Food inflation is far worse in grocery stores than restaurants

seems like the real takeaway from this is that groceries are more sensitive than restaurants to raw food costs because they have less ancillary overhead (rent, labor etc.)

I've been deeply weirded out at how the costs of feeding myself from the grocery store have approached the prices of cheap restaurant food (mexican and chinese food places primarily). Not that it's actually cheaper, but the marginal cost of buying, preparing, and cleaning up outweighs the price savings in the case of complicated meals far far more than it used to.

We haven't seen a phenomenon like this since, my God, 2007 through 2009. And then earlier from 2003 through 2004. But, ignoring those anomalies, this hasn't happened even once since, let's see, 2002. Truly amazing stuff here.

One reason for this is that food prices are only one component of restaurant prices. You're also paying for the wait staff, brand, surroundings and a lot more.