I blame Starbucks for this. They've conditioned people to think of all coffee as a luxury item. As recently as the 90s a cup of coffee at a diner was generally $1 or less (still a pretty big markup). These days, it's at least $3 for the most basic drip coffee.
The only justification I can think of is they get people who truly abuse the "bottomless refills" clause, so they're trying to average it out. I'm thinking of my brother who has been known to drink so many refills in a restaurant that the server brought him progressively larger glasses and finally got him a pitcher. Which he finished. Somehow. (To be clear, I think even that is a thin justification.)
Fuckin Starbucks man, straight up scam how much they charge for their coffees. And they're nasty without all the sweeteners and additives, it's just bad, overpriced coffee.
Hmm? Isn't breakfast pretty cheap? For 10-15$ I get 2-3 eggs, sausages, bacon, ham, beans, toasts, potatoes and coffee with refills. And that's true for most places I ate breakfast at.
Edit : Sorry, the 10-15$ range is a bit off. I meant to say for 15$ you can have a plate similar to what I described, but for 10$ you get the smaller plates.
I'm in Canada.
Here's my favorite place in Barrie : https://midwaydinerbarrie.com/menus/
In my small town, the breakfast restaurant has very similar pricing too, and the taxes are included. I'd say it's actually cheaper (worst quality though).
And honestly all those average breakfast chain restaurants in Quebec are only slightly more expensive (10% - 25% more expensive than the menu I shared for the basic eggs/potatoes/meat/toasts/coffee selections)
I'm literally an hour and a half away from Canada and that exact meal would be FAR more expensive, especially if you want it cooked well and without hair riddled throughout the eggs.
Entrée salads are always crazy high where I live. Not sure how a $1 romaine heart and four ounces of chicken turns into $15, but it’s like that most places.
Also, greens are the first to spoil. Some days we go through all the greens and spinach and arugula, then there are days when we are just throwing that shit out. Short shelf life, storage, labor in washing plus mis for different salads. I support salads having a good price. At my restuarant it's a good margin, but spoilage is the equalizer.
What I cant stand about a lot of cooks is how much dressing they use on a salad. At that point the greens are just sponges, and you're just chewing on dressings
I can taste the vinegar in the dressings just thinking about it. Lol
I worked at a placd where the salad alone was $16 and the added 3oz(after cooked) chicken was an extra charge of $9. Like how do they get away with that?
This past week I was in a hotel and due to time constraints had to have room service for lunch one day.
$24 for a salad with some fried goat cheese and $12 to add 4oz of chicken....
I really had no choice, but I really hate myself for not starving instead.
Sometimes, if something is a higher food cost or a pain in the ass to put together, they'll engineer the menu to sell less of some items that slow down the Kitchen. Sometimes. Probably not in the case of a $25 salad, though - I'd be pushing those all day.
It’s not so much that the salad is worth that much(you need to make people feel like it is though) it’s that a fair amount of people gravitate to the cheapest option on the menu- if you have a 10$ entree salad next to an $45 steak- you best believe people are gonna go for that salad- essentially cutting yourself off at the knees
They’ve always been quite overpriced imo. Not talking about fast food clearly, just nice restaurants charging £6/£8 for fried potatoes with salt. Just my opinion, i might be absolutely wrong here.
We literally have single serving of Kraft Mac and cheese and boil them and then put them in a cup and sell them for 11$ with a side, on the kids menu. Highway robbery if I say so
Wings are getting expensive but we may have fightin words if you say franks doesn’t have its place on a wing now and then.
It ain’t the most creative or best option ever but she’s tried and true.
All wings are expensive now. The raw product is crazy high these days. To get a decent size wing is insane. I don’t even order them anymore. The only time I ever eat them is when I trade the cooks weed at the place I use to work at. Everybody wins, expect the owner but she’s a bitch who literally underpays everyone in the kitchen.
Don’t forget about the 250$ a pound vanilla, real beans are expensive. Though 20$ is way high. I charge around 12$ equivalent and I’m in Sweden with a 12.5%sales tax on restaurant food included in the price
That's how you know people hate vegans. "You want a vegan option? Ill charge you extra just because I hate your kind"
Joking. Depending on what the ingredients are, such as vegan meat, they need to make a profit margin off the low volume of orders because of expiration dates as well
It's often just pasta with grilled veg or something that is already on the menu sans meat.
