5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
5193
275
11
Aug 5, 2026 5:14 AM
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
5193
275
11
clonedeeznuts
Fast food meals are in the $15-$20 range. Same bullshit food but for double the price.
unsolicitedperspective
Why spend $17 on Pad Thai when you can spend $45 on ingredients and make a worse Pad Thai?
Misteree8
Disagree. What city are you in? As a NYer. The diversity of food out there is so much more than before. Cheap food? Yea its still possible. Ot as cheap as 10yrs ago but lets be real.
Joad111
I like to cook and I try to make it as well as a restaurant would and, I have leftovers for a third of the price.
doctorId
You can make the food of dubious quality or you can make it expensive, but if you charge me $11 for a burger that looks like someone sat on it, I'm not coming back.
sadurdaynight
Restaurants expect us to eat increasing prices AND increasing tip percents. Dinner for two used to be $40 + 10% tip = $44 which folks would round up to $45 usually. Now it's $100 + 20% tip = $120. You can either increase food prices or tip percents. But raising both at the same time is pissing folks off. Plus every place expecting a tip now, and some owners pocket it or use it as excuse to start paying staff less. It runs customers off.
DALLASLAVOWNER
I have found that anyone who has worked in the restaurant industry (or fast food) is much more conscious of cost vs value when the go out...also, they tend to be much better tippers (if in the US)
nero4ty2
I don’t remember the last time I sat down in a restaurant that wasn’t for breakfast since my kids love getting breakfast. Maybe sushi a few years ago. We order from restaurants and pick it up but the whole “dining experience” is a pain in the ass. I’d much rather just enjoy a meal with my family at home
Kazpur81S
Once I started to study culinary arts and started upping my cooking game, I found I could cook better tasting dishes than many restaurants. After that it becomes a “meh” kind of thing.
Sooner70
I used to go out for lunch EVERY day and eat dinner out probably 3 nights a week. I can't remember the last time I ate out for lunch and dinner is maybe 2X per month. Issue isn't cost though. It's health. I don't know if I finally woke up or if something changed, but I don't want 2,000 calories sitting on a plate in front of me!
BladeTurMoiL
What sucks is when you work 80 hrs a week and have to buy non perishable single serves from the grocery store or eat fast food to maintain the hustle.
Idrinkforevil
We went out for Burgers and fries last week. 2 burgers, 2 fries, 2 drinks, 50 dollars. No extra anything just burgers and fries with a soda. Ridiculous.
bearstrap
There's a cafe here in Eugene that disallows tipping, is vegan, local, farm-to-table stuff and it's EXCELLENT.
Entrees are about $16 each.
(if you want to tip, they actually have a community meal fund that allows unhoused and other struggling folk to come in and get a solid meal)
Buffoonery
There is less and less of an up-side to eating out these days. It's expensive, and the quality in many places has slipped noticeably. It all boils down to, "value". The *value* just isn't there anymore.
Allrighty
Meanwhile, in the USSR, people could afford to eat out almost every day because the state owned all restaurants and ran them at a loss.
YeastInfectedWhiskerBiscuit
Even "fast food" has lost its appeal. They treat themselves and act like they're some fancy upscale restaurant in some posh area of downtown. And you pay an arm and a leg for a burger, and that's when you actually go to the restaurant. If you order it from some company like door dash it'll cost you nearly 3x as much! So sick of this capitalist garbage.
enzio64
As someone who has lived in four different states - this *really* depends on where you live. Some places just have better food scenes than others. There are some meals it's worth paying for because I'm not going to do the work to make it at home, or don't know how to make it at home, etc. When we lived more rural? Nah, food wasn't worth it (except one restaurant we went to every couple months because their burgers were phenomenal). Now that I'm near a real city again? We're going out more.
erinaceus
i dont eat out because im a vegetarian living in appalachia. there is no restaurant out here that sells anything i want to eat.
Xenarion
Can't relate on the crappy food. Restaurants here are still good. But the price, yeah, especially junk food. That being said, I prefer getting take out over dining out.
