Since we are not — by any figment of anyone's imagination — "well off," eating out has long been more of a treat than a matter of convenience in our world.
One of 
The other day, we were out on a day trip with a friend... and I am really glad we packed a cooler with snacks from home, because the couple of places we stopped and considered having a burger/sandwich were just outrageously expensive!
I mean $18.95 for a basic burger and fries (not "fast food") to which you get to add the cost of a drink and tax and tip?
What is HAPPENING, folks???
On our way home, my wife and I contemplated when the last time we actually ate out might have been... and we were truly at a bit of a loss, because it had been that long. Probably close to a year.
Sign of the times.
Then we remembered that we grabbed some Chinese food on the way to a New Year's shindig. Chinese food — which I recall as always being "the economical option" in the past — for three came to about $80.
I found myself thinking about this in the context of Valentine's Day coming up in a couple of days, and recognizing (sadly) that the idea of "going out for a special dinner" is completely off the table.
We're OK with that, of course, because battling a crowd on one of the busiest restaurant days of the year is not really our activity of choice, at the best of times.
Interlude
In my wanderings about ye olde Interwebz yesterday, I came across an online friend's blog post.
He actually lives in New Zealand, but is currently traveling for business in Australia. He'd checked into his hotel room, had some time to spare and decided he wanted to have a steak.
He wandered the area a bit (suburban Geelong, Victoria) in an effort to get in his daily 10,000 steps and also determined that a steak dinner would set him back $60, not unlike our own recent eye-opening day trip outing.
So he opted for a $15 steak from a nearby supermarket, which he then grilled at a local park (evidently, free BBQ grills are a fairly common thing in Australian parks) and ate right there.
This man is not poor.
My point here is that the prices of everything dining and entertainment related continues to rapidly ratchet up and it seems like we are increasingly bumping into people's "reality threshold" with respect to what a dinner out is actually worth to them.
In this case, a business traveler determined that a steak dinner was not worth $60 and took alternative steps.
The world is changing.
Meanwhile, people worry that more and more cinemas are shutting down for good, in part due to the proliferation of streaming services. I can't help but think that the simple fact that the price of a movie + snacks approaching $30 per person is playing into that, as well.
Interlude
Last time we were in Seattle, visiting our daughter (33) and son-in-law, we got on the subject of cost-of-living, and how they were really struggling to make ends meet, in spite of both of them having stable well-paying jobs.
Of course, we soon discovered that part of the trouble had to do with their "convenience food habit," developed during Covid lockdowns... but then they never quit.
Getting Taco Bell or Olive Garden via Uber Eats or Door Dash on a regular basis will — pardon the expression — eat your lunch, financially speaking.
Until we actually showed them — numbers on paper — how much they were spending on the convenience of "eating out, at home" they refused to believe it was having much impact on their lives and pocketbooks.
Since then, our daughter has become far more enthusiastic about grocery shopping and cooking at home.
Of course, lots of people head down the road they were on by perceived necessity. In a sense, it's a vicious cycle because you feel like to have to work so much to fund your life, and then you don't have time and energy left over to cook, so you order in for convenience's sake, which costs more, so you have to work even more to fund it.
Sometimes we forget that we do get to "vote with our dollars," in deciding how we want our world to turn out. And we do live in a world in which businesses pay far more attention to what you're doing with your wallet, than to what words are coming out of your mouth!
That's just how it is!
Interlude
Something tells me that this ultimately doesn't bode well for the dining and entertainment industry, at least not as it exists at this point in time.
When I was a kid — 50+ years ago — eating out was a treat for special occasions, and cooking and eating at home was the norm.
Then our seeming obsession with working and "having at all" likely gave rise to this huge foodservice industry that probably wasn't really long-term sustainable. At least if a 20-year trend is anything to go by... the number of restaurant outlets per capita has been dropping in the USA for quite a while now. And will likely continue to drop.
And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing!
Thanks for visiting, and have a great rest of your week!
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Created at 2024-02-12 15:45 PST
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