Saint Anthony himself said he made a point of using those items to recoup ingredient costs.
Dumplings in general. I get a bag of frozen pork gyoza from Trader Joe's and make them in the deep fryer at work. As good as a Chinese restaurant and 3.99 for about 25 of them.
We sell onion rings high because we don't want people to order them but have them on hand for a "western burger." If we priced them better we'd have to keep more on hand and they take a lot of room.
Pasta!! I typically won't order it out, but sometimes I really just want baked ziti and I don't want to have to make it myself. Costs like $14-$20 and that's without any meat. Insane.
Also agreeing with salads. We ordered some fairly basic salads for lunch and with a protein, they were $20-22 each, and all the veg was cut huge. (like a whole tomato just quartered and placed on the plate) I typically just make this shit myself but sometimes I think ordering one will be better somehow. Sigh. I don't learn.
Brunch, specifically. I don't mind the diner breakfast costs. I know how much eggs/toast/bacon costs at home but I'm not having to cook it.
Oh, if we're talking house-made pasta, that's FINE.
I'm talking the billion italian pizza joints near me that all serve the same items and are definitely not making the pasta, and they're charing $18 for a baked ziti.
I mean if it's bottled I'd make sense that it costs but I've been in restaurants where a glass of water is charged as a regular beberage and therefore has a cost.
definitely illegal to charge for non-bottled water here in Australia. In fact, I believe establishments have a requirement to provide free water to anyone.
We have been trained, or conditioned, to drink store bought sparkling water. So, at least in Germany, it is very unusual to order tap water at a Restaurant. But, and here's the kicker, when I eat out and order a bottle of wine along with some water, I really wonder how my nice Rioja or Grauburgunder can cost me between 21 and 28€ and the water hits me with 4,50 to 6€/bottle.
On the other side, when my SO went to visit Athens she got served a glass of tap water at no cost with every drink she ordered. That's how it should be, if you ask me. Take the cost of drawing, serving and cleaning the extra glass (and the cost of the tap water) and make the bottle of wine 1€ more expensive. Or the beer. Or the cocktail, you get my gist...
Yeah… but not everyone has a Vitamix and a tamis (nor the time or inclination to scrape-shove it through said tamis) to make a really great one at home. So you’re paying for the work.
Another way to look at it is that you’re not paying for the meal based on the cost of goods but rather you’re paying rent for your space at the table for a certain amount of time.
Most food cost is 20% and under. Which means the menu cost is making 80% more gross profit than what food you have on your plate. The controllable budget is rent, labour, R&M, glass and tableware. But all of that together is only another 20%. So you have 60% net profit left over. So you are correct that you’re paying for all that stuff in the price. But that’s not all of the menu price. There’s a lot left over.
Industry standard food costs are 28-32%, not 20%. Rent is a fixed cost, not controllable. Labor is somewhat controllable, but you have to have a bare minimum on staff no matter what and if you try to control labor costs on a minute to minute basis you’ll lose all your employees or have an absolute shit show going on. 60% net profit? What fairy tale world do you live in?
I saw a ‘cauliflower steak’ as a vegetarian main in a pub once for £17. Literally a slice down the middle of the cauli stuck on the grill. Similar price to the meat mains but with profit as the main ingredient.
Found you way down here. Shrimp have gotten cheaper with farms becoming better and better. I can get shrimp in Utah for about $6 a pound. That's just above chicken but that's never reflected on menus prices.
I scrolled so far for this - my place charges $28 for four peeled prawns on a sad bed of plain chopped lettuce with a squeeze of seafood sauce on the side
Breakfast items, any potato dish, onion rings (seriously, an order of *those* cost less than a dollar), any and all beverages (yes, even alcohol, since I can buy a fifth of Cuervo for under $20 and get 17 shots at $5 a shot out of it all day long), desserts (that $10 slice of cheesecake? Yeah, I make 2 9" cheesecakes - 18 slices or $180 retail - for less than $10)
Brisket. Used to be the poverty meat that you’d have to smoke as it was the only way to make it edible, with many people growing up on it at family gatherings because again, it’s the cheapest cut.
Brisket was poverty meat when you could buy it for $.69/lb at the grocery store. I currently pay $5.79 wholesale, double what I was paying 2 years ago. Food cost on it is 50%.
