It’s not just the price, it’s the service and the quality.
I think many are happy to pay the going rate for food, but when it’s often a worse quality than what you can get from a premium supermarket and served to you like you’re an inconvenience, it doesn’t leave you wanting to rush out.
k1m404 on
Honestly it feels like everything in the UK is designed to rinse you at this point – whether it’s grabbing a simple lunch, taking the kids out for a day or even just something spontaneous (grabbing a coffee on the way to the station for instance – a Venti Ube Vanilla Latte at Starbucks is £6.35!!!!!!), the prices are ridiculous for what you actually get.
You end up second-guessing every decision because nothing feels like decent value anymore, and what used to be normal, affordable treats now feel like borderline luxury purchases. It’s not even about being reckless with money, it’s that the baseline cost of *existing* and doing ordinary things has crept up so much that you’re constantly weighing up whether it’s worth it and more often than not, it just isn’t – rip off Britian continues!
DTFDownToFrolick on
Here’s an example that affects me. Soft play, great fun (for them) and a solid way to tire your kids out. It costs me £13 just for 2 kids. You can only stay an hour and on Saturdays they shut at 2pm! On a Saturday?! Anyway. Rant over.
PapaJrer on
Article about the first family to go to Pizza Express without a voucher since 2001.
Brother-Executor on
We’re in a doom loop – you can’t afford to go out for a treat, weekly shops are too expensive, ALL bills are up…
People have to cut back…companies close due to lack of spending by consumers, jobs lost, rinse and repeat.
This is catastrophic and those in charge refuse to take accountability.
capedhamster on
Plenty of places that do deals on days out or even just make your own day out. Pack some food from Lidl etc, there’s parks, discounted unfamiliar theme parks, little cafes still about that do way cheaper food, Sunday movies for 5 quid at cinemas. Stop giving to the big places and start giving to the little ones. Everything doesn’t have to cost a bomb.
EngageWarp9 on
I’m sorry but if you’re buying lunch at Costa, you can’t complain about the prices. Go to an actual food establishment, rather than a coffee shop that happens to own a bread warming oven.
Harrry-Otter on
Pizza express for four is £174?! Parents really are screwed.
Bounty_drillah on
Chains like Costa in prime locations are always going to be pricey. It’s like getting lunch at a motorway services.
For my family growing up, eating out was always a treat instead of an every weekend type of thing and that was just out of principle.
callsignhotdog on
I genuinely blame this on energy. Domestic energy prices go up, people have no choice but to pay it, so they cut back on going out, hospitality industry suffers. At the same time, businesses energy bills go up so they have to increase prices. Private energy suppresses growth AND drives inflation, screwing us from both ends. It will not get better until the entire thing, extraction, generation and transmission, is nationalised and run as a utility. Doesn’t have to run at a loss even, just cut out the profit margin and pass the savings from renewable generation on to the consumer. You deliver a huge drop in bills that makes people feel immediately better off, growth leaps as businesses become viable again, Labour goes up 20 points in the polls.
jrw777 on
The doom loop is inevitable. Wait until next week when minimum wage rises yet again, prices shoot up and wage compression ramps up.
There’s no stopping it now. Small businesses will continue to fall to the hand of the mega corps.
duranran on
I remember pizza express being pretty swish in the 90s. Dark, moody and the margarita was banging.
Dial-Appreciator on
A hot chocolate at the park is enough when you want to avoid the rinsing these days. Play areas are free, choco is affordable and a packed lunch is cheaper
JROBOTO on
I don’t understand how businesses can’t seem to see where this is going… Prices going up, quality going down, less people buying luxuries day by day. Surely it’s not sustainable for any industry
boendes95 on
An interesting point in the article is when it says Costa still made an overall loss last year on the books. Yes I know it’s likely that there may be a bit of creative accounting going on to avoid paying corp tax but anecdotally I was in my local Costa the other week and got chatting to the manager mentioning that they seem to be in every day when I walk past.
He said there’s only him and one other on full time contracts and he’s had to massively slash shifts for all of his other staff as there’s no footfall to justify it any more.
