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> there's no particular reason why a chicken sandwich at a restaurant should cost more than a chicken sandwich at home There are many reasons! You're the one m

by bambax 5y ago

> there's no particular reason why a chicken sandwich at a restaurant should cost more than a chicken sandwich at home There are many reasons! You're the one making the sandwich at home and bringing it to your table, so you absorb the labor costs. And you're already paying for space, heat, light at your place whether you eat there or not, whereas the restaurant has to pay for these. Not to mention profits (why would they run a place if not to earn money?) The only things that your place and a restaurant have in common are the ingredients; and while restaurants can maybe pay less because they buy in bulk, they also have to abide by health codes that don't apply to you; you can eat yesterday's meat if you want, but restaurants usually can't serve it to you. So it's really unclear how restaurant food could ever approach the cost of meal made at home.

silisili 5y ago
Scale! It really depends on how many customers you have. To give you an idea...it costs Papa John's less than $2 to make a large pizza. You'll spend twice that at home just on the cheese. At supermarket prices, you'll easily spend 15 dollars recreating it at home.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Sort of. Papa Johns' food costs is about 30%. The margin on a store is 10-20%. Papa Johns is a takeout pizza chain, one of the few consistently profitable restaurant models. Most do not have these margins. Also, the hard part about making a Papa John's pizza from grocery store ingredients is finding ingredients that are crummy enough and in small enough quantities. ): It's easier to make a a big pizza with good cheese and fresh ingredients at home for $20-30 of ingredients. You would pay more than that for the equivalent at a restaurant when dining or delivery tax and tip are factored, especially. Economies of scale do help restaurants, but only to the extent that they can pack their labor and other operating costs into the price and not lose money. Many restaurants have not survived because they couldn't attract a high enough percentage of customers to the higher margin items on the menu. So when someone orders out they are going to end up paying for the labor they're not spending, outside of unusual circumstances or the few money-printing carryout formats (like mass market carryout pizza.)

by bambax 5y ago

silisili 5y ago

Scale! It really depends on how many customers you have. To give you an idea...it costs Papa John's less than $2 to make a large pizza. You'll spend twice that at home just on the cheese. At supermarket prices, you'll easily spend 15 dollars recreating it at home.

1123581321 5y ago
Sort of. Papa Johns' food costs is about 30%. The margin on a store is 10-20%. Papa Johns is a takeout pizza chain, one of the few consistently profitable restaurant models. Most do not have these margins. Also, the hard part about making a Papa John's pizza from grocery store ingredients is finding ingredients that are crummy enough and in small enough quantities. ): It's easier to make a a big pizza with good cheese and fresh ingredients at home for $20-30 of ingredients. You would pay more than that for the equivalent at a restaurant when dining or delivery tax and tip are factored, especially. Economies of scale do help restaurants, but only to the extent that they can pack their labor and other operating costs into the price and not lose money. Many restaurants have not survived because they couldn't attract a high enough percentage of customers to the higher margin items on the menu. So when someone orders out they are going to end up paying for the labor they're not spending, outside of unusual circumstances or the few money-printing carryout formats (like mass market carryout pizza.)