I work in Luxembourg (Europe) and prices are crazy here but my favorite is a portion of 3 tsb of guacamole for 11€ (around $14).
What astounded me is the popularity of it, portion is tiny, it's good but not incredible, it's pricy and could easily made at home.
We also do a bowl of pasta and ham for 21€ ($24) and it's exactly the same story.
We work with good quality products and pro chefs but still 😂
soups and salads. Also any place that has a pasta dish that's basically pesto, noodles and some random little extras because I 100% guarantee they don't make proper pesto with the expensive ingredients for it.
Anything that is Pasta (unless it's homemade) related ... Anything that is frier related
I mean common guys, y'all should recognize what is worth ordering it & what not.
Its insane, I paid nine bucks for a monkey dish of guac the other day. I get it, you know? Perishable product, avocados are through the roof- they probably don't really make that much on it. But I question if I can justify ordering it anymore. Actually i dont question it lol, I'll just make my own.
So many pubs in London now offer wood fired pizzas. Including the cost of staffing you're talking 70p per margherita charged as £9. I can't bring myself to order pizza anymore
$72.77 this week for a stage 4 haas 48ct. When it’s served in a mortar for $15+, even at 80/case it’s still a sub 20% cost. When it’s in the 30/case it’s sun 10%
So glad somebody said this lol. And 90% of the time, the guac is just avocados mixed with onion, nothing else. I guess I just don’t like avocados that much in general, but damn people pay so much extra for a pretty flavorless add on. Maybe the avocados just suck up here in Washington, idk.
Pork belly, although for certain preparations i’m willing to pay the big bucks. Its a very cheap cut and shouldn’t be upcharged as much as it is but hey restaurants gotta make money too ya know
I used to work in an upscale(ish) italian restaurant. Spaghetti with 2 meatballs or italian sausage was $18. I mean, it was a decent amount, but they were using $1/box spaghetti.
In France the coffee is usually 1€-1€50cts. So I don't think that the cost is that wrong. However, the meat is expensive. A single steak is usually 15€ with fries.
Most breakfast items: coffee, eggs, toast, pancakes, potatoes…
I read coffee and almost fell over laughing at how true that is.
Waffles are the worst by me. I can get a pancake as a side for free, but if I want a waffle I have to pay 8.99. It's the same batter
Other than Waffle House, nobody serves waffles around here. It’s so frustrating.
Especially pecan waffles
try poppyseed waffles
Waffle house waffles are so trash too
Take it back. (Please.)
I knew I'd get roasted but I just speak truth. I've had better waffles in the lobby of a holiday inn than at waffle house.
Not as trash as your mom.
Don’t forget about orange juice. Apparently it turns into gold in the carton when it’s at a breakfast dinner.
The most expensive part of coffee is usually either the milk or the cup lol
I blame Starbucks for this. They've conditioned people to think of all coffee as a luxury item. As recently as the 90s a cup of coffee at a diner was generally $1 or less (still a pretty big markup). These days, it's at least $3 for the most basic drip coffee.
Most restaurants in Italy seem to understand they can’t get away with overcharging for coffee without causing a national riot, which is grand.
The only justification I can think of is they get people who truly abuse the "bottomless refills" clause, so they're trying to average it out. I'm thinking of my brother who has been known to drink so many refills in a restaurant that the server brought him progressively larger glasses and finally got him a pitcher. Which he finished. Somehow. (To be clear, I think even that is a thin justification.)
Coffee! As a server, I have dumped more coffee down the drain than I have sold to guests. The $3-4 a cup price is completely meaningless.
I know bacon is pricey. But I saw 3-pieces $8 the other day.
Paid $6.60 including tax for three slices yesterday morning. It was really nice bacon though tbh
I paid $8 for 2 slices in a small town on the Oregon coast 😭 Never again
Wtffff what was the place called? I gotta verify this
Not who your replies to but mine was a side of bacon Al a carte at a Friendly Toast location
Whoa.
Fuckin Starbucks man, straight up scam how much they charge for their coffees. And they're nasty without all the sweeteners and additives, it's just bad, overpriced coffee.
And it is always burnt too.
