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The High Cost of Eating Out in America

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Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#11

Post by artwr »

tmnvix wrote: post #5
darth_avocado wrote: post #3

Pre pandemic, sit down prices were $16-22 for mains and $28-30 if you're ordering something really fancy like fresh fish or a steak (non steakhouse). If you go out now, a simple pasta will cost you 20+ and the fancier ones go north of $40. Eating out is now a luxury. But at the same time, fast food is also not cheap. Ordering for two from Burger King or Wendy's or Chipotle can easily cross $40 if you're not careful.

Not being from the US, it would be helpful if you could include some extra context here. Do these prices include taxes and expected tips? Edit to add: Those prices do sound expensive compared with here in NZ. I would currently expect to pay all up about 20-30nzd and maybe 25-40nzd for fish or steak. Fast food has also become similarly expensive here relative to other options. This is after some pretty steep inflation…

I live in the bay area, but yes a main is $15-25+ and anything fancy can go to ~$50. You need to add 9-10% sales tax + 15-20% tip.

That's pretty pricey.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#12

Post by fknorangesite »

tmnvix wrote: post #5
darth_avocado wrote: post #3

Pre pandemic, sit down prices were $16-22 for mains and $28-30 if you're ordering something really fancy like fresh fish or a steak (non steakhouse). If you go out now, a simple pasta will cost you 20+ and the fancier ones go north of $40. Eating out is now a luxury. But at the same time, fast food is also not cheap. Ordering for two from Burger King or Wendy's or Chipotle can easily cross $40 if you're not careful.

Not being from the US, it would be helpful if you could include some extra context here. Do these prices include taxes and expected tips? Edit to add: Those prices do sound expensive compared with here in NZ. I would currently expect to pay all up about 20-30nzd and maybe 25-40nzd for fish or steak. Fast food has also become similarly expensive here relative to other options. This is after some pretty steep inflation…

No, these would be prices listed on the menu; i.e., excluding taxes and tip.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#13

Post by whoiscroberts »

costanzaDynasty wrote: post #4

I don't eat out because I'm chronically cheap. But after I stopped drinking magically the cost of eating out came down to Earth. But post Pandy, it's not just the cost of eating out. It's also the service, if you can find any. Most restaurants are wildly understaffed and the staff is terrible. I've worked service jobs most of my life before switching to tech so I understand more than most how rude customers are and h…

I eat out all the time at cheap and expensive restaurants and don’t have trouble finding service, I guess if you need the employees to dote over you that could be a problem but I just order eat the food and leave. What sort of service are you searching for?

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#14

Post by resolutebat »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #2

The big mac index seems a bit trickier to calculate now that mcdonalds app users pay half price for one.

The Big Mac Index has always measured the base/undiscounted price of a single burger, which has always been comparatively expensive compared to getting a set meal.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#15

Post by NaOH »

Costs in all major areas have increased. The cost of goods has gone up. That’s the ingredients, beverages (alcoholic or not), and indirect items (linens, silverware, dish soap, etc.). The cost of transporting the goods to establishments has gone up. Not just fuel, but the labor in warehouses and driving vehicles, not to mention maintaining those vehicles (usually semi trailers). The cost of real estate has generally gone up where food establishments are located. The cost of labor has gone up, not just in the restaurants but also the industries that service or supply restaurants. It would be impressive if the cost of eating out hadn’t gone up.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#16

Post by gruez »

rhelz wrote: post #8

Fast food prices have been unhistorically low for a few decades, due to a combination of increasing worker productivity and suppressed demand due to the great recession. Three bean burritos at Taco bell costs $1.89 where I lived from 1992 through about 2011. Far, far cheaper than I could make bean burritos myself, especially as a single man cooking for one. It was a godsend while I was a starving grad student, but le…

> Fast food prices have been unhistorically low for a few decades, due to a combination of increasing worker productivity and suppressed demand due to the great recession.