I suppose it’s chicken and egg if high pieces keep customers away or if less customers mean having to try and gouge the ones that do come in to keep the lights on, but it was at least moderately interesting that the article seems to support the view that these high prices aren’t just going into massive profits
Wentzina_lifetime on
The article also says that they spent 175 quid at pizza express for 4 people (with two young kids). If you’re spending that much for chain pizza then you have your priorities wrong
InAcquaVeritas on
So you don’t eat out, you eat in…. And you get rinsed on food shopping and bills (extra electricity for cooking etc). The government puts its Robin Hood cape on and comes to the rescue but you’re in the middle so you don’t qualify so you just keep on working everyday just for the privilege if getting rinsed…. Then they wonder why people rush out the door.
JackStrawWitchita on
A day out in Blackpool for a family of 4 costs:
£140 for wristbands to Blackpool Pleasure Beach
£100 for cheap burgers and chips lunch
£15 for parking
£20 for petrol
£50 for ice creams, treats etc.
A family of 4 is looking at upwards of £350 for a *day out in Blackpool*. It’s unaffordable, even in cheap places like Blackpool.
jazzyb88 on
Is it really a surprise? Median wages are pathetic, minimum wage continues to increase without any productivity improvement, everything is privatised or owned by private equity and business rates and rents are ridiculously high. The input costs are also part of the problem here and successive governments have done exactly what? Can’t control inflation, can’t do anything to boost everyone else’s wages, can’t even get the youth out of unemployment. I blame the Tories for about 90% of this mess.
_TheThinkingMan_ on
While I am completely aware of the inflation in this whole sector with 2 kids under 8, I would say that it has surprisingly created a better environment for raising my kids.
They just want quality time with us, they’re not fussed by eating out or big trips to theme parks etc.
This has unexpectedly pushed us to ‘free’ activities like walking, bike rides, trips to the beach, trying out different parks.
OnionSea7213 on
Me and my partner usually go out with a picnic now, it’s just too pricey to get lunch out now.
We’re in our thirties, no dependents, total household income north of £100k (though an imbalanced one so we get more screwed by taxes than if it were an equal split, but that is by the by), we should be a demographic that has no problem with paying to go out. But even we balk at the prices.
Cute-Cat-2351 on
If you have children, you’re a cash cow. Taking them out isn’t really that necessary. Take them for walks, picnics etc.
BrilliantPrudent6992 on
I’m mid 30’s and grew up lower middle class (I think). A 3 bed detached house, mum, dad and sister. One car that mum and dad shared (they kept cars for a good 8-10 years).
We used to have one 2-week foreign holiday most years, but aside from that we didn’t do many trips, maybe an Alton Towers trip if we were lucky. We hardly every ate out – maybe a McDonald’s every now and then and a pub family meal for a big birthday.
We would occasionally go soft plays as kids, or have a birthday party at a soft play/local leisure centre, but aside from that we didn’t do activities every week.
It seems like people expect to do activities and eat out all the time now. It just wasn’t the norm even 20-30 years ago. I couldn’t have asked for a better childhood, and we certainly didn’t go without.
Aeysir69 on
Spoiler: everyone is making off you. Nothing is worth the price you pay for it. There’s very little scope for you to avoid all of the rip off but you can limit some of it. Pay for what you can’t avoid, fuck the rest and do something that won’t leave that bitter taste of being done in the back of your mouth.
Hitching-galaxy on
My wife and son took me out for Sunday lunch yesterday as my birthday present.
It was a nice enough country pub, good food. She had two glasses of processco (well, English wine), 2 mocktails, 2 roast beef, 1 gluten free pizza, sticky toffee pudding, sorbet, one coffee, 2 cokes.
That’s the TOTAL order.
£150.
The 3 small scoops of sorbet was £8, sticky toffee pudding £8.25.
We used to go out for lunch regularly, now it is just on a special occasion AS THE PRESENT.
Fucking joke.
wookiecock69 on
Lavish spending has caused cheaper places to struggle and go out of business and supported the more expensive place, now they are the only places left they can put the prices up
SFWaleckz on
I’ve seen a number of pubs in my area have been replaced with drive through Starbucks.
The system is eating itself, soon the only businesses left will be those that can afford to not pay taxes through “efficiencies”
curmudgeonator on
Lived in New York for 10 years and often lamented how they gouged you for everything over there. Groceries were expensive. Beer at an arena was ridiculously expensive. Toiletries – expensive. Really missed the relative value you could get back in the UK, but now it feels no different to the US
DeadPonyta on
Jeez……Make a cheese and pickle sandwich instead of dining out.
