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We go to nice restaurants on holidays and birthdays, $100 is not unusual for the two of us with a tip.
On non-occasions, we will to to Chik-fil-a or In&Out Burger, bill is usually $12 or so.
Was gonna say, it's function of income, lifestyle, expectations, etc.
I'm "upper middle class", they say, and $150 for a great dinner (lobster and filet mignon) is okay with me annually, if-that, on my birthday. It's exquisite at two places I know here in Seattle. I'm not a fine dining sort of guy, usually. The truly wealthy would consider that another day at the races, as they say.
I have been invited to several restaurants where the going rate was about $225 per person. Of course, that meal started at 7 pm and continued to almost midnight and consisted of 22 courses. I think that it was a molecular gastronomy meal in Chicago six years ago. I declined although the pictures were quite excellent.
I start to bulk when the prices go over $75 per person.
In recent years, now out of Chicago, we do not go out for the high priced meals very often. WHY? If I pay that much for a meal, I expect a truly outstanding meal. In this area, I doubt that I could find many meals that are worth $25. Basically, I save my dining dollars for the 10-12 weeks each year that I am outside of Tucson.
As I get older, I am finding a lot of really great meals in the $10-20 per person range in obscure places so the need to shell out a lot of money is rather unnecessary.
We're upper middle class, but don't live in a major city. We do have many excellent restaurants in my town. Dinner for two without alcohol might cost about $80-100 at these, and alcohol of course pushes up the price, but I don't like to spend that much. Instead, we tend to go out to ethnic restaurants - Indian, Thai, Sushi, and try to find places that have a coupon, like Groupon or LocalFlavor, or Restaurant.com (which has gone WAY downhill, I really don't bother with it anymore). This way, we can have a pretty nice dinner out for two for about $50-60 total. We also buy discounted gift cards at Costco for local good restaurants - this gives us perhaps a 20% discount before we arrive. Sometimes we'll go for happy hour, eat inexpensive but good bar food at one of these fancy places, and with two drinks for my husband, and one for me, and maybe 6 small bar plates between the two of us, we'll spend about $50. If we use the discounted gift cards for happy hour, it's a further 20% off.
But I know plenty of people who routinely go out at least one night a week and spend at least $60/person for dinner with alcohol, and could spend as much as $100/person for dinner and alcohol at restaurants in my town center. Just not us.
Guess it depends on what tier of food you're eating. Personally I don't like spending money on anything...
Fast food:
Cheap; McDonalds
Expensive; Carls Jr.
Diners:
Cheap; Wafflehouse
Expensive; Steak N Shake
Dinner restraunt(?):
Cheap; Texas Roadhouse or whatever
Expensive; Olive Garden
These are all damn near the same, anyway.
And so on...
Steak and Shake is one of least expensive places I know to eat.And most places we have lived: Waffle House has not been cheap: Not expensive, but not cheap.
You'll notice that I said, "over the years", when I quoted those prices. We no longer have any 4-star restaurants in this area, so it's a moot issue nowadays. There still are a few buffet restaurants that charge only about $3.00 for lunch and $4.00 for dinner. They are operated in tandem with liquor bars, which by law, have to have a restaurant inside or next to them. The restaurants are loss-leaders to draw patrons to the bars, much like the buffets that are found in casinos in places like Las Vegas. For the record, the last time I ate anything in a restaurant, was 1991. Three hours later, I was sick as a dog, with some kind of bug and tossed the whole meal. Learned my lesson.
If you haven't been to a restaurant in the last three decades, why are you even attempting to participate in this thread? And for the record, your statement about Las Vegas buffets is as outdated as all the other info you've posted in this thread. Restaurants are no longer loss leaders for casino hotels in LV; each department is expected to make a profit. The buffets in casino hotels on the Strip are now in the $30-$55 range.
The bottom line for me, is that I'm willing to pay for great food. Even if it is only once in a great while. The problem I find is locating a place that actually has great food. Right now, the best Italian restaurant I've found, is close to 300 miles away. They don't offer pizza.
This Thread has been fun. It also has me wondering what is the breakdown for whether one is peasant class, middle class, upper-middle-class, lower-upper class, Etc. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may not always determine what restaurants one goes to, or how much one is willing to spend on a meal.
I do think going out to lunch is a good way to save a little money but still enjoy a meal out. It doesn't usually work for me to be able to do that for a special occasion meal but sometimes I've been able to - my son likes The Melting Pot and that gets kind of pricey for what it is, but the lunch specials are a better deal.
Another thing I do when I go out is get a couple of appetizers rather than an entree. It's usually a more reasonable amount of food, and I've also found that a lot of the time, the appetizers are more interesting than the entrees. I don't mind leftovers, but esp. if I'm not going home after a meal, that's a good way to enjoy it without worrying about the leftovers.
As for amounts, while I don't routinely spent that much, I'd consider about $100 for two people reasonable for a nice dinner, and maybe $75 for a lunch - but again, that's a special occasion meal. For a normal "I need to grab some lunch" I try to stay more in the $10-15 range, which isn't too tough. One place near me has 2 sushi rolls (out of a limited selection) plus a salad for $10, which is a great deal and the food is good too. Even a sub from Subway or Jimmy Johns and a drink gets close to $10 with tax these days.
This Thread has been fun. It also has me wondering what is the breakdown for whether one is peasant class, middle class, upper-middle-class, lower-upper class, Etc. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may not always determine what restaurants one goes to, or how much one is willing to spend on a meal.
I agree, I don't think you can judge one's wealth by what they spend eating out. I'm just plain cheap, but I also enjoy eating out. What I don't enjoy is spending $50 or $60 for a meal that I could cook as well or better than the one I'm paying for. For that reason we try to either eat cheap, i.e buy one get one entree free at P.F Chang or B.J's or get half off small plates during a happy hour or we eat more expensive but well prepared & most likely ethnic food that I can't or don't want to cook. We're retired and far from being wealthy but we are comfortable and financially secure
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They don't offer pizza.