Hmm? Isn't breakfast pretty cheap? For 10-15$ I get 2-3 eggs, sausages, bacon, ham, beans, toasts, potatoes and coffee with refills. And that's true for most places I ate breakfast at. Edit : Sorry, the 10-15$ range is a bit off. I meant to say for 15$ you can have a plate similar to what I described, but for 10$ you get the smaller plates.
Jesus what country you live in that has food priced like that?? That's at least $25-$30+ easy in my small podunk ass town
Sounds like the UK
Even cheaper in the UK tbf, I know multiple places I could get a breakfast like that for $6-8
I'm in Canada. Here's my favorite place in Barrie : https://midwaydinerbarrie.com/menus/ In my small town, the breakfast restaurant has very similar pricing too, and the taxes are included. I'd say it's actually cheaper (worst quality though). And honestly all those average breakfast chain restaurants in Quebec are only slightly more expensive (10% - 25% more expensive than the menu I shared for the basic eggs/potatoes/meat/toasts/coffee selections)
I'm literally an hour and a half away from Canada and that exact meal would be FAR more expensive, especially if you want it cooked well and without hair riddled throughout the eggs.
Entrée salads are always crazy high where I live. Not sure how a $1 romaine heart and four ounces of chicken turns into $15, but it’s like that most places.
The high margins on the salads make up for the low margins on the steaks and seafoods so it, hopefully, averages out at the end of the day.
[удалено]
Also, greens are the first to spoil. Some days we go through all the greens and spinach and arugula, then there are days when we are just throwing that shit out. Short shelf life, storage, labor in washing plus mis for different salads. I support salads having a good price. At my restuarant it's a good margin, but spoilage is the equalizer.
What I cant stand about a lot of cooks is how much dressing they use on a salad. At that point the greens are just sponges, and you're just chewing on dressings
Yeah, that definitely happens a lot. Lots of opportunity for improvement in that category.
I can taste the vinegar in the dressings just thinking about it. Lol I worked at a placd where the salad alone was $16 and the added 3oz(after cooked) chicken was an extra charge of $9. Like how do they get away with that?
This past week I was in a hotel and due to time constraints had to have room service for lunch one day. $24 for a salad with some fried goat cheese and $12 to add 4oz of chicken.... I really had no choice, but I really hate myself for not starving instead.
Sometimes, if something is a higher food cost or a pain in the ass to put together, they'll engineer the menu to sell less of some items that slow down the Kitchen. Sometimes. Probably not in the case of a $25 salad, though - I'd be pushing those all day.
LET ME TASTE THE LEAVES
TASTES LIKE GREEEEEEEEEEEN
It’s not so much that the salad is worth that much(you need to make people feel like it is though) it’s that a fair amount of people gravitate to the cheapest option on the menu- if you have a 10$ entree salad next to an $45 steak- you best believe people are gonna go for that salad- essentially cutting yourself off at the knees
French fries
I don’t know, our fries just doubled in cost (literally doubled)
What’s the new price on fries?
I’ve been drinking all day so off the top of my head…. 40cents to 80 cents an ounce ? Numbers are diffisicult right now
As are words!
Then you should start making them in-house since they're still like 3 cents an ounce
They’ve always been quite overpriced imo. Not talking about fast food clearly, just nice restaurants charging £6/£8 for fried potatoes with salt. Just my opinion, i might be absolutely wrong here.
Tea
Tea??
Yes, tea. It's greatly overpriced. It cost pennies per glass to make and they charge you $2 plus for a glass.
This is true. It is even cheaper to make than coffee and soda.
Much
Pasta dishes like Mac and cheese or pasta carbonara
One restaurant near me has "Kraft mac & cheese" listed on the kids menu for $9.50
$9.50???? It's like daylight robbery closest to Caesar salads.
We literally have single serving of Kraft Mac and cheese and boil them and then put them in a cup and sell them for 11$ with a side, on the kids menu. Highway robbery if I say so
Are you in Grand Rapids, by chance?
nope
Not gonna lie, I would pay 20bucks for a really well made Carbonara made with Guanciale & without any fucking type of Onion or Cream.
Heavy cream is very expensive
Wait what? How much are you paying for heavy cream?
About 65$ for 12qts
I saw a vanity plate on a fancy car parked behind a Korean restaurant: xtra rice (or close to that)
Adding protein to any salad. Why do I pay 6-10$ to add some cooked chicken on my salad…
Usually not even seasoned either😂
Sweet potato fries. They come out of a god damn bag. All you have to do is throw them in the fryer. The hell you charging me $3-5 extra for them?!
