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Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

Just to get an idea, how much would it cost to eat outside for lunch? With my European perspective, 15$ is what I would expect from a nice restaurant for lunch. Or a really fancy burger in an expensive city neighbourhood.

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Yeah, a $12 entrée is pretty average for a single meal. Add anything else (tips, drink, etc.) or pick anything slightly more expensive and you'll easily hit $15. If you go for inexpensive options consistently (maybe you avoid tips and always get water at a cheaper place), you could probably average around $9-$10/meal, though you might get tired of it quickly. To average less than that while still eating out every meal, you'll have to get a bit more... creative with your selections.

> Yeah, a $12 entrée is pretty average for a single meal.

I would be still hungry after just a starter.

Entrée refers to the main meal in the US.

In Berkeley, a cheap takeout meal like Chipotle is around ~$11. If you walked into a random nice restaurant for lunch and ordered one entree, + tax + tip, you'd surely be out $25.

In Berkeley, unless eating junk from a fast food, you're talking 20-25$/person/meal for a normal place. More like 40-50$ for a "nice" place. Even the fast food crap you'll be above 10$ unless you eat 4 chicken nuggets or something.

> unless eating junk from a fast food, you're talking 20-25$/person/meal for a normal place.

I don't think it's that high (yet?), though you can find restaurants like that. (See [1].)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31478539

To be honest I don't walk nearby campus often, so I'm not sure how the cheap food joints are around it. Perhaps its cheaper due to higher volume, or lower quality? But where we go to have lunch, it's a rare day when it costs me less than 20$ per person, once the bill is signed and we're out of the door. We try to aim for the value-for-quality segment.

In France, it's difficult to have a nice meal for $15/15€, unless you are talking about ready made food/metros served in restaurants. And company restaurants are awful.

it depends, for the restaurants around my workplace, if you take just a main dish (which is usually well enough for a midday meal), it'd be slightly lower than 15 €. But once you add a starter/side dish or a drink or a coffee, you can easily go above that. There's also a few cheaper options where you can get combo options (like starter + main dish) for below 15 €.

For the company restaurants, from what I've seen, it depends on the company and how much they are paying, so it goes from pretty terrible to actually decent.

Do you mean Paris? I was in Paris and Bordeaux last week, Paris is for sure very expensive, sometime even close to what I’m used to pay in Switzerland. But in Bordeaux “plats/formules du jour” where below 12€ in restaurants, sometime below 10€.

Note that I meant for lunch, not dinner. I meant the equivalent of “Mittagsmenu” we have in Germany. The price is generally lower.

Edit: just to be sure my tone isn’t off here, I don’t expect to know what things cost in France and not trying to say that you’re incorrect. I’m just wondering if prices I’ve seen are more or less the norm or the exception.

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