JanCumin on
Going out casually to restaurants is basically only for landlords now
RupertBear69420 on
A lot of the time it’s not even inflation it’s shrinkflation or skimpflation. We are getting less for more. More filler ingredients and less product (unless you go to Maccy’s 😅)
The classic example is chocolate. They’ve removed so much cocoa solids from chocolate that it’s now called chocolate flavouring. Have a look at a club biscuit or a twirl. It’s no longer real chocolate and sad. But it also extends to crisps and other food too.
Or housing. When I was a kid most families lived in houses whereas now many families aspire to have a house and it’s not uncommon for a family to live in a flat.
Our lifestyle is being diluted. Music is now about subscription rather than ownership, stop paying and your access goes. Software like Adobe used to be buy once and own forever but now it’s about subscriptions and endless uodates.
Privatisation of water. We’re paying more to companies so they can pay big bonuses over maintenance. We’re getting to a point where the private companies need a bailout to fix infrastructure due to lack of investment. But so many directors have got rich and have zero accountability wtf!
Our jobs are getting shitter too. Less pay, more work. Smaller pensions, less holidays etc. Trendy workplace initiatives like “unlimited time off” has been shown to be a lie, people end up taking less time off than if they have set days.
We need to stop funding billionaires. Stop using Amazon, stop using Facebook. Start shopping locally and learn that you can’t have instant gratification all the time. If we all did that the world would be a better place but we live in a land of distraction whilst billionaire overlords and aspiring tyrants like Farage laugh at us and want to dismantle our society. The NHS will be next and then we’re really fucked.
Andries89 on
It’s all due a good reset. Luckily for us Israel and the US are making sure we’re going to get one of the highest order. Hold on to your butts
Unusual-Ebb-6441 on
It’s wild how even a basic lunch out feels like a luxury splurge now, and half the time the food isn’t even that good.
TalosAnthena on
I’m not on a bad wage, £20 an hour in Yorkshire. But I’ve just stopped going out to most places. The only place I truly enjoy now is a Rudy’s pizza place. My partner likes Nando’s but I’ve just been to Aldi and their half chicken peri peri was so much better. Loads more chicken and £3.50. Just had a bill of £10.50 for a Guinness and Pepsi which is ridiculous for up north.
The service is crap, the portions are crap, the price is crap.
Repulsive-Ad-8339 on
This is what happens when you completely ignore your highest demographic. Minimum wage and welfare goes up and up, the rich always stay rich, yet the huge majority of people who are in the middle income bracket, who are essentially the ones out spending and keeping the economy afloat have been left to rot. Now we don’t have the spare cash to go out for lunch or have a night in the pub and the economy is collapsing. Retail and hospitality venues will shut down one by one, and there will be more and more people out of jobs, which is going to mean higher welfare bills.
35 Comments
It’s not just the price, it’s the service and the quality.
I think many are happy to pay the going rate for food, but when it’s often a worse quality than what you can get from a premium supermarket and served to you like you’re an inconvenience, it doesn’t leave you wanting to rush out.
Honestly it feels like everything in the UK is designed to rinse you at this point – whether it’s grabbing a simple lunch, taking the kids out for a day or even just something spontaneous (grabbing a coffee on the way to the station for instance – a Venti Ube Vanilla Latte at Starbucks is £6.35!!!!!!), the prices are ridiculous for what you actually get.
You end up second-guessing every decision because nothing feels like decent value anymore, and what used to be normal, affordable treats now feel like borderline luxury purchases. It’s not even about being reckless with money, it’s that the baseline cost of *existing* and doing ordinary things has crept up so much that you’re constantly weighing up whether it’s worth it and more often than not, it just isn’t – rip off Britian continues!
Here’s an example that affects me. Soft play, great fun (for them) and a solid way to tire your kids out. It costs me £13 just for 2 kids. You can only stay an hour and on Saturdays they shut at 2pm! On a Saturday?! Anyway. Rant over.
Article about the first family to go to Pizza Express without a voucher since 2001.
We’re in a doom loop – you can’t afford to go out for a treat, weekly shops are too expensive, ALL bills are up…
People have to cut back…companies close due to lack of spending by consumers, jobs lost, rinse and repeat.
This is catastrophic and those in charge refuse to take accountability.
Plenty of places that do deals on days out or even just make your own day out. Pack some food from Lidl etc, there’s parks, discounted unfamiliar theme parks, little cafes still about that do way cheaper food, Sunday movies for 5 quid at cinemas. Stop giving to the big places and start giving to the little ones. Everything doesn’t have to cost a bomb.
