6 ms·

It used to be. When ordering food in a restaurant was a special thing for special occasions. It was expensive to eat out and the workers were compensated for it

It used to be. When ordering food in a restaurant was a special thing for special occasions. It was expensive to eat out and the workers were compensated for it. Then we got to a place where food was supposed fast, cheap and accessible to everyone at any time. And suddenly you couldn't charge a lot for your food and worker wages stagnated. Sure more people work in the restaurant industry than they ever did before, but that's what happens. Quantity over quality in almost any service industry always means abundance of the service at the expense of the workers. Take a look at the rideshare business.

danaris 5y ago
I mean...to what extent does this correlate with the nationwide stagnation of real wages? If your average American working a full-time job can't afford to eat out at high enough prices to keep restaurants afloat while paying decent wages, that sounds like a systemic problem—and we already know that one of those exists here.
- namdnay 5y ago
  I guess it depends how often you expect to eat out. If it’s once a month, I think most can afford more expensive restaurants
  - bluGill 5y ago
    Once you learn to cook you won't eat at anything less than the most expensive. It is really hard to enjoy a meal when you are thinking "I could have done this better myself at less cost". Chains and fast food just don't provide the quality I demand for the most part, and even the independents are hit and miss.
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      In this case you're trading out your effort for the cash. I'm happy to trade my money, which I earn much more efficiently at my job than I can save by cooking, for the food so I don't have to put in effort and can enjoy my evening out with friends. I'm also more than happy to pay a couple of dollar premium to eat fast food than try to recreate it on my own while I'm running to work.
      - rdtwo 5y ago
        It’s not as great a trade off as it might seem you are pushing the externalities of bad diet on to later in life
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - ska 5y ago
      > Once you learn to cook you won't eat at anything less than the most expensive. This isn't really true. Restaurants exist to fill a bunch of different needs; experience, novelty, convenience etc. And expense isn't a particularly good predictor of quality. I do agree that once you can cook well you're much less likely to be happy at an overpriced generic version of something... which is right where fast casual and big chain casual is aimed. But sometimes you go for the company and not the food, etc.
      - okaram 5y ago
        There's a bunch of foods that are a pain to make, or will make your kitchen smell ... Plus having different plates for everyone is also super convenient
        ska 5y ago
        > There's a bunch of foods that are a pain to make This cuts both ways, some types of pain are easier to take on at home. During service, time and focus are at a premium - which is way almost every place cuts corners on e.g., risotto.
      - bluGill 5y ago
        It is at least half true though. Once you can cook well you learn that cheap is typically bad food. Expensive food can be good or bad, the good is worth it for those other reasons you state.
        ska 5y ago
        > Once you can cook well you learn that cheap is typically bad food. Not really. I had a great tacos the other day from a food truck, and great Ethiopian dinner on the weekend. Both cheap and not something I could reproduce easily or at all. On the other hand, what you say usually applies to the ragu at a fast-casual. So it depends.
    - olyjohn 5y ago
      Even if you can learn how to cook, it doesn't mean you enjoy, or want to spend the time doing it.
    - shados 5y ago
      Time is money, and cooking is a lot of work. We cook a lot, have a kitchen that's better than what the average restaurant has, and have eaten at some of the most prestigious restaurants in the world. Yet sometimes I crave a fried chicken sandwich and to hell if we're going to spend the time doing that ourselves. Life's too short and that's way too much work.
    - amyjess 5y ago
      I can guarantee you that unless you're an experienced professional chef yourself, restaurants make way better food than you can make at home. They make the same dishes night after night after night for as long as they're working for that restaurant. They have measurements of ingredients, cook time, how to cut everything just right, etc. baked into their muscle memory. They know every little trick and hack to bring out every little bit of flavor, which they've built through years of both experience and being taught on the job by more experienced cooks and chefs. A couple of decent summaries: * https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/why-home-cooked-food-never-tastes-restaurant-food-slideshow https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/why-home-cooked-food-never-... * https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f1vr6/eli5_why_does_food_from_restaurants_taste_so_much/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f1vr6/e...
lashloch 5y ago
There's something amusing to me about the idea of an industry that "used to be" sustainable. Guess it wasn't sustainable after all.
- lrdswrk00 5y ago
  It is as a behavioral habit. People always need to eat. It’s not fiscally viable closed system. Restaurants operate on tiny margins and come and go as frequently as software startups. We keep trying to hitch biological necessity to ridiculous memes of social capital accumulation, inventing more abstract and Byzantine math as if literal reality will implode if the rich can’t earn a profit. Like healthcare, the routine is eating is obviously necessary. Is the industrialization?
  - tibbydudeza 5y ago
    >> Restaurants operate on tiny margins If you are a KFC/Burger King/McDonalds franchisee then it seems to work but I have lost count the number of establishments that open/closes in that one spot of our local mall. Pub/Indian/Pizza/Chinese/Fish & Chips/ - they come and go.
    - coredog64 5y ago
      I would draw a further distinction. Some franchise operations (thinking Subway and Little Caesars) don’t really care if you make it: They get their money up front and you have to pay to get out. McD is more strategic: They want a good business plan, location, etc. and are very picky at the cost of some false negatives.
      - greedo 5y ago
        They also require a huge amount of capital for new franchisees.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  McDonald's and similar jobs used to be an entry level job for teens and college students. When I was 16 I was happy to work there for minimum wage ($3.35/hr at the time). Nobody other than the mangers did it to support a family. It was never understood to be that kind of job. I don't know how we got to the point where a no-skills-required job that anyone with a pulse can learn to do in a few hours suddenly became required to support a family of four.
bjustin 5y ago
I'm not sure it ever was. Even Pompeii had fast food restaurants: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/27/950645473/whats-on-the-menu-in-ancient-pompeii-duck-goat-snail-researchers-say https://www.npr.org/2020/12/27/950645473/whats-on-the-menu-i...