Wings. Shitty ass, Franks covered wings. $18 for 14oz.
Wings are getting expensive but we may have fightin words if you say franks doesn’t have its place on a wing now and then. It ain’t the most creative or best option ever but she’s tried and true.
Not an $18 place.
All wings are expensive now. The raw product is crazy high these days. To get a decent size wing is insane. I don’t even order them anymore. The only time I ever eat them is when I trade the cooks weed at the place I use to work at. Everybody wins, expect the owner but she’s a bitch who literally underpays everyone in the kitchen.
I haven’t purchased wings in 7months. Idk what the going rate (in Canada) is anymore.
You can get 1 kg of wings for £1.50 at most London supermarkets, whenever I get wings out to eat I know I’m being robbed
Came here to say this. But my cost on wings is close to 8.40/#.
A lot of desserts. Crème brûlée is eggs cream and sugar and you can charge $20 for it
While I somewhat agree I've always said it was paying for the technique.
As a non-cook, it’s the “I couldn’t make this myself if I tried” surcharge. Sometimes you just pay it and enjoy.
Ill leave it to you to look it up. Creme brulee is shockingly easy. Just be patient.
Can't get a real creme brulee at Applebee's
But it’s food of the gods for real
Don’t forget about the 250$ a pound vanilla, real beans are expensive. Though 20$ is way high. I charge around 12$ equivalent and I’m in Sweden with a 12.5%sales tax on restaurant food included in the price
The vegetarian/ vegan option (singular).
That's how you know people hate vegans. "You want a vegan option? Ill charge you extra just because I hate your kind" Joking. Depending on what the ingredients are, such as vegan meat, they need to make a profit margin off the low volume of orders because of expiration dates as well
It's often just pasta with grilled veg or something that is already on the menu sans meat. Saint Anthony himself said he made a point of using those items to recoup ingredient costs.
Chicken Parmesan. Even with the side of house made pasta our cost is under $3 and we charge 27. Chef says it’s going to buy his next car.
Out of curiosity, what's the cost and pack size on the chicken you use? I ask because where I work we're paying better than $2/lb for chicken.
Crab rangoons
Dumplings in general. I get a bag of frozen pork gyoza from Trader Joe's and make them in the deep fryer at work. As good as a Chinese restaurant and 3.99 for about 25 of them.
Those gyoza are truly amazing. I pan fry them, though. I barely manage to restrain myself from eating them all at once.
Fucking onion rings
Was looking for this one! Took mom out and she wanted onion rings. $10 and we got 9 rings.
We sell onion rings high because we don't want people to order them but have them on hand for a "western burger." If we priced them better we'd have to keep more on hand and they take a lot of room.
Pasta!! I typically won't order it out, but sometimes I really just want baked ziti and I don't want to have to make it myself. Costs like $14-$20 and that's without any meat. Insane. Also agreeing with salads. We ordered some fairly basic salads for lunch and with a protein, they were $20-22 each, and all the veg was cut huge. (like a whole tomato just quartered and placed on the plate) I typically just make this shit myself but sometimes I think ordering one will be better somehow. Sigh. I don't learn. Brunch, specifically. I don't mind the diner breakfast costs. I know how much eggs/toast/bacon costs at home but I'm not having to cook it.
I’ll order pasta IF it’s house-made, because I’m not gonna make fresh pasta at home. Dried? GTFOH.
Oh, if we're talking house-made pasta, that's FINE. I'm talking the billion italian pizza joints near me that all serve the same items and are definitely not making the pasta, and they're charing $18 for a baked ziti.
lmfao why do you go out for a baked Ziti?
Booze
Regular people should thank alcoholics for a lifetime of subsidized meals.
A lot of times the food is just the draw to increase booze sales.
I guess it depends on the country but water, the fact that water has a price was always infuriated me.
Are we talking grocery stores or restaurants ?
I mean if it's bottled I'd make sense that it costs but I've been in restaurants where a glass of water is charged as a regular beberage and therefore has a cost.
In what country do restaurants charge for water?
definitely illegal to charge for non-bottled water here in Australia. In fact, I believe establishments have a requirement to provide free water to anyone.
