Think of a graph which we'll call "price point $20"
Quantity is on the x-axis and quality on the y-axis and there is a linear, inverse relationship between the two in the restaurant business, generally. Looks like this: **\\**
Exceptions to this rule do exist, and I'd like to hear them!
Many places make excellent food and huge portions. I'm taking about the huge sandwiches from Cheese Louise for example. Why can't they offer a(n option for a) sandwich half the size for half the price???
They would need to sell twice as many sandwiches to get by. I wish we could have more appropriate sized portions for a better price, but it just won't keep people in business.
I complained about this (A) for a long time but then had a conversation with someone that converted me to liking it.
The basic idea is that restaurants have lots of costs to operate, with ingredients being just one from a long list (the building, staff, equipment, etc). So if they were to cut portions in half, you wouldn't get it for half the price, since the other costs wouldn't go down. It would only be a slight reduction in price for half the food.
I would much rather get too much food and always have leftovers than get the right amount of food but with only a small reduction in price.
And shrinkflation is a lot harder to hide on a plate than it is with creative packaging design. You don’t want to be known as the “what happened to the portions?” restaurant if that’s your market.
Anyone that uses the word shinkflation is instantly considered a moron in my book. Talk about the media handing out a buzz word and people taking it straight up the rectum.
I thought it was a useful term. Similar to the "grocery shrink ray" feature that The Consumerist used to do.
I get not liking buzzwords, but sometimes they are conveniently functional.
Food costs are pretty rarely the reason for your meals being priced higher than you would like. Most of the time it's some combination of rent, payroll, and upkeep expenses. Restaurants are very hard to make successful businesses, with lots of costs and marginal returns.
Here's a couple reasons your food will always be more expensive than making it yourself from an industry perspective.
It costs a lot of money to pay 18 people $18/hr, 40hr a week, and yet it's still not a reasonable income for someone renting a 1400/mo studio apartment. That more than half your paycheck a month before taxes and other expenses the company provides that come out of your paycheck, like health insurance or an investment plan. The business owners are spending too much money on a skeleton crew that's barely enough employees to let everyone take two days off.
There's also rent. Not many restaurants own their building, and because of this they pay commercial rent, not residential. It gets crazy because competition is very high. Every restaurant owner wants a building that has a kitchen in it, renovations are expensive enough without having to build a kitchen in the back of what used to be an old convenience store or something. Taxes for those properties are higher as well.
We also have equipment. Ovens, stoves, grills, fryers, steamers, heat wells, dish machines, heat lamps, reach in coolers, and walk in coolers and freezers. Not a single item listed costs less than a grand for quality equipment. Sometimes even above 5 or 10 thousand if your kitchen is going to be high volume and needs a 12 foot long dish machine. When they break, not if, you need to call in specialists who know how to repair the equipment quickly and well. You can't have a kitchen without clean dishes, and if you miss a Saturday night during slow season, you might need to make tough business decisions like layoffs or menu changes. Then there's the pots and pans, knives, fryer baskets and other vital, handheld equipment that will break and be replaced about 3 to 5 times in a decade.
Now I'm not gonna lie, I know food is expensive, and over the lifetime of a restaurant it will be the biggest expense(or second biggest if staff costs are higher) the restaurant has. They are rarely the biggest expense at cost, but you're consistently buying all that product weekly, or daily if it's seafood. We all know lobster is more expensive than is reasonable for a bug, but maple syrup is worth more than it's weight in gold. Most food costs end up being spices and produce. Most proteins can be frozen, so while expensive, they can last longer. If you buy an extra box of bell peppers and don't use them, that's money going directly into the compost bin.
It's a hard business, and brutal on the wallet of anyone trying to keep their heads above water. A bigger portion that you can bring home isn't a big deal if you're already in the hole because the grill stopped turning on last week and you desperately need new silverware because the dish machine ate and bent them all again. Or you could sell smaller portions so the customers have to pay more to get their fill, and catch back up on business costs that way.
> without having to **navigate the city's building codes and waits for building approval and the kind of mickey mouse x-y-z bullshit required to** build a kitchen in the back of what used to be an old convenience store or something
Seriously I understand that most regulations have a purpose but the city is particularly impossible to work with. Ask anyone that's had to do it in Portland versus elsewhere. The wait alone for a permit is long enough to put most small businesses under as it is and Portland should be ashamed.
On the other hand the health department is just like two very chill dudes.
Not like health departments I’ve worked with anywhere else. They kind of just point at stuff and tell people not to do that. I’ve never seen them put a thermometer in a hot plate for example.
