and save the more expensive ones for special occasions.

 

[geist1223]

As more Local and State Governments adopt $15+ per hour minimum wages the cost of everything will be going up. Soon $800 per week will be the new Poverty level. Big Macs will cost $10.

 

[Passepartout]

I agree that eating out is getting more expensive, but across the board, serving sizes have also increased. Maybe our dietary needs have shrunk, but it seems that any more we order one entree and an extra side salad, and STILL take food home. There are still good values. We get 6 or 8 meals out of a Costco rotisserrie chicken. A Papa Murphy's large pizza feeds us for a day. Eating out, we've found that alcohol makes the price prohibitive- easily doubling the total tab for dinners. Drink water and go out twice as often.

Modifying what we order seems better than blaming restaurant workers who're just trying to make a living wage.

Jim

 

[Luanne]

I agree that eating out is getting more expensive, but across the board, serving sizes have also increased. Maybe our dietary needs have shrunk, but it seems that any more we order one entree and an extra side salad, and STILL take food home. There are still good values. We get 6 or 8 meals out of a Costco rotisserrie chicken. A Papa Murphy's large pizza feeds us for a day. Eating out, we've found that alcohol makes the price prohibitive- easily doubling the total tab for dinners. Drink water and go out twice as often.

Modifying what we order seems better than blaming restaurant workers who're just trying to make a living wage.

Jim

If you want to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner see if the restaurant you want to go to will allow you to bring your own in. Many will, they may charge a corkage fee, but it will bring dwon the cost.

 

[b2bailey]

Just last night enjoyed dinner at a moderately price restaurant in San Diego. Added a cup (not bowl) of their tortilla soup to my order. Was excellent, but was surprised it was an additional $4.95. This brought about discussing how even a meal of fast food will cost $10 or more if you order a beverage.

 

[clifffaith]

Our main criteria for a restaurant is "will it throw off leftovers"?! Our previous favorite Mexican, part of the Acapulco chain, was torn down along with our favorite early bird restaurant to obliterate the old Ports o' Call wharf area and build a new Public Market and esplanade. They did a real good job of destroying everything, and there it sits. I'm sure we'll be long gone to Carlsbad before they every get the new project built. Both of those gave us leftovers (Acapulco 2 days worth of leftovers if we stuffed ourselves with chips and salsa at the restaurant; the other restaurant had a huge salad bar that went with their choice of 4 entrees plus dessert and coffee for $13, so by the time we were done with fruit and salad and had a few bites of dinner, the rest went home with us). If we do eat Italian at the restaurant, rather than take out, our favorite Italian restaurant will feed us for two more days (lately I've been ordering meatballs, salad and bread to pick up, skipping the pasta all together). Chinese takeout also feeds us for three days. Actually so does eat in Chinese because the best deal is a meal that includes appetizers, rice and two main dishes -- so we are stuffed by the time we are done with the entrees.

 

[Rolltydr]

I'm starting to feel like my dearly departed MIL. We'd take them out to dinner and she'd choose her meal by looking at the prices and choosing the cheapest item, whether that was what she wanted or not. If prices were too high for her she'd declare they weren't hungry and would just have soup.

Dinner at a Mexican restaurant, including two beers --$60; what happened to $40? Nice meal out for our anniversary -- $120, $25 of this was for a $14 martini and an $11 glass of wine; what happened to $80 buying a nice meal? Cliff brought a large pizza and a salad home on Wednesday. That used to be just over $20 -- his receipt, which is what set me off this morning, was $34. When we are traveling, we generally don't worry about prices. Dinner for two at Commander's Palace was $200, and we can't wait to go back. But at home I have a basis for comparison and it frosts my behind to see the prices so much higher than they were 10-12 years ago. I think I hear kids on my lawn, better get my cane and go wave it at them to chase them off.

I’m right there with you. We also used to go out for lunch sometime instead of dinner in order to save money. Now, it’s not unusual for a nice lunch at Carrabbas or similar middle of the road restaurant to cost us $65-70.




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[Rolltydr]

As more Local and State Governments adopt $15+ per hour minimum wages the cost of everything will be going up. Soon $800 per week will be the new Poverty level. Big Macs will cost $10.

