Diners are skipping restaurants and making more meals at home as inflation...

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That might reflect you, your business model and price point of your restaurants more than inflation or demand.

I’m seeing restaurants close every week or 2 in Toronto. Hours were shortened during 2020, and they have stayed short.

I’d say half the trendy indie restaurants in Toronto only are open Thu to Sunday. Most indie breakfast restaurants don’t open until 9 am these day, when they would have been open at 7 or 8 20 years ago. Of course, more people rely on fast food and coffee shop breakfasts during the week, now.

Some fancy restaurants have been reinventing themselve as wine bars, which seems to be working for some of them.

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It’s interesting to see the demographics at restaurants in Toronto.

The baby boomers and silent gen are still going out (in Canada). A few post on our HO board, and I see many out at some bistros where I live. Lunch time is more popular with the 80 and up set here, because traffic is horrendous at rush hour and driving can be more difficult at night. Restaurants are also louder and busier at night, so lunch is a better bet for many people who are older , don’t want a crowd, might want a smaller portion.

I think I see more 25-35 yo diners because they’re still in the phase where they’re trying to meet a partner.

Once my GenX friends were mostly married and mostly having kids, apart from one 10 person group of friends I met through Chowhound (some single, some married), most people I knew were less interested in dining out.

I found new single friends to do dining out with, but I’m less available for dining out. A lot of restaurant food gives me hives, and I’m sensitive to some salts and preservatives, and I’ve become fussier, so dining out isn’t as much fun as it once was.

While I’m lucky in terms of budget, I don’t feel like paying some prices I’m seeing. Burgers and fries are around $28 before tax and tip at restaurants with servers. I’ll pay that, but I’m not ready to pay $35 for a burger and fries, when more and more people are having trouble paying for their groceries.

There’s a food bank 500 m south of a fancy pastry shop ($9 croissants , $15 loaves of bread, open Thu to Sunday , 9 to 4 to save on labour) in my neighborhood, and they both have lines of 25 patrons on Saturday morning. It’s grim.

Now, with the current economy, most of my friends prefer cheaper restaurants. My friend and her partner, who bought a big house in 2011, in anticipation of kids, which unfortunately did not happen, so they are a dual income household no kids, with good jobs, who still travel and buy nice shoes, complain about the price of French bistros in Toronto. They eat at home but go to Aruba and Scandinavia on vacation.

The main Gen X group in Toronto I know who continue to dine out at fancy places frequently are former Chowhounds.

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I think the majority of users here are a subset of very fortunate people, i.e. having reliable online access, in some cases seemingly endless free time to post at all hours (retirees? people ‘working’ at home? :smile:), affluent enough to report on fancy and not so fancy dinners, traveling the world at length, etc. etc. — you catch my drift.

I am well aware of just how fortunate and privileged we are, especially compared to around 98% of the rest of the world.

How we spend what money we have is a personal decision. We don’t go out more or less frequently, although we have cut down on high-end dining, but that was many, many years ago. I may roll my eyes at how much someone spends on a watch, and that person may not understand how I could spend more than a $20 on a meal. As I said, it’s about one’s own, personal priorities, and yes, we are incredibly lucky to be able to choose. It’s good to be aware of one’s privilege.

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Well, an under-explored aspect of the analyses of the restaurant market is that less-expensive restaurants have been increasingly punching above their weight. There really aren’t any hard quality ceilings anymore. LOTS of itinerant cooks of various levels of training who wax entreprenurial, and offer excellent food at low-overhead prices. It’s the silver lining of the Church of Food Celebrity, IMO.

If you can get outstanding food and food experiences for less, why wouldn’t anyone?

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Most of my friends are okay with mediocre food for less. They are focused on the less. If the food is amazing , that’s a bonus

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There is that. Wahine is from a big town in a rural state that has managed to expunge all good food. The sorting mechanism is exclusively largest serving portion for the least price. Has been since time immemorial.

Challenge: Where is Fry’n Pan?

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An article from one of the restaurant inspectors employed by the UK’s Good Food Guide:

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There are two factors affecting my dine out habits. I’ve always cooked a lot at home to save. Going out with friends was the main driver for eating out, as was take out for lunch at work. Now, 4 years older, we’re hitting that age where we just don’t go out as often. We’re at the “I like being home by 8pm and start falling asleep by 9pm phase…” of life. Inflation is just part of that equation; I’m in that generation too that they keep telling us we haven’t saved enough for retirement.

Post pandemic, the lunch deliveries thing has gone bust. I’m hybrid and do occasional take out, but working in a very expensive neighborhood pretty much killed that! I do an occasional indulgence, but it’s few and far between. Even the food trucks - which I was sampling out of curiosity in the summer - were easily costing $10-15 for fairly simple foods. I bring my lunch on most weeks now; the cost for a Chipotle or a Shake Shack will easily run $15 bucks if you order a drink with that.

The few times I have intentionally made plans to try out new restaurants have been high-end places that I’m not replicating at home or new places that serve something new and unique to the area. Gone are the casual nights that I’m happy to grab something for home or eat out before getting home. I’m tired and I always want to be home.