TCooley79
I love to eat out. But we’re divorced now and she was never really comfortable with it anyway.
sombradeamigo1742
But thats just wrong tho? Like yeah if you go to a super expensive restaurant you might leave disappointed, but theres tons of really nice places you can go to eat a ton of great food for cheap. Is the price ever going to be less than what you can spend at home? Of course not, but Im also not a fucking chef.
QuitLookinAtMineAim
Once I learned to cook great food it was over.
Bob12345678904
No. You eat at the wrong places.
Xenarion
Exactly. Big chains like McDonald have gone down in quality, but there's still plenty of good restaurants that have good food.
Targe0
Many people don't have an abundance of choice when it comes to eating out.
Many towns only have a handful of places you can go out to eat that isn't fast food.
AnythingMuchShorter
Or if they live in and area like I live in, a town outside Seattle, there are a lot of restaurants, but they're almost mediocre and expensive. Even a usually cheap fallback like a taco truck will cost $20 a plate, and its not that good. Even pizza is expensive here. There are a few options, I go to a family owned ramen place because it's good and not insanely expensive.
Targe0
Sadly the longer the oil crisis goes on the more food costs are going to go up.
Especially come next growing season because Nitrogen fertiliser most of it comes from Qatar like 80% of global supplies.
And it's not been getting out, and without it a lot of farm land stops being viable farm land for most crops. So beans might get real cheap because beans get their nitrogen from the air not the soil, so farmers might pivot to them because they'll grow.
Imalwaysready
We stopped in the pandemic. We’ve tried a few times since, but prices never came back down & are still grotesquely high. And EVERYONE begging for tips is so fucking annoying, we rarely even do pick-up anymore, either. Not to mention how bad a lot of restaurant food has become, loaded down with extra salt and sugars to cut costs and mimic real flavor without the hassle of using real flavor. I miss it, but things will never again be like they were, and the way they are just isn’t with it anymore.
spacecowboyein
I fucking hate tipping culture. I went to a local burger joint the other day with a tip menu at checkout. I hit none and the cashier gave me a dirty look. Like, there is literally no difference between her and a McDonald's cashier. The burger is better so now I have to tip? Why do we have to tip for everything now?!
ImJustHereAtThisPoint
"millennials kill the restaurant Industry"
Chakra5
Generational scapegoating is the bait to keep us from fighting the class war we need.
joepineapplesindrag
b0stark
I mean, I get it, but at the same time, those religious fucks would see it as a donation and beg for more. So... I'd rather pour ingots and share them with friends and family.
jayman0123
that would be a very metal way to start a book about the 2nd coming and how humans no longer wished to be judged by deities and now the deities are trying to exterminate us Terminator style.
HighSorcerer
If only.
shyriath
If we were, it'd make me proud to be a millennial.
doctorId
The news be like:
"If you guys want to afford a home, you shouldn't be buying your coffee at Starbucks every day, you have to be more financially responsible you dumb kids."
"Starbucks' profits are down and it's your fault you horrible kids, how could you do this to them, this is why nobody likes you."
seenunseen
As someone that delivered pizza back in the day, in a major city, with a paper map on the wall before we left for delivery..anything millennial and below are the most zero brain delivery. They have gps and can't figure out even and odd numbers. They call you from their xar and expect you to come to them. They literally cancel an order if you don't answer. Even if you've guided them to your door, they forget by the next time you order. It's pathetic and truly disappointing.
BlueDsc
I bet you're the type that has a completely unmarked house and gets pissy when drivers can't find you.
seenunseen
It's marked. One side of the building is even numbers, the other is odd. This is common, and a delivery driver that only sees even numbers should know yo go to the other side. You learn this once and you know it for life
BlueDsc
Ah, so you're just a dick then.
seenunseen
For expecting people to do a job to completion when they have more tool a than i did? Delivery apps let me mark on a map where to go. I mark directly at my door and they still can't do it. It's either idiocy or laziness or both. I also always give 30%, because i worked in the industry, which only upsets me more after the fact
aabcdort
It's why I only pay at the door for delivery, way too many bad experiences, late deliveries, and missing pizzas.
Imalwaysready
Look out! One of them is on your lawn! And is that a cloud drifting by that needs yelling at? Go get ‘em, Tiger!