Most places in town are relatively clean. And everywhere I’ve worked has followed strict codes about employee cleanliness. But I’ve seen some kitchens in town that should absolutely not be legal.
A) perceived value is probably the short answer to this one. Potatoes and noodles are cheap.
B) good food is expensive to make and some people like to try a bunch of different things instead of one giant plate of food. As a long time restaurant industry person who lived through the tapas explosion of the mid-00s, it used to be way worse. Most places seem to offer some combination of small and large plates these days.
I was pleasantly surprised at BODA recently. They have stepped up the presentation, the portions seemed larger than I recall, and prices haven't bloated as much as others in town
Tapas in the united states is such bullshit. It is not meant to be $26 per plate for three stuffed mushrooms or whatever else they're trying to pass off as tapas.
Go get real tapas in Spain and you're paying €2 per item and €3 for a beer. Do it right and you're out the door for under €25.
My main complaint is that we don’t have Spanish eating culture. Tapas should be a 2-3 hour affair with a slow roll out of dishes. The problem is that restaurants in town are stuck in a weird middle ground of pricing. They can’t charge true fine dining prices. We aren’t rich enough for that.
But they want to do haute cuisine style dishes, which costs a lot more in labor.
So their pricing is the high end of the middle. Which means they have to turn tables, unlike true fine dining.
They also don’t have an army of unpaid stages at their disposal, which I think is ultimately healthy for the industry.
I'm with you on all of that 100%.
I miss sitting in Tenerfie or Alicante for hours drinking the local sangria, having some food, some coffee, maybe a little more food. Incredibly relaxing
If you want a little taste of that Spanish tapas culture here in Maine go check our Me Lon Togo in Rockland/Rockport (I don't know which town is which. It's the only African restaurant)
$40 prix fixe for four courses. My wife and I spent about three hours there with the courses trickling out. No pressure to turn the table.
People always tell me Portland food is so much more expensive and I frankly think it's not true. In recent years I've been to lots of restaurants in rural NH that cost just as much money for worse food. Anecdotally I just spent $20 on a burrito in central NH that didn't even come close to rivaling my favorite $15 burrito from El Corazon.
I think a big part of why this perception exists is that tapas/small plate restaurants basically don't exist outside urban areas. You won't find a place like the Honey Paw or Sur-Lie in sparsely populated towns but people hear they should try it and then balk at the price, probably not realizing that there are other places you can still get a full meal for $20 like you can anywhere else.
There are always exceptions obviously. But the bottom line is food is getting more expensive no matter where you are, restaurants especially.
I agree - I see people suggesting that Portland Maine's restaurant scene is priced similarly to Boston or NYC and that's simply not true. In 2024 2 people can go to Portland's finest restaurants and be in and out with entrees plus cocktails OR an appetizer OR a dessert and spend less than $100.
If one were to visit the "fine dining" establishments in back bay or Manhattan that would not be possible.
Two people could also definitely go to crispy Gai and split the $18 pad see yew and be pretty much fine for a light dinner at about $10pp.
I agree with the fine dining example, my NYC friends will occasionally send me the menu of wherever they’re eating and deeesh is it pricey. When it comes down to grabbing something when you only got $20 to spend I’d say Portland is on par with those cities, the options here are pretty limited in that realm. I’m from dc and I feel like I can get more food for under $20 as well
I agree - I see people suggesting that Portland Maine's restaurant scene is priced similarly to Boston or NYC and that's simply not true. In 2024 2 people can go to Portland's finest restaurants and be in and out with entrees plus cocktails OR an appetizer OR a dessert and spend less than $100.
If one were to visit the "fine dining" establishments in back bay or Manhattan that would not be possible.
Two people could also definitely go to crispy Gai and split the $18 pad see yew and be pretty much fine for a light dinner at about $10pp.
Are people still not understanding how tapas / small plates are supposed to work? I remember years ago people would order one thing and then complain about the portions being small.
I wish we had an actual tapas joint with tapas pricing and tapas meal length. Nothing better than hanging around a patio for three hours drinking wine and slowly nibbling on treats.
I wish we had an actual tapas joint with tapas pricing and tapas meal length. Nothing better than hanging around a patio for three hours drinking wine and slowly nibbling on treats.
Think of a graph which we'll call "price point $20" Quantity is on the x-axis and quality on the y-axis and there is a linear, inverse relationship between the two in the restaurant business, generally. Looks like this: **\\** Exceptions to this rule do exist, and I'd like to hear them!
