I think it's what we can expect. Prices are going up on groceries and gas too. Just have to pay what they want. Sad

I think it all depends on the restaurant. The first time we ventured out with friends a few weeks ago, everything was perfect, and we were pleased. When we stopped in NC for a late lunch , we also had to ask for take out boxes, nor did she ask if we wanted a refill on drinks. The service seemed lackadaisical. We don't eat out very often, and it is something I didn't really miss. When push comes to shove, I'd rather eat my own cooking. I enjoy doing it.

I too think it depends on the restaurant. Perhaps it was just the particular restaurant you went to. Basing an opinion on just one restaurant isn't a lot of data to go on.

Where was this? (Where the OP is referring too?

All we’ve had is great service and food,

That hasn't been our experience. Costs have gone up some, but service has always been ok. We can cook plain food at home, but quite frankly, I'm tired of planning menus and cooking. We have so many awesome options for various food types that will never be on my cooking menu. I'm going out to eat if we can afford it.

My first time to eat out in over a year was about 10 days ago. It was a local restaurant with some friends. We used to lunch there monthly. The food was as delicious as always and the service was good, as it always is.

I'll find out next Saturday. We're going to a favourite restaurant of ours with some friends.

All the local news reports have noted that many establishments had to lay off staff and are now having trouble hiring enough people. So we are being warned of long waits and lack of staff. I can't imagine that helps the experience any.

While we've done a lot of takeout over the past year or so, we actually had our first meal inside a restaurant today and service was harried, but that may or may not be representative as it was a private room luncheon after a funeral service. It felt weird to be in a public dining room with other people, that's for sure!

Restaurants aren't trying to make up profit, they are still trying to dig themselves out of debt. Not only did they have to throw out the majority of their food from the lock downs, but replenish all that food after every lockdown. Then they still had insurance, permits, and utilities to pay while shutdown. Then only could open up at a limited capacity. They are still having having supply problems. Help is hard to come by due to lazy people would rather sit on their butts collecting unemployment than work for their money. Then they had the expense of modifying the restaurant to meet covid regulations.

Except for 2 months at the beginning we have been eating at restaurants. Yes, there have been limited menus, smaller portions and you have to request extras. They aren't going to be handed to you. Every penny counts now for a restaurant to survive. Many didn't survive.

I ate at a Mexican place yesterday, food wasn't great, chips cold and tasted very stale. The steak I had wasn't great either, had a weird taste/smell to it. I brought most of it home and gave it to the dogs. I still have some leftover rice and a salad in the fridge. The guy got my drink order wrong but I was talking through a mask so that may be why. I still tipped him well.

Just got home from the restaurant/bar where my daughter works. They haven't worn masks there since the CDC said you didn't have to if you were immunized. She asked us to come eat there since it is near time for my exchange student to go home and they hadn't seen each other in a while. Food was good, both of us had huge, greasy burgers and crisp fries. I wish I had gotten the blt I got last time I ate there. It was really good. I brought half of the burger and fries home but will probably have to discard the bun for the grease.

We popped into Kohls and watched a movie, both places had signs on the door saying masks were optional for those immunized against Covid. I was surprised since the governor mandated masks until June 11th. It was a little weird going to a movie theater, social distancing in the theater and very few lounge type seats. The popcorn was delicious and the movie was good!

bragu just curious but you mentioned a card fee. Your comment seems to indicate that you were paying extra for using a card or did someone tell you that the fees they must pay to the cc company increased. If the first unless it is usual in your area I do not think I would go back. I am aware that restaurants do have to pay a fee but it is normally spread over all of the diners.

I drove to Iowa yesterday and stopped at a Casey's, gas station. I noticed that all the staff were wearing masked along with about 50% of the customers. I needed gas when I returned and noticed none of the people were wearing masks except for myself and one person with it around their chin. In driving I noticed that there were more people on the highway than normal for I-29 during a holiday weekend.

The mayor here pushed through some ordinance changes at the start of the pandemic that allowed restaurants to sell the fresh supplies that they had on hand to the general public without being made into meals. It helped keep some of the food places open, Unknown how many will continue having things available now that there is a return to before.

We get some sort of takeout 1x per week and cook for ourselves the rest of the time. We have been favoring local mom and pop owned places rather than chain places.

I don't mind that the prices have gone up. I also tip 20-25% because I can afford it from time to time.

We've been out for Mexican twice now. It was EXCELLENT as always! The prices hadn't changed. Huge servings. Home made. The complimentary chips were hot and fresh.. ♥ Note: Last week hubby and I split a HUGE plate of nachos with shredded beef/a generous amount, a BIG scoop of guacamole, a BIG scoop of sour cream, jalapenos on top...$10.95. We were stuffed! (my point is.....the prices weren't high to begin with....and still are very cheap @ two different restaurants!)

