Two small salads and two small drinks came to 31.00 dollars.

On the surface, it does seem high.

I wish that American restaurants posted their menus outside like many Canadian and European restaurants do so you could get a feel for the foods being offered and the prices being charged before entering.
 

Aunt Bea said:
On the surface, it does seem high.

I wish that American restaurants posted their menus outside like many Canadian and European restaurants do so you could get a feel for the foods being offered and the prices being charged before entering.
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Wow, don't you get a menu with prices included posted outside the restaurant in the USA?

@Robert 2 salads and 2 drinks would easily cost £30 here .... depending on what the drinks were , they alone could cost that never mind the salad
 
Aunt Bea said:
On the surface, it does seem high.

I wish that American restaurants posted their menus outside like many Canadian and European restaurants do so you could get a feel for the foods being offered and the prices being charged before entering.
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I've asked to see menus before being seated, and once seated & given menus have walked out.
 
Pepper said:
I've asked to see menus before being seated, and once seated & given menus have walked out.
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that's ridiculous .. no restaurant should put you in a position like that. You should be able to see before you enter whether they have the food you wish to eat and the price......and am I right in thinking you don't get your table for all evening or all afternoon?.. I've heard of ''table-turning '' in the USA because the waiting staff rely on tips..is that correct ?
 
In a restaurant, you're paying for the food, the servers, cooks, dishwashers, busboys, rent, inspection fees, insurance, dishes, flatware, & Worker's Comp premiums.

Well......at least that's what the owner would say...... :giggle:
 
hollydolly said:
that's ridiculous .. no restaurant should put you in a position like that. You should be able to see before you enter whether they have the food you wish to eat and the price......and am I right in thinking you don't get your table for all evening or all afternoon?.. I've heard of ''table-turning '' in the USA because the waiting staff rely on tips..is that correct ?
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What's correct in NYC is the restaurants have all been closed for indoor seating and so many are going bust. The food business is hard enough to be successful in good times, as you know. My heart aches for these folks who put every last penny for their places to succeed.

However, that's not what you asked! Yeah, certain places want quick turnovers for profit reasons but mostly not. Waitstaff do rely on tips that they must usually share with busboys, etc. or crooked managers.
 
hollydolly said:
that's ridiculous .. no restaurant should put you in a position like that. You should be able to see before you enter whether they have the food you wish to eat and the price......and am I right in thinking you don't get your table for all evening or all afternoon?.. I've heard of ''table-turning '' in the USA because the waiting staff rely on tips..is that correct ?
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It depends on the restaurant and how busy it is.

We have one small old very spendy neighborhood restaurant that encourages you to give up your table by asking if you would like to join them at the bar for an after-dinner drink. It's definitely worth the cost of a complimentary round of drinks for them to be able to squeeze in another seating.
 
Back before the early 1990s, most of us engineers would go out to lunch every day. We didn't go to expensive places since some of the people knew of hole-in-the-wall places where the food was good and reasonably priced. However, somewhere in the early to mid-90s, we noticed prices going up a bit more than we wanted to spend, so most of us soon started bringing our own lunches and stopped going out to eat except for the occasional special occasion. This trend has been going on for some time.

Since my wife and I only go out to eat once every couple of weeks, and then usually to lunch rather than dinner, we notice the price trend too. It seems to me to be a Catch-22 situation in which the restaurant owners need to charge more to make ends meet as their costs increase and (currently due to COVID-19) customer base shrinks, but at the same time, more people reach a point at which they can't (or won't, as in our case) afford those prices.

Despite all that, when restaurants are allowed to have indoor seating, we see them rather full anyway, so somebody has the money for this kind of expense. I look at it and figure for what one glass of beverage costs when eating out, I can buy a whole week's supply or even more. For what one meal costs, I can feed myself for several days. In the end, it comes down to your spending priorities. Eating out has simply not been a priority for us, so it is relatively easy for a restaurant to price us off their list of customers.

Edit: at some point, the market should be self-correcting, in which prices reach a point where the customer base falls off and the restaurant must adjust its practices such that they can bring prices down to a point at which customers start coming back. Of course, this picture would be of pre-COVID times. With COVID-19, it would be very difficult to determine where that price point is since basic survival overshadows normal business and market developments.

Tony
 
Robert59 said:
This was at a restaurant called Gondola which I think was real high. What do you think about this? We mainly went because it had very few people.
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It's a flat-out rip-off, Robert.

One of the many reasons dear husband and I refuse to entertain the likes of going out.

Restaurant prices haven't gotten stupid, they are stupid.
 
tbeltrans said:
Back before the early 1990s, most of us engineers would go out to lunch every day. We didn't go to expensive places since some of the people knew of hole-in-the-wall places where the food was good and reasonably priced. However, somewhere in the early to mid-90s, we noticed prices going up a bit more than we wanted to spend, so most of us soon started bringing our own lunches and stopped going out to eat except for the occasional special occasion. This trend has been going on for some time.

Since my wife and I only go out to eat once every couple of weeks, and then usually to lunch rather than dinner, we notice the price trend too. It seems to me to be a Catch-22 situation in which the restaurant owners need to charge more to make ends meet as their costs increase and (currently due to COVID-19) customer base shrinks, but at the same time, more people reach a point at which they can't (or won't, as in our case) afford those prices.

Despite all that, when restaurants are allowed to have indoor seating, we see them rather full anyway, so somebody has the money for this kind of expense. I look at it and figure for what one glass of beverage costs when eating out, I can buy a whole week's supply or even more. For what one meal costs, I can feed myself for several days. In the end, it comes down to your spending priorities. Eating out has simply not been a priority for us, so it is relatively easy for a restaurant to price us off their list of customers.

Edit: at some point, the market should be self-correcting, in which prices reach a point where the customer base falls off and the restaurant must adjust its practices such that they can bring prices down to a point at which customers start coming back. Of course, this picture would be of pre-COVID times. With COVID-19, it would be very difficult to determine where that price point is since basic survival overshadows normal business and market developments.

Tony
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I remember when a balance point was reached, where eating out was just marginally more than eating at home... late 90's if I remember correctly, but it didn't last long before the expense of eating out began spinning out of control.
 
Aunt Marg said:
I remember when a balance point was reached, where eating out was just marginally more than eating at home... late 90's if I remember correctly, but it didn't last long before the expense of eating out began spinning out of control.
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I don't recall that balance point, but may have missed it since by then, we (both at work and home) were not going out much anymore.

Tony
 
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