FeedTheNachoMan
The median pizza delivery driver wage is $12.50/hr, and I'm sure that number is *heavily* propped up by metropolitan areas where the local minimum wage is higher than the federal.
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Pizza_Delivery_Driver/Hourly_Rate
Pay minimum wage, get minimum effort.
alt86er
I know what you mean. [grampa-mode]When I was young you called the pizza service, placed your order, told them your address and 30-60 minutes later a guy was at your door, wanting the money when handing you the ordered pizza.[/grampa-mode] Somehow that just worked even without GPS or navi. Today they get your written down address, your email address and a phone number and still fuck up finding your place and call you. (That's what they now need the number for.) Better than not appearing, but...
doctorId
Do you think that every problem is the fault of the employee with the least amount of power? Or is it at all possible that if given enough compensation, training, and support from competent management that frontline employees would be more likely to do the job well? Cause I can tell you from experience that there's a sea of jobs out there where the employers set an abysmal standard for the entire workplace and leave the front facing employees to take the flack for it while they count their cash.
seenunseen
I was paid $2.19 in 2000 as a pizza delivery driver. That hourly wage has not gone up. Even at the time, you'd save up several checks begore cashing because it was worthless. You lived on tips..which required good to door service. Now people getthe tip before the service, and the service therefore went down. This is an employee problem, app problem, disconnected society problem
intrepidsea
You should really come out and get your food. Most drivers are using multiple delivery apps at the same time to cut downtime cause nobody tips and pay is low. I don’t know where you live but my city density has changed and GPS coverage can be spotty when buildings are packed so close together. Also most places cannot keep up with delivery demand thanks to online ordering and running skeleton crews. Food takes longer, drivers get hit with multiple orders and angry text messages asking “WRU?”
lujotu
I’m on a cul de sac. 6 houses. I have a big glowing sign with my number in front of the house, impossible to miss. I watch people wander around the circle trying to fathpm what house it could possible be. LOOK AT THE ONLY BRIGHT GLOWING SIGN YOU IDIOT
elbowdeepinawhateverthatis
*car, not xar. Back in MY day, crotchety old pieces of shit used to actually check their inane ramblings to make sure they didn’t make a mistake that made them look like a fucking dumbass.
seenunseen
In my current day, i don'tcare what any ubiquitous elbowdeebinblah has to say
elbowdeepinawhateverthatis
HarryDresdenIsMySpiritAnimal
I also used to deliver pizzas before we had GPS in our pockets. Your arguments are nonsense and show no causal relationship between their age and the experience of delivery. it's coincidental data, at best. Also, why would you expect a delivery person to remember you the next time they deliver to your house? That person probably had a hundred deliveries between your last order and the next time you ordered. Maybe stop treating them like shit and you'll get better service.
doctorId
He's the almighty customer and that makes him ✨special✨
HarryDresdenIsMySpiritAnimal
"The customer is always right" only applies to the customer's aesthetics, not their attitude.
Bugdaze
The customer is often right.
Targe0
Get with the times.
They'd blame Gen Z for it at this point.
Millennials stopped being the scape goats 15 years go.
TheDarknessInTheHeartsOfMen
Haha if only. 15 years ago was 2011, we very much were still the scapegoat then.
bearstrap
Pssht, no. 15 years ago was only 1995
spangolio
I brought home two burritos the other night. no rice, extra chicken and guac. 37€. to bring home two goddamn burritos.
Radial19
I made 8 decently sized burritos (2 made a very filling meal) full of beef, guac, cheese, etc. for €12.13.
Some corporate AI is going to read this exchange and determine that the problem is buying your own ingredients and cooking at home is too cheap.
sadurdaynight
I bought a burger, fry abd shake from two diff bueger places over a couple weeks. Each place was about $20. Fast food has priced itself out of its target demographic. If I'm gonna spend $20 I'll go to a sit down restaurant.
Bojovnik84
Don't fully agree. I mean, most true, but I dont go places where I'm gonna get a mediocre meal. If I'm going out, I know its gonna be good, what I want and generally a local business. And even when I have chain restaurant food, I go where its gonna be something I'm not gonna make at home.
dashers
I'll get a mediocre meal out - but that's because I'm eating on the go, or I've been busy and cba to do anything at home. It's rare, but mediocre serves a purpose.
