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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

#21

Post by rhelz »

rexpop wrote: post #17
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?

There have been substantial wage increases, in a rather tight labor market. Both of these factors would conspire to limit scalability: if you can’t find more workers or if they are too expensive, you can’t scale.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#22

Post by rhelz »

gruez wrote: post #16
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" wen…

Hmmmm…….if I understand correctly, fast food prices have increased faster than general CPI? This could be explainable by fast food prices returning to historical norms, after being abnormally low, no?

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#23

Post by tpmoney »

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 can't speak for the OP, and I realize fast food is probably at the worst end of this, but I'd settle for things like:

1) Getting my order right >2/3 of the time.

2) Not having to repeat my order 3 times because the employee taking it is either stoned out of their mind or distracted fighting (sometimes literally) with their co-worker

3) Getting my order to me before it's cold

The only positive of the "eating out" experience post pandemic has been that I'm very quickly running out of places I feel like spending the money they're asking for to get the service they're providing so it's helping me save money. But it's still frustrating none the less.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#24

Post by kjkjadksj »

resolutebat wrote: post #14
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.

Well if its priced higher now with the expectation that some users are subsidized that kind of screws up its utility when comparing to times or places that don’t have that system, if it was originally some proxy for food prices and cost of living.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#25

Post by [deleted] »

1letterunixname wrote: post #19

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 ord…

[deleted]

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#26

Post by x0x0 »

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'm not expecting employees to dote. I'm expecting them not to be morons who can't get the order right, bring the food cold, or (a recent experience), notice when they charged everything on the bill twice. It's not rocket science to glance at a $300+ bill for a table that had one appetizer, 2 mains, and 2 or 3 drinks and wonder if that's right. Or don't leave food on the table and us with no silverware.

As other people have said, I'm cooking a lot more, so that's good.

The $55 + tip pizza place that's under a half mile away started bringing the pizza cold, so that's more savings.

I'm not being rude, I tip well, etc. But I'm not paying 20 - 25% for the above.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#27

Post by datavirtue »

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.

Um...you used to be able to get by on the wages. The baby-boomer population shrinkage is coming home to roost.

Re: The High Cost of Eating Out in America

#30

Post by op00to »

x0x0 wrote: post #26
whoiscroberts wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm not expecting employees to dote. I'm expecting them not to be morons who can't get the order right, bring the food cold, or (a recent experience), notice when they charged everything on the bill twice. It's not rocket science to glance at a $300+ bill for a table that had one appetizer, 2 mains, and 2 or 3 drinks and wonder if that's right. Or don't leave food on the table and us with no silverware. As other peop…

Maybe start with not thinking of wait staff as morons. They are imperfect human beings too.
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