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Did you know that sometimes when you buy food at restaurants it costs more than if you'd made it yourself? That's news to Forbes readers, apparently, says my food-writer homeboy MC Slim JB:
Forbes published an embarrassingly dumb article on overpriced restaurant foods this month. Its basic premise is, "Hey, you know you're getting *ripped off* with certain restaurant dishes, because the ingredients are really cheap and their markups are huge and you could easily make them at home?"
If you thought you bagged a bargain by skipping the $29 burgundy-braised short ribs and opting for the $18 baked ziti with mushrooms, marinara sauce and chicken, you’d be wrong. With food costs only accounting for about 18% of the menu price, the pasta dish is where the restaurant is making the most profit. Believe it or not, the beef is actually the better deal, since it costs nearly half the menu price to source and prepare it.
Bet that's a real newsflash to Forbes readers: "Pasta is not an expensive food ingredient, and all you have to do is boil it, yet you may pay $10 and up for a plate of spaghetti and meatballs." Amazing the author missed the chance to point out that wine is often marked up by 300% and more: you could save a bundle drinking at home in a dark room by yourself, you know!
Never mind the other thuddingly-obvious points utterly missed here, like:
b) Some folks are willing to pay a premium for a bone-in steak because it's generally tastier than its boneless equivalent.
c) Most restaurants operate on razor-thin margins, so if a few folks don't order the high-profit dishes like pasta and meatloaf, the joint is going out of business. Is that really what Forbes readers want to see?
d) Nothing sucks the joy from a nice evening out quite like the person at the table fiddling with their abacus to arrive at gross margins so they can get the best deal on the menu. Many of the pleasures of dining out cannot be figured on a calculator.
I'll grant the point about unsustainably farmed shrimp, but that's not really of a piece with the rest of the article, which hammers on the theme, "This is much more expensive in a restaurant than it would be at retail." I understand that. And yet I'm still dining out, despite knowing something about food costs, and recognizing that some dishes are far more labor-intensive than others. Yeah, I can whip up guacamole in a few seconds at home: I still order it out with some frequency, and don't waste a second fretting about the price.
You'd also think a Forbes article might make some mention of restaurateurs' rising costs over the past couple of years: for basic foodstuffs, for online reservations, for Groupon-like promotions, etc., to say nothing of the challenges that independents face trying to compete with the scale advantages of increasingly ubiquitous chains, depressed spending on dining out under high unemployment, and how the growing popularity of small plates challenges the assumption that everyone is getting an app and an entree. Seems like some business context for the rationale behind restaurant pricing is sorely missing from this business-magazine feature.
I am a value-conscious consumer, do tend to favor restaurants where I feel the overall experience was worth the money, generally don't return to places where I felt like I got swindled. But there's way more to this value calculus than understanding the difference between what a box of linguine costs at my supermarket and what my local restaurateur charges for a pasta course. The kind of people that don't understand this, I don't want to share a dinner table with.
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14 comments:
Writing down a nice little story on a piece of paper is cheaper than the crazy markups on hardcover books/ e-books.
Apparently the average Forbes reader earns $275K and has a net worth of $2M. Do you think these folks are sweating the choice between the spaghetti and the short ribs?
Yes, sadly.
Isn’t a lot of lifestyle journalism just a recycling of things we already know that have already been written about anyway?
Yeah, see my entire body of work for example.
When did you transition from starving writer to one with enough disposable income for dining out, Mr. "I don't give a fuck if extra sour cream is a $1.25" O'Neil ? No troll just praise.
Not sure if I'm supposed to answer that seriously.
Sour cream? Pshaw. Luke O'Neil only eats crème fraîche.
I actually kind of don't like either. Speaking of which, MC, had some from this new Cuban joint in Watertown last night, Gustazo. You checked out? I wanted it to be so much better than it was because I can walk to it. It was pretty disappointing and expensive (for takeout). Kind of cute and small in there though.
I've heard of a Gustazo in Belmont, but not in Watertown. Wasn't on my to-try list. I'm a fan of Cuban food, but it's not exactly our long suit here (I spent a few years in Miami). I still go to El Oriental when I want a traditional Cubano, to Volle Nolle for a slightly fancier one, and to the bar at Chez Henri for a really deluxe one.
Yeah, same thing. We're right on the h20town/belmont line.
Cheese Hank's is my jamspot.
I'm a big fan of the bar menu, not so much the dining room menu. But the bar is kind of in Toro territory: so crowded so often it can be an ordeal to dine there.
MC, great article. How a restaurant is suppose to make it if it does not try to get the most profit out of their food. To make it profitable enough the cost of a dish should moves between 20-25%. So 99% of full out restaurants look for a 75% profit on every dish they put in front of us, yauuu!! If we complaint about it, we better stay home. Location is the great factor anyways.
BTW I was born in Cuba. I came to FL when I was a child and spent 45 yrs down there. I live now in Waltham and I had the most amazing cuban dinner couple of days ago at Gustazo in Belmont. The cubano is supreme, period. Not sure how familiar you are with cuban food, but the fact that you like it does not means you know it. Chez cubano is good but $14?? WTF! It is just a sandwich! Also the pork is not even close to the cuban flavor I know and found at gustazo. Not sure what Chez does, but it is not cuban. But the entire package seems to work for you folks. They should be getting over 80% profit on that sandwich, yauuu!! El oriental has become a mix of puertorrican-dominican flavors. They are good but I don't find them very cuban either. Black beans suck big time, ropa vieja is sweet and the taste is steamy, lechon dry and stinky. What are you talking about!!
I just hope this little place gain some buzz and stay around for a long time for the sake of a nice cuban meal time to time.
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