Misteree8
Depends how mediocre is classified. Is white castle mediocre? If so, then im ok with mediocre food.
Wasnbo
Things change over time though, especially when Covid fucked up life for a lot of people all over the US (and probably other countries). A restaurant quietly gets new management, makes contracts with Sysco for their ingredients, suddenly that restaurant's appetizers look and taste exactly like what you'd get at the Chili's or something.
Xenarion
Same. I get take out from time to time and only from good restaurants.
Radial19
Hard to know what's good or isn't if you only go to places you're familiar with. For folks who weren't around when restaurants were a better deal, that just means never eating out.
wadatahmydamie
I keep hearing Portland is unaffordable, and then I see posts like this and realize some cities have restaurants that can get away with charging $40 a plate for mediocre food
$40 will get you a slab of prime rib or a fillet mignon with sides at one of our old school steakhouses here, and it’s barely a challenge feeding five people for $100 or less a week
wadatahmydamie
I’m by no means gloating here, if anything I feel lucky
Floofaficionado
I was told by an old friend that I need to move out of Washington state because of how expensive he claims it is to live here. A place he has never been. While at the same time, living in a place that didn't have a stable access to butter... People aren't very good at determining levels of badness it seems!
wadatahmydamie
A dude I know recently moved here from Detroit, and his brother introduced him to lunch meat. They’d never had it before. Week two, his brother bought $100 worth of deli meat and ate the best sandwiches of his life
Floofaficionado
Aww yeah!
WickedSludge
The last time I bought a half a cart of groceries it was $300. You guys are still getting full carts for $80??
Arenlor
Don't ruin their point that they're better than everyone else with your facts.
Agouti
Cut meat, processed snacks, and boutique brands and your dollar will go a lot further. Not $80 cartload further, but a long way ahead of $300 half-cart. Don't succumb to learned helplessness.
wadatahmydamie
$300? Where do you shop? My wife and I get almost all of our groceries from WINCO, and even if we get a decent couple of steaks it almost never breaks $100 for the week
Corrodias
Maybe they're buying dry beans and rice. Wait, is rice still cheap?
kbryant414
Depends on the kind, but generally yes.
ballisticks
Sigh, when I first got my job a cart was indeed around $80. But I was poor and on a low wage so it felt way too expensive. Now a cart is around $160, and even though I make more now, it's still way too expensive. Always just behind the curve it seems
AllTheGoodOnesWereGone
Aldi. I spend $50-$75 most weeks for just myself.
ataradov
I don't shop in "carts", but my grocery bill is $50-80/week and I don't particularly try to save, I just grab what looks good.
LariCheltsy
Man if i only had that much of a weekly food budget...
hamulusrex
No we are not. We're getting about 4 bags.
selfishsarah
Haha i get a beaten box with half rotten food from the food bank once a week. Cabbage twice a week, if im lucky i get to add onions.
Imalwaysready
Cabbage + egg noodles = halusky.
whiskeywonka
It can go both ways. My wife is a queen at coupons. And getting the cashier to enter them in the right order. We start off with a %20 off coupon, ring up, then hit the $20 off order one. We have caused the point of sale to crash with coupon stacking. Doesnt always work but gotta get creative these days
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
As someone who once worked at a Grocery store I would DREAD ringing up ppl with stacks of coupons 2 full grocery carts (and sometimes the wrong items at that 🤦🏻♀️😐) specially when they would come in an hour before closing 🙄🤦🏻♀️ and they would end up paying like $40-$50 for the 2 shopping carts! I doubt they still can do that now though😐
whiskeywonka
We are not that crazy. Never more than 1 cart, but yes we have had a savings of hundreds. We were far more into it when we had 3 kids at home who all ate well above their weight class. Being highly active and having a super fast metabolism while being a kid means needing lots of caloric fuel.