We've never eaten out often and haven't ventured back into restaurants post-COVID. I suspect we will experience sticker shock at menu prices. One of our favorite restaurants closed permanently as the result of the pandemic.

It was a local restaurant in a used-to-be high visitor-centric community. Place was not crowded ... sign on the door indicated discount for cash but an increased fee for plastic ...

I have eaten out at maybe 3 different restaurants. Prices have only increased a bit. Food has been well prepared and portions have remained the same. But we had prices take a jump previous to Covid due to higher minimum wages in the area.

Service is lacking. But my observation is that since the restaurants are still at 25% to 50% capacity they are caught between a rock and a hard place with staff. Empty tables don't bring income. Waitstaff doesn't want to have to compete with others for less tables. So crew is reduced. At the same time with Covid sanitation protocol in place same reduced crew has multiple new jobs from sanitizing tables and menus, wrapping silverware, fresh glasses for refills, no longer being able to leave condiments on the tables between guests etc. to meet guidelines. So yes customer service has taken a hit. But I watch them work so hard and I am giving poorer service a temporary pass for now.

I have to travel for a few days in a couple of weeks. All my meals will be eaten out. I'll have a better feel for it then maybe. But I have already planned on a few places I can count on to reduce the cost and stress of having to dine out for those days.

Oh and in our area credit cards are preferred over cash. Even places that used to be cash only seem to have gotten on the credit card train for touchless transactions.

>>Help is hard to come by due to lazy people would rather sit on their butts collecting unemployment than work for their money. >>

This may undoubtedly be true for some folks but not others. It's estimated at least 25-33% of hospitality workers have permanently left the industry and have either gone back to school or found jobs in other areas such as healthcare.

Long hours, fewer tips due to reduced capacity, low pay in many states; plus many former workers cited the increasing hassles from belligerent/aggressive customers.

One small take-out shop had a mandatory mask policy, and a customer not only argued about it, they SPIT at the clerk and then stormed out. Fortunately, the owner had hung Plexiglas panels over the counters!

You couldn't pay me enough to work a job where somebody feels entitled to spit in your face.

Jakkom, any job where you deal with the public can come with belligerent/aggressive customers.

I worked 37 years in healthcare. I have experienced along with the staff, drunk attacks, patients screaming because we don't have magic wands for instant cures, belittling because we took the patient with chest pain before the broken finger and many more. We've been screamed at, threatened, attacked, belittled, insulted and even spit at. Hospitality isn't the only occupation that incurs the wrath of the public.

There are some people who would rather earn their income than having it handed to them. It is called work ethics.

My daughter is has been a waitress for many years. Sure she was making more money sitting on her butt, but the day her restaurant opened back up she was back to work. She has work ethics and pride in her ability to contribute to society instead of sponging off of society.

"she was making more money sitting on her butt,"

Making more money from unemployment benefits than from working? I thought such benefits, always pretty meager at best, were proportional to prior earnings and with percentages well below 100%. Has she tried to find or prepare for employment that offers better pay?

I was listening to a local owner of a few restaurants who said many of her staff that she would like to come back are having child care issues. Not all the schools are in person all the time, and not all child care centers address open, and not all after school care of activities are open. Compounded for children with disabilities. And you can't just leave them home alone, or let the 12 year old supervise online schooling.

A lot of jobs require sitting on one‘s butt and don't pay better than waiting tables. Right now there has also been a circumstance where state and federal unemployment benefit enhancements, designed mostly to keep people housed, have for a very small portion of those receiving benefits, given them more than they made at their jobs. Those enhancements have about run out. They were a lifeline for many, especially in hospitality and tourism, and worked as they were meant to, to help people pay the rent. Many people did lose their housing, but untold numbers have scraped by. When eviction moratoria end, I hope we don't get more floods of unhoused, even so. Many couldn't pay the full rent, and many didn't have the benefits....and all owe whatever back rent they missed. Soon, all of them, given adequate childcare, are going to want to pick up some shifts waiting tables, and angling with exceptional service for good tips!

I wish the best to all reopening. Where I live, traffic has returned, parking lots are full, doors are open, boards are mostly taken down, or else full of current advertising. Masks are still being warn by most. I don't know the actual level of commerce, but surely it's much greater than a month ago, I've only been to the lumber yard. No lines, but there were customers.

"Help is hard to come by due to lazy people would rather sit on their butts collecting unemployment than work for their money."

I have a hard time faulting someone for refusing to work for less money than unemployment pays, even if it's not a great long-term strategy.

There's also a severe child care shortage right now due to many childcare centers shutting down. Is someone going to pay $10 an hour to a babysitter to go work for $10 an hour at a restaurant? Or stay home with their children and stay on unemployment and have money for rent and food? I know which one makes more sense to me.

It's also far more complicated than people being lazy. Wages have not kept up with cost of living, and the pandemic caused a lot of people to realize they can make more money outside of the food and service industry.