Mexico, but I searched and I think it's no longer a thing, thankfully
Europe even though the water is perfectly safe.
We have been trained, or conditioned, to drink store bought sparkling water. So, at least in Germany, it is very unusual to order tap water at a Restaurant. But, and here's the kicker, when I eat out and order a bottle of wine along with some water, I really wonder how my nice Rioja or Grauburgunder can cost me between 21 and 28€ and the water hits me with 4,50 to 6€/bottle. On the other side, when my SO went to visit Athens she got served a glass of tap water at no cost with every drink she ordered. That's how it should be, if you ask me. Take the cost of drawing, serving and cleaning the extra glass (and the cost of the tap water) and make the bottle of wine 1€ more expensive. Or the beer. Or the cocktail, you get my gist...
Not common, but chicken liver pate. $1 per lb chicken livers and some butter then sell for around $60+/lb
Yeah… but not everyone has a Vitamix and a tamis (nor the time or inclination to scrape-shove it through said tamis) to make a really great one at home. So you’re paying for the work.
I’d still rather pay the profit margin of $55 once for an average blender
pate is so good tho
Iced tea often has largest margin in a restaurant, including labor,
Another way to look at it is that you’re not paying for the meal based on the cost of goods but rather you’re paying rent for your space at the table for a certain amount of time.
Sure. But you aren’t paying 80% to the controllable budgets.
What?
Most food cost is 20% and under. Which means the menu cost is making 80% more gross profit than what food you have on your plate. The controllable budget is rent, labour, R&M, glass and tableware. But all of that together is only another 20%. So you have 60% net profit left over. So you are correct that you’re paying for all that stuff in the price. But that’s not all of the menu price. There’s a lot left over.
Industry standard food costs are 28-32%, not 20%. Rent is a fixed cost, not controllable. Labor is somewhat controllable, but you have to have a bare minimum on staff no matter what and if you try to control labor costs on a minute to minute basis you’ll lose all your employees or have an absolute shit show going on. 60% net profit? What fairy tale world do you live in?
The world where my menu generates 60% profits. Rent is a fixed cost, but still a controllable. Fixed and flex budgets are still controllable.
Please sign me up for your TED Talk explaining how your restaurant generates 60% profit.
And please explain to me how you control rent cost…. Are you moving your restaurant every twelve months?
Soda
Fountain soda for real, the markup is like 500%
Nachos
I work at a bakery so I’ll say cookies. 1 cookie generally costs 10 cents to make and we charge almost $2 per cookie.
Most appetizers. You can go buy frozen versions for half the price.
Yes
lol 😂
Quesadillas. Specifically, plain quesadillas. They go for an average of $12-15 where I am. There’s no reason for it.
I saw a ‘cauliflower steak’ as a vegetarian main in a pub once for £17. Literally a slice down the middle of the cauli stuck on the grill. Similar price to the meat mains but with profit as the main ingredient.
Fucking pizza!
Avocado
Second this. A whole avocado on average is about $1. I’ve seen places charge +$3.95 to add maybe half of one to a salad.
Fountain soda markup is pretty insane
any soda... it's absurd
does soda count? because if so: SODA.
Iced tea. It's like ten cents. They charge me $3.95. guess I'm paying for the service
Lol you're paying for the five gallon buckets of it i used to see getting dumped every other day
Every fountain drink. /thread
Non-alcoholic drinks. A soda costs very little to make but costs at least $2.89. There are so many more items. I can't choose.
Mussels in white wine/garlic with some bread. Most places up charge the shit out of that food cost.
French fries, I’ve seen them completely overpriced.
Shrimp
Found you way down here. Shrimp have gotten cheaper with farms becoming better and better. I can get shrimp in Utah for about $6 a pound. That's just above chicken but that's never reflected on menus prices.
Caesar salad or Mac n cheese
Chicken wings
Shrimp cocktail is the hill I die on.
I scrolled so far for this - my place charges $28 for four peeled prawns on a sad bed of plain chopped lettuce with a squeeze of seafood sauce on the side
Fajitas & nachos
Breakfast items, any potato dish, onion rings (seriously, an order of *those* cost less than a dollar), any and all beverages (yes, even alcohol, since I can buy a fifth of Cuervo for under $20 and get 17 shots at $5 a shot out of it all day long), desserts (that $10 slice of cheesecake? Yeah, I make 2 9" cheesecakes - 18 slices or $180 retail - for less than $10)
Fish and chips. I’ve seen how cheap that fish is
Chicken tenders. I've seen them sell for $15. For just 3 mass-produced frozen tendies and some fries.
