Restaurant real estate gets a radical makeover
wsj.com
wsj.com
To make things work, the tip inflation has made it even worse. More tips for reduced service only encourages more people to order takeout. If I’m ordering at the counter, grabbing my order when it’s ready, eating it at a table and then cleaning up after myself when I’m done, if you ask for a 25-30% tip, I’m going to order takeout and tip 10% if I’m feeling generous.
The first tip (the default 20%) was hidden on the detailed receipt. The credit card receipt had no indication there was already a tip applied. I was struck by the dark pattern here.
Further, the service was so-so. We had to ask for water three times before we got refills, kids screaming the entire time. Dinner out is meant to be relaxing and enjoyable, not a quest to demand something you're already paying for.
When I spoke to a co-diner, the explanation was "well they are short on staff." OK, so if they are short on staff and couldn't refill glasses with water, how did that justify a 20% gratuity?
Also, if they are short on staff, and the smaller set of staff are sharing a tip, doesn't that even out a lower tip?
This has happened over and over and our default response is not to complain, or write bad reviews, but just to stop dining out. We cook at home, with high-quality ingredients, and enjoy the time together.
Where on earth is this? This seems incredibly expensive even by East/West Coast standards.
Where they're getting $100 from though, I have no idea. Nobody's charging $30 for eggs or $8 for coffee unless you're at a top-end business hotel in Tokyo or something. Or the eggs come with caviar or they're accompanied with a small steak.
The same plate now costs $27, coffee is $7 and the sides are also similarly up priced. And that moves the needle up on the taxes and tips. This is a proper brunch spot, so it’s not just eggs.
I think $30 a person is pretty normal at a lot of decent places. You can definitely still get a good lunch for $15. But just not that normal. I do find $50 a person to be way more common than it should be if you go order a side and a drink as well.
A normal, nice popular brunch spot in "trendy" Williamsburg is Egg Shop. Their egg plates are all still $14–16, and coffee is still $3–4:
Altho to be fair, VAT is included and tips are unnecessary.
Maybe the math all works out w.r.t. coastal brunches.
At the margins, also, people don't just automatically reset to all their previous behaviors. There's probably at least some subset of people who are like (to your example), "You know? Making brunch at home during the pandemic was really not a big deal. Why am I spending all that money to wait for a table at a crowded restaurant again?"
ADDED: While there's something to be said for sitting at a table on a nice weekend morning and watching the world walk by in the city, throwing together a brunch at home is probably one of the easier and cheaper meals you can do.
The portion sizes often seem to be simultaneously decreasing, too.
The quality of the ingredients is also often noticeably less than it used to be.
On top of all of that, the service from the staff is also often terrible these days.
I end up paying far more, getting a much smaller quantity of food, what little I do get is inferior, and the overall experience is unpleasant.
It's not just getting the same for more money. It's now about getting far less for more money.
There's also been a large uptick in restaurants' costs in terms of raw materials.
Handing a bag of food across the counter does not qualify.
* Having AirPods in doesn't mean not listening. I just wear mine and have them on transparent. For particularly loud settings I use live listen.
* I would love if my server was allowed creature comforts like being able to listen to music or podcasts. Working in a restaurant that has the same 20 terrible songs on repeat is miserable. Service jobs are miserable, people suck, the less "masking" the employees do the better.
If the cost of labor is too high just get rid of the labor. It will be a hit with young people. The last thing I want is having someone waiting on me, if people weren't already used to it we wouldn't invented it again because it's weird. The best restaurant experiences I've had are seat yourself, get your own drinks, order on the website from the QR code at the table, and pick up your food from the window.
It's why "food halls" are doing so well.
I don't care about the staff asking me how my day is. I don't care how their day is going. I don't care about how "attentive" the staff is. I don't care if the staff has AirPods in. Replace the check ins with a call button. Familiarity with the menu for questions is all the interaction needed. Wait staff can be reduced, since they are just hanging out in the back unless called or serving food.
We can get rid of pretending the restaurant under paying the wait staff is the diners problem to be made up for with tips, because they need to employ people to talk to you while you're eating.
Extremely high end Michelin star places don't really have check ins, they just monitor you and do their explainers while they serve you. That is nice service, but most restaurants aren't at that level at all, and the prices at a Michelin place are so high that there is no need for a tip for the service.
Working during the restrictions was traumatic.
At least in the UK, a stressful and busy but ultimately friendly job was converted into playing restriction police. I'm not surprised that a ton of people just decided to sack the job off after that.
"It got darker after the sun set, and will therefore never be light again."
I'm a bit surprised to be honest. Restaurants seem as busy as ever but I admittedly don't eat out a lot unless I'm traveling and obviously don't personally have hard data other than what's in articles like this. There seems to be a pretty consistent pattern that the "new normal" is mostly not radically different from the "old normal" but there are definitely some shifts at the margins.
There's an interesting game theory problem here.
At least in my area, higher-end restaurants didn't offer takeout pre-pandemic. If you wanted to eat their food you had to go sit at their table.
But having started offering takeout during the pandemic, it's hard for any one restaurant to stop offering takeout and risk losing business to competitors that continue to offer takeout.
I also generally don't mind cooking, but it's a lot harder to prepare a nice meal while also taking care of kids.