On our recent trip, going out to eat proved to be an illuminating lesson on how the world has change since the pandemic and events following it. The waitstaff is paid a decent wage for a high school student trying to make money for college tuition. There is a path for them to earn $10,000 over summer which should cover the bulk of costs for an in-state public university. That part is great - we are helping kids get out of college debt free and enter their independent lives with a lot of choices.
While that is good for a person in that life stage who has their room and board covered by parents, it is not enough someone older and its no surprise that the staff is uniformly young - not so different from pre-pandemic days. But what is remarkably different is the portion sizes of items on the menu relative to the price. They are very small - to the point an entrée looks closer to an appetizer and is priced double of what it used to be pre-pandemic. The combination makes for a very over-priced and unsatisfactory experience for the customer.
In many cases the menu's are dynamically priced and you scan a QR code to see what the numbers are today. The checkout is digital and via tablet so there is efficiency in that - but with the downside of the waitress holding up the tablet to your face as you decide the tip amount. In contrast cooking a nice meal with grocery store ingredients is more expensive than it used to be but not nearly close to what a lunch a decent establishment would cost.
Every place we visited was busy and running at full capacity - if rising inflation is hurting people's ability to spend, that is certainly not evident from seeing the flow of traffic to these establishments. Maybe its still the euphoria of being free to go out, mingle and not be masked at all times. People are not done celebrating that yet. I had to wonder what happens when that fades out because there will come a time when the music will slow down and the party thin out.
Even more surprising was our attempts to pick up some produce at the farmer's markets that dot the state route we took to return home. We have been this way many time and stopping for fruit, vegetables, honey and preserves is something we look forward to. The prices are a bit higher but the quality more than makes up for it.
This time around 90% of the stands were shuttered and the few that were open had no customers on a weekend with high traffic conditions. We made several attempts to find a place that was half way reasonably priced and it simply did not work. The assortment was not what it used to be and everything was priced four or five times higher than before. No surprise that they were not selling much. We observed shoppers leave with one item maybe two.
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