This does not seem to be borne by the data. Looking at BLS's CPI data, we see that the "Limited service meals and snacks" category went up by 30% since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile the CPI as a whole only went up 20%, and "food at home" went up by 27%.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#17

Post by rexpop »

rhelz wrote: post #8

Fast food prices have been unhistorically low for a few decades, due to a combination of increasing worker productivity and suppressed demand due to the great recession. Three bean burritos at Taco bell costs $1.89 where I lived from 1992 through about 2011. Far, far cheaper than I could make bean burritos myself, especially as a single man cooking for one. It was a godsend while I was a starving grad student, but le…

> cheaper than I could make... as a single man cooking for one

I don't understand. Why should economies of scale ever expire?

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#18

Post by toomuchtodo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
costanzaDynasty wrote: post #4

I don't eat out because I'm chronically cheap. But after I stopped drinking magically the cost of eating out came down to Earth. But post Pandy, it's not just the cost of eating out. It's also the service, if you can find any. Most restaurants are wildly understaffed and the staff is terrible. I've worked service jobs most of my life before switching to tech so I understand more than most how rude customers are and h…

>This is a pre-primed anger toward the customer. It is just supply and demand. The price for evening/weekend/overnight labor was only low due to do high supply of labor relative to demand.

An economic system where people can only get closer to living wages now that surplus labor has left the labor force through death and retirement should expect forward looking challenges, to say the least.

We can only hope the labor supply tightens further if that’s the only way some cohorts will see quality of life improvements. Prices are approaching true costs, very similar to how insurance prices are recalibrating towards proper pricing for climate risk. There is no guarantee discounted prices persist (energy, labor, insurance, etc).

https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/the-missing-workers-who-are...

https://www.axios.com/2022/12/01/jay-powell-explains-america...

https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-boomer-retirement-surge...

https://www.axios.com/2023/05/08/us-labor-shortage-older-wor...

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/03/a-deep-dive-into-the-labor-...

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/27/labor-shortages-air-traffic...

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#19

Post by 1letterunixname »

In Austin, most of the restaurants suck and are expensive. Even the pizza is terrible. Tacos are everywhere, but burritos not so much. There are a few good places. But there's really no point when I can cook better than 99% of them.

A similar situation is true with meal delivery because DoorDash and Favor drivers deliver cold, shitty, expensive food that's often wrong. They suck.

Regular Amazon can barely deliver order 30% of the time, with most packages being stolen or discarded by the drivers, and 50% of the time they are delivered in the wrong place in public areas. So I don't use Amazon.

Oh, and Whole Foods, despite being headquartered here, carries very little diversity of items. You can't even get actual pita bread or lavash at the Whole Foods' flagship store. It's bland and optimized for profits because most Whole Foods shoppers in Austin aren't all that sophisticated but have money to burn.

H-E-B does a bit better, but it's essentially a big box store with aisles of unhealthy food in enormous quantities.

Trader Joe's (Aldi Nord) is about the only decent grocer in town.

California has infinitely more choices and there's nothing like Berkeley Bowl in Austin with Wheatsville being a tiny shop compared to the "Whole Earth Access"-adjacent Berkeley Bowl.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#20

Post by op00to »

whoiscroberts wrote: post #13
costanzaDynasty wrote: post #4

I don't eat out because I'm chronically cheap. But after I stopped drinking magically the cost of eating out came down to Earth. But post Pandy, it's not just the cost of eating out. It's also the service, if you can find any. Most restaurants are wildly understaffed and the staff is terrible. I've worked service jobs most of my life before switching to tech so I understand more than most how rude customers are and h…

I eat out all the time at cheap and expensive restaurants and don’t have trouble finding service, I guess if you need the employees to dote over you that could be a problem but I just order eat the food and leave. What sort of service are you searching for?

I too have not had bad experience with wait staff at restaurants. I am polite and the staff is polite back.
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