danaris 5y ago

I mean...to what extent does this correlate with the nationwide stagnation of real wages? If your average American working a full-time job can't afford to eat out at high enough prices to keep restaurants afloat while paying decent wages, that sounds like a systemic problem—and we already know that one of those exists here.

namdnay 5y ago
I guess it depends how often you expect to eat out. If it’s once a month, I think most can afford more expensive restaurants
- bluGill 5y ago
  Once you learn to cook you won't eat at anything less than the most expensive. It is really hard to enjoy a meal when you are thinking "I could have done this better myself at less cost". Chains and fast food just don't provide the quality I demand for the most part, and even the independents are hit and miss.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    In this case you're trading out your effort for the cash. I'm happy to trade my money, which I earn much more efficiently at my job than I can save by cooking, for the food so I don't have to put in effort and can enjoy my evening out with friends. I'm also more than happy to pay a couple of dollar premium to eat fast food than try to recreate it on my own while I'm running to work.
    - rdtwo 5y ago
      It’s not as great a trade off as it might seem you are pushing the externalities of bad diet on to later in life
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - ska 5y ago
    > Once you learn to cook you won't eat at anything less than the most expensive. This isn't really true. Restaurants exist to fill a bunch of different needs; experience, novelty, convenience etc. And expense isn't a particularly good predictor of quality. I do agree that once you can cook well you're much less likely to be happy at an overpriced generic version of something... which is right where fast casual and big chain casual is aimed. But sometimes you go for the company and not the food, etc.
    - okaram 5y ago
      There's a bunch of foods that are a pain to make, or will make your kitchen smell ... Plus having different plates for everyone is also super convenient
      - ska 5y ago
        > There's a bunch of foods that are a pain to make This cuts both ways, some types of pain are easier to take on at home. During service, time and focus are at a premium - which is way almost every place cuts corners on e.g., risotto.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      It is at least half true though. Once you can cook well you learn that cheap is typically bad food. Expensive food can be good or bad, the good is worth it for those other reasons you state.
      - ska 5y ago
        > Once you can cook well you learn that cheap is typically bad food. Not really. I had a great tacos the other day from a food truck, and great Ethiopian dinner on the weekend. Both cheap and not something I could reproduce easily or at all. On the other hand, what you say usually applies to the ragu at a fast-casual. So it depends.
  - olyjohn 5y ago
    Even if you can learn how to cook, it doesn't mean you enjoy, or want to spend the time doing it.
  - shados 5y ago
    Time is money, and cooking is a lot of work. We cook a lot, have a kitchen that's better than what the average restaurant has, and have eaten at some of the most prestigious restaurants in the world. Yet sometimes I crave a fried chicken sandwich and to hell if we're going to spend the time doing that ourselves. Life's too short and that's way too much work.
  - amyjess 5y ago
    I can guarantee you that unless you're an experienced professional chef yourself, restaurants make way better food than you can make at home. They make the same dishes night after night after night for as long as they're working for that restaurant. They have measurements of ingredients, cook time, how to cut everything just right, etc. baked into their muscle memory. They know every little trick and hack to bring out every little bit of flavor, which they've built through years of both experience and being taught on the job by more experienced cooks and chefs. A couple of decent summaries: * https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/why-home-cooked-food-never-tastes-restaurant-food-slideshow https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/why-home-cooked-food-never-... * https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f1vr6/eli5_why_does_food_from_restaurants_taste_so_much/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f1vr6/e...

lashloch 5y ago

There's something amusing to me about the idea of an industry that "used to be" sustainable. Guess it wasn't sustainable after all.

lrdswrk00 5y ago
It is as a behavioral habit. People always need to eat. It’s not fiscally viable closed system. Restaurants operate on tiny margins and come and go as frequently as software startups. We keep trying to hitch biological necessity to ridiculous memes of social capital accumulation, inventing more abstract and Byzantine math as if literal reality will implode if the rich can’t earn a profit. Like healthcare, the routine is eating is obviously necessary. Is the industrialization?
- tibbydudeza 5y ago
  >> Restaurants operate on tiny margins If you are a KFC/Burger King/McDonalds franchisee then it seems to work but I have lost count the number of establishments that open/closes in that one spot of our local mall. Pub/Indian/Pizza/Chinese/Fish & Chips/ - they come and go.
  - coredog64 5y ago
    I would draw a further distinction. Some franchise operations (thinking Subway and Little Caesars) don’t really care if you make it: They get their money up front and you have to pay to get out. McD is more strategic: They want a good business plan, location, etc. and are very picky at the cost of some false negatives.
    - greedo 5y ago
      They also require a huge amount of capital for new franchisees.
throwawayboise 5y ago
McDonald's and similar jobs used to be an entry level job for teens and college students. When I was 16 I was happy to work there for minimum wage ($3.35/hr at the time). Nobody other than the mangers did it to support a family. It was never understood to be that kind of job. I don't know how we got to the point where a no-skills-required job that anyone with a pulse can learn to do in a few hours suddenly became required to support a family of four.

bjustin 5y ago

I'm not sure it ever was. Even Pompeii had fast food restaurants: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/27/950645473/whats-on-the-menu-in-ancient-pompeii-duck-goat-snail-researchers-say https://www.npr.org/2020/12/27/950645473/whats-on-the-menu-i...