There was an article in the news recently about an ice cream parlor that raised their pay to $15 an hour, and had over 1,000 applications. They were previously struggling to find employees. Basic supply and demand. People will work if the pay is enough.

The extra unemployment $ are supposed to end soon.

Sonoma county has been hard hit as a food/wine/beer area!

Chi

"I have a hard time faulting someone for refusing to work for less money than unemployment pays, even if it's not a great long-term strategy".

That is the difference between people. Some have work ethics, pride in a job well done, and their dignity . Some are just sponges.

Most people with a strong work ethic (not ethics) are unhappy and feel slighted if working for less than they believe their work ethic, time and effort are worth.

It may not be true any longer but at one time what your last job and salary was would determine how valuable future employers considered you. Taking just any job could remove you from any career ladder unless it was a complete change of industries.

"Why are you looking for another job, why are you here today"

"I think I'm underpaid in my current job for the work I'm doing and the contributions I make. I'm looking for a position where my efforts are better recognized and more fairly compensated"

I understand that not all occupations and not all job situations have variable pay scales between employers - pay for low level, unskilled jobs of the same nature especially tends to be similar from place to place - but comments like these are not at all unusual to encounter these days from job seekers.

That is the difference between people. Some have work ethics, pride in a job well done, and their dignity.

I don't think this is a scientific judgment, because there are huge differences between employers. One worker might return to a previous job; this might not just be because of 'work ethics' it may have been a decent place to work.

IMHO returning to a low paying abusive situation would be foolish if one could plan for, and make happen, a better job. If one's unemployment benefits are legally come by, if one has taken all the proper steps, then planning a better life for ones self and ones family makes sense,

All restaurants are not the same. Some, valuing their employees, have spent money to assure their staff get a fair working wage and sometimes their efforts produce a loyal staff that like what they do.

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But I've been following the NYT's story of the Willow's Inn restaurant, detailing horrible working conditions, abusive managers, fraud in the provenance description of the foods, and in general a place where being laid off (and the opportunity to find better employment) would be a blessing.

Our restaurants are all still basically the same AFAIK. Whenever they've been closed to indoor or patio seating, most still have curb side pick up, or delivery through their own employees or through Skip The Dishes or Uber Eats. There is only one restaurant that we have gone to when they have re-opened (today is their 3rd reopening) and it's because it's a privately owned truck stop with the best "home style" meals. I won't do a chain restaurant for a while because they are owned by major corporations and I'm sure they lost a lot less than the mom and pop places. Their prices have never gone up. Their service has always been the best (they were the #1 Truck Stop in Canada for many many years!) and the food has always been what any trucker is looking for: good size portions at a good price. I'm sorry the one restaurant you sound like you've visited has gone downhill, but I can probably assure you, 99.9% of the rest will be better because they want their customers to come back and keep coming back. Most will have to increase their prices to make up for the money they lost this last year.

Sorry: but did you say they charge extra if you use a card? That's illegal here.

"Illegal"? That's an unusual situation. When credit card processing was only done by banks, part of the merchants' agreement was that they couldn't add a card use fee--that is, that the total couldn't be more than the posted price--but it was okay if they had a cash discount. That is, there wasn't a penalty for paying with a card, but just as a merchant could have a 20% off Tuesday discount, or any other promotion affecting the total, they could discount for paying with cash. I think some of the online credit processors aimed at small and micro business don't have that requirement.

Some businesses here won’t even accept cash, let alone offer a discount for it. Service in restaurants is the same as it ever was although they are having trouble recruiting staff. This isn't because people are lazy. It’s because they’ve found themselves better jobs during lockdown with more civilised conditions. Also many workers have returned to their countries after Brexit which has been a disaster for the hospitality industry. Doggie bags are not a thing here and you would need to ask for one specifically. If you need a take home box they’re clearly wasting food by serving portions which are too large. But no good restaurant would expect to have to do that. I do not think that serving too much food for a person to eat at a meal is a sign of good practice.

The actual food cost here is so low compared to overhead that a lot of restaurants give oversized portions so people will think they're getting good value for the money, having an extra portion for lunch the next day, rather than paying the same price for less.

I dunno about this "work ethic" thing. I would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't want to work in my community, although a lot of grumps who constantly complain about people being "too good" for work or lazy. In my experience, those people have been almost all unpleasant and unappreciative of others, many deeply unpleasant so I can imagine why people, even with a strong work ethic would want to avoid working with or for THEM.

I do however, know people who have lost their health due to work stress, and who decided they could survive better without the stress and toll their job was putting on them. A huge cohort of people I know in that category are in the human services or service sector and have simply found ways to retire earlier and pick up part time gigs. Examples include nursers and teachers and some folks who did taxing physical labor and one friend who got moved around so much from site to site he spent all his free time commuting.