I’m sorry but if you’re buying lunch at Costa, you can’t complain about the prices. Go to an actual food establishment, rather than a coffee shop that happens to own a bread warming oven.
Pizza express for four is £174?! Parents really are screwed.
Chains like Costa in prime locations are always going to be pricey. It’s like getting lunch at a motorway services.
For my family growing up, eating out was always a treat instead of an every weekend type of thing and that was just out of principle.
I genuinely blame this on energy. Domestic energy prices go up, people have no choice but to pay it, so they cut back on going out, hospitality industry suffers. At the same time, businesses energy bills go up so they have to increase prices. Private energy suppresses growth AND drives inflation, screwing us from both ends. It will not get better until the entire thing, extraction, generation and transmission, is nationalised and run as a utility. Doesn’t have to run at a loss even, just cut out the profit margin and pass the savings from renewable generation on to the consumer. You deliver a huge drop in bills that makes people feel immediately better off, growth leaps as businesses become viable again, Labour goes up 20 points in the polls.
The doom loop is inevitable. Wait until next week when minimum wage rises yet again, prices shoot up and wage compression ramps up.
There’s no stopping it now. Small businesses will continue to fall to the hand of the mega corps.
I remember pizza express being pretty swish in the 90s. Dark, moody and the margarita was banging.
A hot chocolate at the park is enough when you want to avoid the rinsing these days. Play areas are free, choco is affordable and a packed lunch is cheaper
I don’t understand how businesses can’t seem to see where this is going… Prices going up, quality going down, less people buying luxuries day by day. Surely it’s not sustainable for any industry
An interesting point in the article is when it says Costa still made an overall loss last year on the books. Yes I know it’s likely that there may be a bit of creative accounting going on to avoid paying corp tax but anecdotally I was in my local Costa the other week and got chatting to the manager mentioning that they seem to be in every day when I walk past.
He said there’s only him and one other on full time contracts and he’s had to massively slash shifts for all of his other staff as there’s no footfall to justify it any more.
I suppose it’s chicken and egg if high pieces keep customers away or if less customers mean having to try and gouge the ones that do come in to keep the lights on, but it was at least moderately interesting that the article seems to support the view that these high prices aren’t just going into massive profits
The article also says that they spent 175 quid at pizza express for 4 people (with two young kids). If you’re spending that much for chain pizza then you have your priorities wrong
So you don’t eat out, you eat in…. And you get rinsed on food shopping and bills (extra electricity for cooking etc). The government puts its Robin Hood cape on and comes to the rescue but you’re in the middle so you don’t qualify so you just keep on working everyday just for the privilege if getting rinsed…. Then they wonder why people rush out the door.
A day out in Blackpool for a family of 4 costs:
£140 for wristbands to Blackpool Pleasure Beach
£100 for cheap burgers and chips lunch
£15 for parking
£20 for petrol
£50 for ice creams, treats etc.
A family of 4 is looking at upwards of £350 for a *day out in Blackpool*. It’s unaffordable, even in cheap places like Blackpool.
Is it really a surprise? Median wages are pathetic, minimum wage continues to increase without any productivity improvement, everything is privatised or owned by private equity and business rates and rents are ridiculously high. The input costs are also part of the problem here and successive governments have done exactly what? Can’t control inflation, can’t do anything to boost everyone else’s wages, can’t even get the youth out of unemployment. I blame the Tories for about 90% of this mess.
While I am completely aware of the inflation in this whole sector with 2 kids under 8, I would say that it has surprisingly created a better environment for raising my kids.
They just want quality time with us, they’re not fussed by eating out or big trips to theme parks etc.
This has unexpectedly pushed us to ‘free’ activities like walking, bike rides, trips to the beach, trying out different parks.
Me and my partner usually go out with a picnic now, it’s just too pricey to get lunch out now.
We’re in our thirties, no dependents, total household income north of £100k (though an imbalanced one so we get more screwed by taxes than if it were an equal split, but that is by the by), we should be a demographic that has no problem with paying to go out. But even we balk at the prices.
If you have children, you’re a cash cow. Taking them out isn’t really that necessary. Take them for walks, picnics etc.
I’m mid 30’s and grew up lower middle class (I think). A 3 bed detached house, mum, dad and sister. One car that mum and dad shared (they kept cars for a good 8-10 years).