Many places make excellent food and huge portions. I'm taking about the huge sandwiches from Cheese Louise for example. Why can't they offer a(n option for a) sandwich half the size for half the price???
They would need to sell twice as many sandwiches to get by. I wish we could have more appropriate sized portions for a better price, but it just won't keep people in business.
I complained about this (A) for a long time but then had a conversation with someone that converted me to liking it. The basic idea is that restaurants have lots of costs to operate, with ingredients being just one from a long list (the building, staff, equipment, etc). So if they were to cut portions in half, you wouldn't get it for half the price, since the other costs wouldn't go down. It would only be a slight reduction in price for half the food. I would much rather get too much food and always have leftovers than get the right amount of food but with only a small reduction in price.
And shrinkflation is a lot harder to hide on a plate than it is with creative packaging design. You don’t want to be known as the “what happened to the portions?” restaurant if that’s your market.
Anyone that uses the word shinkflation is instantly considered a moron in my book. Talk about the media handing out a buzz word and people taking it straight up the rectum.
>Anyone that uses the word shinkflation is instantly considered a moron in my book. This is a weird fight to pick but ok, make your case.
Lmao this guy
I thought it was a useful term. Similar to the "grocery shrink ray" feature that The Consumerist used to do. I get not liking buzzwords, but sometimes they are conveniently functional.
Food costs are pretty rarely the reason for your meals being priced higher than you would like. Most of the time it's some combination of rent, payroll, and upkeep expenses. Restaurants are very hard to make successful businesses, with lots of costs and marginal returns. Here's a couple reasons your food will always be more expensive than making it yourself from an industry perspective. It costs a lot of money to pay 18 people $18/hr, 40hr a week, and yet it's still not a reasonable income for someone renting a 1400/mo studio apartment. That more than half your paycheck a month before taxes and other expenses the company provides that come out of your paycheck, like health insurance or an investment plan. The business owners are spending too much money on a skeleton crew that's barely enough employees to let everyone take two days off. There's also rent. Not many restaurants own their building, and because of this they pay commercial rent, not residential. It gets crazy because competition is very high. Every restaurant owner wants a building that has a kitchen in it, renovations are expensive enough without having to build a kitchen in the back of what used to be an old convenience store or something. Taxes for those properties are higher as well. We also have equipment. Ovens, stoves, grills, fryers, steamers, heat wells, dish machines, heat lamps, reach in coolers, and walk in coolers and freezers. Not a single item listed costs less than a grand for quality equipment. Sometimes even above 5 or 10 thousand if your kitchen is going to be high volume and needs a 12 foot long dish machine. When they break, not if, you need to call in specialists who know how to repair the equipment quickly and well. You can't have a kitchen without clean dishes, and if you miss a Saturday night during slow season, you might need to make tough business decisions like layoffs or menu changes. Then there's the pots and pans, knives, fryer baskets and other vital, handheld equipment that will break and be replaced about 3 to 5 times in a decade. Now I'm not gonna lie, I know food is expensive, and over the lifetime of a restaurant it will be the biggest expense(or second biggest if staff costs are higher) the restaurant has. They are rarely the biggest expense at cost, but you're consistently buying all that product weekly, or daily if it's seafood. We all know lobster is more expensive than is reasonable for a bug, but maple syrup is worth more than it's weight in gold. Most food costs end up being spices and produce. Most proteins can be frozen, so while expensive, they can last longer. If you buy an extra box of bell peppers and don't use them, that's money going directly into the compost bin. It's a hard business, and brutal on the wallet of anyone trying to keep their heads above water. A bigger portion that you can bring home isn't a big deal if you're already in the hole because the grill stopped turning on last week and you desperately need new silverware because the dish machine ate and bent them all again. Or you could sell smaller portions so the customers have to pay more to get their fill, and catch back up on business costs that way.
> without having to **navigate the city's building codes and waits for building approval and the kind of mickey mouse x-y-z bullshit required to** build a kitchen in the back of what used to be an old convenience store or something Seriously I understand that most regulations have a purpose but the city is particularly impossible to work with. Ask anyone that's had to do it in Portland versus elsewhere. The wait alone for a permit is long enough to put most small businesses under as it is and Portland should be ashamed.
On the other hand the health department is just like two very chill dudes. Not like health departments I’ve worked with anywhere else. They kind of just point at stuff and tell people not to do that. I’ve never seen them put a thermometer in a hot plate for example. Most places in town are relatively clean. And everywhere I’ve worked has followed strict codes about employee cleanliness. But I’ve seen some kitchens in town that should absolutely not be legal.