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Before the pandemic,we ate out four or five times a week. During the pandemic, we didn’t eat out, but did Chinese take-out every few weeks (which we never did before). By the time the pandemic was over, we were 1) out of the habit, and 2) beset with health issues (due to age) that made eating out difficult.

I will say that seeing prices immediately go up by a third at one restaurant did freak me out. (They had just remodeled right before COVID-19.) Other restaurants have also fallen off my list even for take-out when I see their prices for what we order go up 50% over only a couple of years. I do see increases every year at my favorite Chinese restaurants, but they’re a bit more gradual. So it’s a combination of things for us.

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We’ve never been big restaurant eaters and when we do, it is typically for lunch and to try food I don’t make at home. When my kids were younger and I was working in an office, the last thing I wanted to do was to go out when I got home. Much rather make quick burritos, pasta, or a crock pot full of whatever. Now that kids are grown and I work from home, I use my lunch hour or boring web meetings to prep meals. It relaxes me. Also, money. We’re not poor but the DC area is expensive and $30/person (with a draft beer) is low end. No can do that on the regular.

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That’s very cheap for my part of the world. A cheap meal out for us would be the equivalent of 50USD per person.

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Britain, in my experience, is usually twice as expensive as Canada and most parts of the US outside the biggest cities (the ones I know best are NYC and San Francisco, and to a lesser degree, Boston and DC. My last visit was 5 nights in DC)

So, this checks out. :slight_smile:

Often, the numbers on the menus look around the same , because the GBP is usually somewhere around 2 to 2.5 CAD.

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That is for our local vietnamese place, bowl of pho, maybe a shared app. The nicer sit down places are well north of that.

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I am always amazed the Vietnamese restaurants can keep their prices where they are. Someone recently wrote about the $5 CAD banh mis in Toronto’s Chinatown,

when the going rate for most other sandwiches and wraps is around $12 -$15 CAD . That said, the banh mi I like most is a $12 Banh Mi at an upscale Vietnamese coffee shop. .

I live near a Vietnamese neighborhood, and I can get a grilled pork chop with rice for $14 CAD, when pastas and nearby are selling for $28 CAD.

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Playing on food forums like this for several years, I’ve often thought that a forum should develop it’s own currency definition to deal with comparisons . Straight comparisons don’t take into account taxes (both business and personal), tipping culture, wages and other business expenses. The best global currency I’ve thought of would be the “Forum McD” - a unit cost of the average minutes work needed to buy a Big Mac.

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It’s a rough estimate I use so I can enjoy my time in the UK, without conversion shock. I realize there are differences, in cost of living, tax systems, and anything else.

The going rate is the going rate, wherever you are. I sometimes pinch pennies while travelling, by getting some of my meals at grocery stores , outdoor /indoor markets, or bakeries.

I want to enjoy my visits, so when it comes to resto meals, I order in a similar way to how I would order in Canada, in terms of midrange or slightly upscale restaurants, and pay whatever it costs locally.

With respect to Wendy’s, Starbucks, McD’s and Burger King, I use their bathrooms while abroad, but rarely buy their food. I am intrigued by their menus and relative prices, so I might snap a photo. I might buy a drink. If I buy fast food or chains, I try to seek out the local fast food or chains rather than the multinational.

7 11 in Japan was my exception to my rule. :grinning:

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Even my favorite local banh mi shops (mom and pop version) run $6-7 USD these days, and they come pretty stuffed with the protein and veggies/pickles/herb toppings. Still a bargain compared to your average higher volume casual lunch spots. My work neighborhood has sandwiches going in the $10-15 range. Their plain grilled cheese is $7. I was just browsing a nearby food hall places - and granted, a fancy food hall - and they had a “high end” banh mi going for $14-16. Crazy.

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My upscale coffee shop banh mi , that is made to order, that runs $12 CAD, is roughly twice as big as the $5- $6 CAS Chinatown Banh Mis, I think. It’s enough for 2 meals.

I haven’t found a Chinatown version in Toronto that I like a lot, yet. There are some shops I plan to check out soon.

That said, the coffee shop is charging tax, the lattes are $6, and their customer base is tipping more, so a big posh banh mi and a coffee at a coffee shop will be $20 CAD, including tax and tip, whereas a cash only banh mi and coffee might cost $10 in Chinatown or in a Vietnamese neighbourhood.

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I find the fancy food hall and regular food courts in malls and financial districts are often charging a minimum of $20 CAD per meal in Toronto now.

The take-out sandwich from an indie diner, bakery or pizza shop , or a falafel/shawarma/ souvlaki in a pita/ laffa is often better bang for buck than the fancy food hall or food court.

There are some Asian and Latin food courts in some neighborhoods that offer a lot more value, but they tend to be out of the way.

I haven’t really been going to food halls or food courts much, in Toronto, in the last 5 years or so.

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From Canada, today https://x.com/CP24/status/1843483451238097176

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