IWasGoingToMakeEspresso
As someone who frequents grocery stores, I still DREAD standing in line behind them.
pgdave
The order really *shouldn't* matter with today's POS computers, have you confirmed that it does?
whiskeywonka
As I said, doesnt always work. Sometimes it causes a 'divide by zero' and locks up, others it just ignores some of the coupons. If they are digital and on the store app, then they do not stack. Its mixing the ones on the account with paper ones that does it for us.
pgdave
I believe you, it just shouldn't matter because the totals should be recalculated every time a coupon is entered, rather than trying to just apply the latest coupon. It probably does matter because companies see software as something to skimp on.
whiskeywonka
1/2 The skimping isnt it I dont think. Its a order of operands. [Wife asks Husband, 'Can you go down to the store, and get a gallon of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6.' Later on he returns home and she looks at his purchases and says 'Why the do you have 6 gallons of milk?' He responded 'They had eggs.'] type of thing. Some of the coupons are $X cash off, some are x % off order, some are Y % off X Items over Z value.
TheArrestingAbhorrentArrantAbominableAlliterator
Related - where the hell are you going to dinner that it is only $80 for two? (Assuming drinks)
wadatahmydamie
Basically every restaurant in Portland will feed two people for less than that, including most of the middle-tier ones
TheArrestingAbhorrentArrantAbominableAlliterator
Wow. In (insert mid-size Florida city), I'm looking at 25-35 per entree at "mid-tier". Two of that, plus 8% for taxes, a 20% tip, a 3% credit card fee and I'm squeaking under $80 if I am lucky. Add four drinks and a desert now I'm closer to $200.
bearstrap
I'll back up the Portland thing
Here in Eugene (100 miles south), if my parents are visiting and we go to A Nice Restaurant, we can usually get out for around $200 with entrees, apps, and drinks.
I think only twice have we broken $300 for all of us - and one of those was a winery where I had elk and we paired wine with every course.
wadatahmydamie
Jesus Christ.
I guess it helps some that we don’t pay sales taxes on anything, and I almost never buy alcohol, but still.
$40 will get you an 8 ounce fillet mignon, a veggie tray appetizer with homemade sour cream, salad, bread, a couple sides, and dessert at Portland’s best (NOT most expensive) steakhouse. If you want to go all out and get a two-pound porterhouse, it’s still under $80
bearstrap
Which steakhouse is this?
I'm still gutted that El Toro Bravo closed... wasn't a steakhouse but goddamned it was my favourite restaurant in town
senslesssensei
No, but I can buy ingredients for a meal for two at half the price a restaurant would charge for the same meal.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
Making *a meal* for half the price I'd agree with but making the same meal you'd be served at a restaurant for half the price I highly doubt, depending on the meal in question. If you're not just using poor quality premade stuff, making restaurant quality recipes from scratch yourself is fucking expensive.
Onisa
Depends on what is on sale and what spices are in your pantry I suppose.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
Sales help lessen the blow but it's still going to hit the pocketbook hard unless you're making bulk batches of things plus religiously cycling through your pantry and planning meals so things aren't going to waste, which most people just do not have the time or energy to do with everything else in their lives also demanding attention plus having time for rest or leisure.
senslesssensei
Whilst that’s true for ‘fancy’ dishes, for the staples, I disagree. Grilled salmon, broccolini and potatoes: ingredients (I can be accurate here as I just bought this) shops: $20 AUD for two, restaurant $80. Nothing special about the way it’s cooked…same quality of ingredients. Same for most Italian dishes. Homemade pasta using quality flour, premium mince and homemade sauce. But then, we only order restaurant food that we wouldn’t cook.
GreyKnightTemplar666
While I agree, and the gf and I eat out maybe once a month, sometimes it is nice when we're both feeling lazy and neither of us want to cook, and cereal doesn't sound appealing for dinner
Terran81
This is why I get frozen “party size” dinners. Just throw it in the oven and 30-60 minutes later, a dinner I didn’t have to cook.
GreyKnightTemplar666
Yeah, but when you have dietary restrictions (celiacs and lactose intolerance) frozen meals are hard to find that won't make you sick from eating them
Terran81
I don’t have that problem. That would definitely be rough. 😬
senslesssensei
Definitely acceptable to be lazy! Call it a date night, even :)
Imalwaysready
Allow me to help you step up your game with cereal…à la mode…wait for it…al fresco. You’re welcome.
GreyKnightTemplar666
Usually we just go with cereal a la carte.
anerdwithaknife
Cereal con leche is a true rustic classic.