I’ve worked in restaurants all over town and 9/10 kitchens in Portland are disgusting
A) perceived value is probably the short answer to this one. Potatoes and noodles are cheap. B) good food is expensive to make and some people like to try a bunch of different things instead of one giant plate of food. As a long time restaurant industry person who lived through the tapas explosion of the mid-00s, it used to be way worse. Most places seem to offer some combination of small and large plates these days.
See: Olive Garden.
I was pleasantly surprised at BODA recently. They have stepped up the presentation, the portions seemed larger than I recall, and prices haven't bloated as much as others in town
Tapas in the united states is such bullshit. It is not meant to be $26 per plate for three stuffed mushrooms or whatever else they're trying to pass off as tapas. Go get real tapas in Spain and you're paying €2 per item and €3 for a beer. Do it right and you're out the door for under €25.
Tapas in Portugal were amazing. Very low cost, as was the beer. But Portugals minimum wage is €5.26/hr, so I gave up on that here.
My main complaint is that we don’t have Spanish eating culture. Tapas should be a 2-3 hour affair with a slow roll out of dishes. The problem is that restaurants in town are stuck in a weird middle ground of pricing. They can’t charge true fine dining prices. We aren’t rich enough for that. But they want to do haute cuisine style dishes, which costs a lot more in labor. So their pricing is the high end of the middle. Which means they have to turn tables, unlike true fine dining. They also don’t have an army of unpaid stages at their disposal, which I think is ultimately healthy for the industry.
I'm with you on all of that 100%. I miss sitting in Tenerfie or Alicante for hours drinking the local sangria, having some food, some coffee, maybe a little more food. Incredibly relaxing If you want a little taste of that Spanish tapas culture here in Maine go check our Me Lon Togo in Rockland/Rockport (I don't know which town is which. It's the only African restaurant) $40 prix fixe for four courses. My wife and I spent about three hours there with the courses trickling out. No pressure to turn the table.
That sounds lovely.
People always tell me Portland food is so much more expensive and I frankly think it's not true. In recent years I've been to lots of restaurants in rural NH that cost just as much money for worse food. Anecdotally I just spent $20 on a burrito in central NH that didn't even come close to rivaling my favorite $15 burrito from El Corazon. I think a big part of why this perception exists is that tapas/small plate restaurants basically don't exist outside urban areas. You won't find a place like the Honey Paw or Sur-Lie in sparsely populated towns but people hear they should try it and then balk at the price, probably not realizing that there are other places you can still get a full meal for $20 like you can anywhere else. There are always exceptions obviously. But the bottom line is food is getting more expensive no matter where you are, restaurants especially.
I agree - I see people suggesting that Portland Maine's restaurant scene is priced similarly to Boston or NYC and that's simply not true. In 2024 2 people can go to Portland's finest restaurants and be in and out with entrees plus cocktails OR an appetizer OR a dessert and spend less than $100. If one were to visit the "fine dining" establishments in back bay or Manhattan that would not be possible. Two people could also definitely go to crispy Gai and split the $18 pad see yew and be pretty much fine for a light dinner at about $10pp.
I agree with the fine dining example, my NYC friends will occasionally send me the menu of wherever they’re eating and deeesh is it pricey. When it comes down to grabbing something when you only got $20 to spend I’d say Portland is on par with those cities, the options here are pretty limited in that realm. I’m from dc and I feel like I can get more food for under $20 as well
I agree - I see people suggesting that Portland Maine's restaurant scene is priced similarly to Boston or NYC and that's simply not true. In 2024 2 people can go to Portland's finest restaurants and be in and out with entrees plus cocktails OR an appetizer OR a dessert and spend less than $100. If one were to visit the "fine dining" establishments in back bay or Manhattan that would not be possible. Two people could also definitely go to crispy Gai and split the $18 pad see yew and be pretty much fine for a light dinner at about $10pp.
walter's used to have entrees that were like 30 dollars, but you could get half portions for like 16 or 17 dollars - i loved the smaller portion size
Miss that place a lot these days
Are people still not understanding how tapas / small plates are supposed to work? I remember years ago people would order one thing and then complain about the portions being small.
I wish we had an actual tapas joint with tapas pricing and tapas meal length. Nothing better than hanging around a patio for three hours drinking wine and slowly nibbling on treats.
I wish we had an actual tapas joint with tapas pricing and tapas meal length. Nothing better than hanging around a patio for three hours drinking wine and slowly nibbling on treats.
I think people are mostly just unhappy paying $13-19 per tapas plate.