We used to have one 2-week foreign holiday most years, but aside from that we didn’t do many trips, maybe an Alton Towers trip if we were lucky. We hardly every ate out – maybe a McDonald’s every now and then and a pub family meal for a big birthday.
We would occasionally go soft plays as kids, or have a birthday party at a soft play/local leisure centre, but aside from that we didn’t do activities every week.
It seems like people expect to do activities and eat out all the time now. It just wasn’t the norm even 20-30 years ago. I couldn’t have asked for a better childhood, and we certainly didn’t go without.
Spoiler: everyone is making off you. Nothing is worth the price you pay for it. There’s very little scope for you to avoid all of the rip off but you can limit some of it. Pay for what you can’t avoid, fuck the rest and do something that won’t leave that bitter taste of being done in the back of your mouth.
My wife and son took me out for Sunday lunch yesterday as my birthday present.
It was a nice enough country pub, good food. She had two glasses of processco (well, English wine), 2 mocktails, 2 roast beef, 1 gluten free pizza, sticky toffee pudding, sorbet, one coffee, 2 cokes.
That’s the TOTAL order.
£150.
The 3 small scoops of sorbet was £8, sticky toffee pudding £8.25.
We used to go out for lunch regularly, now it is just on a special occasion AS THE PRESENT.
Fucking joke.
Lavish spending has caused cheaper places to struggle and go out of business and supported the more expensive place, now they are the only places left they can put the prices up
I’ve seen a number of pubs in my area have been replaced with drive through Starbucks.
The system is eating itself, soon the only businesses left will be those that can afford to not pay taxes through “efficiencies”
Lived in New York for 10 years and often lamented how they gouged you for everything over there. Groceries were expensive. Beer at an arena was ridiculously expensive. Toiletries – expensive. Really missed the relative value you could get back in the UK, but now it feels no different to the US
Jeez……Make a cheese and pickle sandwich instead of dining out.
Going out casually to restaurants is basically only for landlords now
A lot of the time it’s not even inflation it’s shrinkflation or skimpflation. We are getting less for more. More filler ingredients and less product (unless you go to Maccy’s 😅)
The classic example is chocolate. They’ve removed so much cocoa solids from chocolate that it’s now called chocolate flavouring. Have a look at a club biscuit or a twirl. It’s no longer real chocolate and sad. But it also extends to crisps and other food too.
Or housing. When I was a kid most families lived in houses whereas now many families aspire to have a house and it’s not uncommon for a family to live in a flat.
Our lifestyle is being diluted. Music is now about subscription rather than ownership, stop paying and your access goes. Software like Adobe used to be buy once and own forever but now it’s about subscriptions and endless uodates.
Privatisation of water. We’re paying more to companies so they can pay big bonuses over maintenance. We’re getting to a point where the private companies need a bailout to fix infrastructure due to lack of investment. But so many directors have got rich and have zero accountability wtf!
Our jobs are getting shitter too. Less pay, more work. Smaller pensions, less holidays etc. Trendy workplace initiatives like “unlimited time off” has been shown to be a lie, people end up taking less time off than if they have set days.
We need to stop funding billionaires. Stop using Amazon, stop using Facebook. Start shopping locally and learn that you can’t have instant gratification all the time. If we all did that the world would be a better place but we live in a land of distraction whilst billionaire overlords and aspiring tyrants like Farage laugh at us and want to dismantle our society. The NHS will be next and then we’re really fucked.
It’s all due a good reset. Luckily for us Israel and the US are making sure we’re going to get one of the highest order. Hold on to your butts
It’s wild how even a basic lunch out feels like a luxury splurge now, and half the time the food isn’t even that good.
I’m not on a bad wage, £20 an hour in Yorkshire. But I’ve just stopped going out to most places. The only place I truly enjoy now is a Rudy’s pizza place. My partner likes Nando’s but I’ve just been to Aldi and their half chicken peri peri was so much better. Loads more chicken and £3.50. Just had a bill of £10.50 for a Guinness and Pepsi which is ridiculous for up north.
The service is crap, the portions are crap, the price is crap.
This is what happens when you completely ignore your highest demographic. Minimum wage and welfare goes up and up, the rich always stay rich, yet the huge majority of people who are in the middle income bracket, who are essentially the ones out spending and keeping the economy afloat have been left to rot. Now we don’t have the spare cash to go out for lunch or have a night in the pub and the economy is collapsing. Retail and hospitality venues will shut down one by one, and there will be more and more people out of jobs, which is going to mean higher welfare bills.