In many states, if not most, servers are not considered subject to minimum wage laws because they receive most of their income in tips. I believe they are paid a reduced hourly wage, sometimes as little as $3/hour, plus tips. And even for those that receive full minimum wage, they’re certainly not living a life of luxury. They have to pay the same prices to buy the same things all the rest of us do.


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[Luanne]

Our main criteria for a restaurant is "will it throw off leftovers"?!.

Our main criteria is.....how good is the food and service.

 

[PigsDad]

In many states, if not most, servers are not considered subject to minimum wage laws because they receive most of their income in tips. I believe they are paid a reduced hourly wage, sometimes as little as $3/hour, plus tips. And even for those that receive full minimum wage, they’re certainly not living a life of luxury. They have to pay the same prices to buy the same things all the rest of us do.

Even though their base pay can be below the minimum wage, I believe their total base+tips must be at least minimum wage, or the business has to make up the difference. Not 100% sure, but I thought I remember reading an article about that (and it could very well be state-specific).

The higher minimum wage is certainly affecting prices we pay in restaurants, but I agree those are still far from luxury-level wages.

Kurt

 

[bbodb1]

We definitely eat out less than we used to because (at least in our area) prices have increased, portions have decreased, and good service is extinct at the price points we are comfortable at (with).

Like most here, we are trying to stretch dollars as far as they can go and when a casual meal for 2 costs $40 I can't help but think what groceries I could have bought for that money and made those dollars stretch further. And, in many cases, likely enjoyed a better meal than what we had in the casual restaurant.

The other development around here that is definitely negative are the disappearance of dining 'specials'. There used to be a few special night (usually Mon / Tue / Wed) offers to attract crowds but these seem to have gone by the wayside. Groupon helps somewhat and so does Sam's Club (some restaurant chains offer discounted gift cards at Sam's - example: Old Chicago offers a set of 4 $25 gift cards for $80).

Our usual eating out these days is a local Chinese restaurant. We will order 3 meals for the 2 of us and have a Chinese buffet of sorts. But we usually get enough to make 3 or 4 lunches from the leftovers. For example we order Chicken Lo Mein, Hot and Sour Shrimp, and Black Pepper Chicken (3 complete meals), have our fill at supper and package the leftovers in tupperware containers for lunches the next few work days.

 

[mdurette]

Agreed.....we use to eat out ALOT, too much actually and we have just about stopped that for dinners now. No matter where we went, for the 3 of us (kid eating off kid menu) it was still north of $75. I even cringe at the amount of money we spend on groceries (about $200 a week, with sale items and coupons) but I always remind myself that in the end....we would spend that in just 2-3 dinners out.

The last meal we had "out" as a family was a night we went to Newport, RI for a night over the summer and ate at a mid-range restaurant. Kiddo got buttered pasta - $13! What the heck. .50 cents for the past and maybe .20 cents for the butter. Our bill $175 for the meal plus tip.

I too will look at ways to save if we do go out - groupon, restaurant.com, etc.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

True. We now eat lunch out more than dinner, and sometimes share plates. The sad part about the $60 pizza dinner I mentioned previously was although we bought a large pizza to bring home for leftovers, we actually split the salad!

 

[Glynda]

We also eat lunch out more than dinner. We eat at some restaurants during week days that have good happy hour deals. At a more expensive restaurant we often share a meal. Less expensive and fewer calories. We have a couple of local “ dives” with good food that we frequent too.

 

[missyrcrews]

This is why we'll eat one breakfast out a week when we timeshare, and that's it. All other meals are cooked in. Back when all 4 kids were home, it was cost prohibitive. Now, I just prefer to eat in. I'm wicked picky as are a couple of my kids, so I like that I can control what we eat.

 

[bluehende]

I have seen some creep here but no huge rise. The one exception does seem to be alcoholic beverages. In the last couple of years a beer went from 5 to 7.

 

[controller1]

. . . Dinner for two at Commander's Palace was $200, and we can't wait to go back. . . .

Yum.... Our favorite restaurant and we have a reservation in December.

 

[Rumpled]

In my area things have gone insane. Pretty much an average sit down place has a cheeseburger priced at $15 and pints run $7-9.
We eat out far too often as we are both busy working with an empty nest. When we do cook at home it usually means I eat the same leftovers three days in a row for lunch, at least saving a bit of $ there.