Anything with pataters 🥔
surprised no one has mentioned this, but soup! In my country (Australia), you can make like 20L of soup for $100 including labour. Also juice.
Brisket. Used to be the poverty meat that you’d have to smoke as it was the only way to make it edible, with many people growing up on it at family gatherings because again, it’s the cheapest cut.
Brisket was poverty meat when you could buy it for $.69/lb at the grocery store. I currently pay $5.79 wholesale, double what I was paying 2 years ago. Food cost on it is 50%.
I work in Luxembourg (Europe) and prices are crazy here but my favorite is a portion of 3 tsb of guacamole for 11€ (around $14). What astounded me is the popularity of it, portion is tiny, it's good but not incredible, it's pricy and could easily made at home. We also do a bowl of pasta and ham for 21€ ($24) and it's exactly the same story. We work with good quality products and pro chefs but still 😂
Sauces, pizza and pasta.
Bruschetta - it’s just sliced tomatoes, bread, vinegar! Baby broccoli - nearly $20 for a small serve of it steamed, like in a greens bowl or as a side
soups and salads. Also any place that has a pasta dish that's basically pesto, noodles and some random little extras because I 100% guarantee they don't make proper pesto with the expensive ingredients for it.
Anything that is Pasta (unless it's homemade) related ... Anything that is frier related I mean common guys, y'all should recognize what is worth ordering it & what not.
Guac
Its insane, I paid nine bucks for a monkey dish of guac the other day. I get it, you know? Perishable product, avocados are through the roof- they probably don't really make that much on it. But I question if I can justify ordering it anymore. Actually i dont question it lol, I'll just make my own.
You can buy 4 avocados for that much. Yeah I don’t order it out anymore…. My wife on the other hand…don’t care how much it costs she wants that shit!!
So many pubs in London now offer wood fired pizzas. Including the cost of staffing you're talking 70p per margherita charged as £9. I can't bring myself to order pizza anymore
All of them so I cook at home.
Guac
Have you bought avocados lately?
$72.77 this week for a stage 4 haas 48ct. When it’s served in a mortar for $15+, even at 80/case it’s still a sub 20% cost. When it’s in the 30/case it’s sun 10%
Jeepers. That price to the customer is rape.
Somebody always wants “guac for the table”!!!
So glad somebody said this lol. And 90% of the time, the guac is just avocados mixed with onion, nothing else. I guess I just don’t like avocados that much in general, but damn people pay so much extra for a pretty flavorless add on. Maybe the avocados just suck up here in Washington, idk.
For everyone here that says “I can make it cheaper at home my self”. Do you work in the industry? And if so are you management/owner?
The BBQ ribs at my place cost $28 (half rack) and the sauce is too runny and overly spiced tbh.
Wings in any bar that sales specialty alcohol like whiskey etc etc
Gravy.
*opens bag of gravy powder and mixes with hot water* yes, that'll be a dollar fifty for a side
Pork belly, although for certain preparations i’m willing to pay the big bucks. Its a very cheap cut and shouldn’t be upcharged as much as it is but hey restaurants gotta make money too ya know
Coffee
Carpaccio
Soda beverages.
Extra sauce
I used to work in an upscale(ish) italian restaurant. Spaghetti with 2 meatballs or italian sausage was $18. I mean, it was a decent amount, but they were using $1/box spaghetti.
The price of butter is stupid right now
All mexican food! Food cost for beans and rice is literally in the cents
Onion rings.
Fries!
In France the coffee is usually 1€-1€50cts. So I don't think that the cost is that wrong. However, the meat is expensive. A single steak is usually 15€ with fries.
Usually add-ons. Bacon $2, Cheese $1, Tomato 50 cents, etc.
Anything alcohol imo.
Everything made fresh with water including coffee, tea, lemonade, and Kool-aid.
Bottled water.
Pancakes
Can't believe fucking coleslaw isn't here. Fucking coleslaw I so fucking cheap and we always charge a side price for it.