All these crazy price increases everywhere and inflation in general has finally hit us and we are cutting back on eating out, it’s not like we did a whole lot to begin with but usually we try to get out on a Friday night or Saturday night and go to a (formerly)moderately priced local restaurant or a chain restaurant or something but it’s gotten to the point where we can’t even do that anymore on a regular basis.

The little hole in the wall local Mexican place that we love is over $100 out the door now with tip for two adults and three kids. And that’s BYOB

Anyone else here starting to cut back?

We were infrequent before, but now it's more like maybe once a month.
Having a 2yr old makes it difficult on its own, sometimes.

Yes and when I do go out, it's to the cheaper places now...

As a kid we almost never went out to eat. Cutting back doesn’t really bother me much. It does bother the Mrs.

Since China-flu, I went from 4-5 times a week to probably only once every 4-5 weeks.

Costs have gone up, portions got smaller and quality has dropped.

Yeah, I can't even imagine the costs for families!

quote:

Anyone else here starting to cut back?

Yes, unfortunately.
I can give a couple very recent examples:
First, just normal bar with outside patio.
> Met a buddy, a couple beers each and a couple orders of shrimp appetizers - nothing special >>> $70
Second, took the wife to a New Orleans style place that does seafood.
A couple average entries, a couple of cocktails, a appetizer of oysters >>> $130 (normally would have been about half that with TIP!!)

Inflation, is killing us!

I have cut back drastically.
Recent fast food experience:
Whopper with cheese.
Small order of onion chips or "rings"
Medium drink. $14

Tend to do more Lunches out, rather than Dinners.

Yes. I used to eat out all the time for lunch. Then COVID, and places were not open for sit-down. Then price hikes. I now eat out for lunch only once a week or so.

My wife and have cut back some on nights out, but we never ate out not more than once every ten days or so, anyway. Now it is less. Often we go to cheap, local tacquerias or a local burger joint.

Before 6/2/ 2023
We were dining out three to five times per week.

For the last year we have cut back to
six times per month.
So yes, we cut back considerably.

I haven't cut back but, I do have an expense account for work and I've definitely noticed a change, both in costs and level of service. Work has not made it policy but, asked us to throttle-back on whom and how much we eat out.

I've got a handful of regular spots I'll take clients and overall costs have definitely escalated. Speaking with the owners and workers, their costs with suppliers have rocketed upwards, along with a shrinking base of suppliers, as some have closed shop, resulting in less options for restaurants to source the food stuffs they need. The other is less people willing to work in food service, either bartenders or, serving.

Pandemic stupidity put a number of locations out of business initially, then the bungling of restrictions, distancing and limitations of both CARES & PPP loans/grants pushed another bunch over the edge into closure.

Yes, tweaking my spending in all areas.

Yes, definitely less. Similar to jhe888.
Higher prices, lower quality. Inflation killed eating out.

It has gotten so bad that the sexual position formerly know as 69 has been renamed 96 because of the increased cost of eating out.

We’ve drastically cut back. It’s the prime area for us to reduce discretionary spending.

The wife has gone out with friends a couple of times to celebrate birthdays, but so far this year we’ve only gone out to eat once.

We do pizza, carry-out, or dining out once-a-week, most weeks. Occasionally twice. That's all we've ever done.

We are going to have to now.

I receivd notice last week that my position will be getting cut at the beginning of October. At least I'll be getting a decent severance package since I've been at the company 17 years. Just going to suck finding a job with comperable pay.

Groceries have gone up too. But agreed that eating out is yet even more expensive.

Yes, we've cut back, mostly because we're eating less, and the quality of food and service for the increase in price, what used to be reasonable is now doubled and the service and quality hasn't improved.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I have cut back drastically.
Recent fast food experience:
Whopper with cheese.
Small order of onion chips or "rings"
Medium drink. $14

I used to stop every once in a while on my way to work at McDonald's for two of their little breakfast burritos and a large iced coffee. They originally used to be $1 each, then were 2 for $3 I think. Total bill was like $4-$5

I was going through for a coffee recently and saw that the breakfast burritos were now 2 for $6.99. The hell with that!