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| Yes | 20% | 130 votes | Total: 650 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesWe have all heard the old adage, "You get what you pay for." I work as a part-time waitress, and I guarantee you that in the restaurant industry this is true.
Quality food costs more. Organic vegetables cost more than other vegetables, but they are much better for you than pesticide laden products from over worked fields. Grain-fed beef is tastier and better for you than beef that was fed by-products and antibiotics. In order for the restaurant to start with high quality ingredients, the owners must invest more capital in their supplies. The only way they can afford to do this is to charge the customer more money for the meal than if the ingredients were cheaper. Quality food costs more.
I once worked (ever so briefly!) at a diner in which a customer ordered minestrone. The cook opened a can and heated it up. The customer thought it was the wrong color, and I asked the cook about it. She shot back, "It says minestrone on the label!" I am sure it was the least expensive soup in town. The customer couldn't eat it.
Labor costs money, and so does care. Remember, there are real people working in restaurants and preparing your food. You want them to be well trained and know what they are doing. You also want them to care about the quality of the food they serve. You want them to be careful to keep raw foods at the proper temperature, to cook foods appropriately, and to ensure that you do not become violently ill after eating the food you purchased. When restaurants pay cooks a decent wage and treat them well, those cooks are much more likely to care about the job they perform. Where does the restaurant get the money to pay their staff? You get the picture.
Preparing food well and cooking meals to order takes much more time than defrosting frozen appetizers and entrees. Ever been in a chain and try to order a hamburger medium-rare? If your server tells you that they have to serve everything medium-well because of food industry laws, then you are being lied to. (Your server may not know that what she has been trained to say is untrue.) The reason you cannot have your burger prepared to your liking is that it is already cooked and waiting in a freezer for you to order it. It costs a restaurant more money to purchase good quality beef, store the raw beef at the appropriate temperature, and then take the time to lovingly cook it to your specification.
Another cost of fresh, made to order food that customers do not see is spoilage. If I buy 5 pounds of beef, sell 4 pounds and throw away 1 pound because everybody ordered chicken, I have to recoup that cost. That is another reason that the fresh, made to order hamburger is more expensive than the thawed out one. But the fresh, made to order hamburger is much tastier, and probably better for you.
Now that you know why good quality, fresh food costs more, lets not forget that good service in a nice restaurant costs more than minimal service at a greasy spoon. Remember, servers (on average around the 50 states) make about $3 an hour. We depend upon tips to make a living, and tips are calculated as a percentage on the bill, usually 20%. At the greasy spoon, your can of heated up soup costs a lot less than the bowl of homemade soup at the expensive place. I know you can afford to tip 20% for the can of inedible minestrone. After relishing your freshly made meal at the expensive place, and when you start choking because you looked at the bill, remember the quality and the level of service you received.
Good food and good service cost money, and expensive restaurants are definitely worth their price tags.
Learn more about this author, B. Taylor.
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No
Expensive restaurants serve food, often the same food that can be found in less expensive restaurants. Is it worth the trip? Let's see.
The difference should be partly in the service. Usually, an expensive restaurant provides personal service and a professionally uniformed staff. The staff may be trained to pull out a woman's chair and perhaps even open napkins for the guests. The water glasses are always full and coffee is never ending. The cream is so fresh you wonder if you can hear the cows mooing from beyond the kitchen.
Some expensive restaurants do not have a menu as the staff is trained to recite each item thoroughly, including the price when asked. If there is a menu, it is often elegant, perhaps with a velvet cover. The pages are generally glossy and the font may be in a fancy cursive rather than straight text. Don't ask for the price, as you might be met with looks of despair from the staff.
The tables are set with crisp white linen and perhaps covered with glass. Each place setting includes at least a dinner dish, a salad dish, a bread dish, and enough silverware to fill up a whole drawer at home. As children, perhaps we remember the rule to use the silverware on the outside first, and work our way in to the middle. There are two forks to the left of the dinner plate. On the right are two knives with a spoon in the center. At the top of the plate, there are usually one or two forks and more spoons. The bread plate is generally to the left with its own butter knife. Butter is in a real china butter dish, not the plastic tubs we buy at the grocery store. There may be two or more glasses; one for water and another for wine or other drink. The napkin may be folded in an origami-like arrangement and placed on top of the dinnerware.
You might find candles on your table in an otherwise dim restaurant. Flowers in a fancy vase are smack in the middle of the table, obstructing your view of your date. You move the vase and you notice the server glaring at you.
So, now you've ordered an exotic item that you can barely pronounce. What's next? Again, the service should be impeccable. The staff will always hover close by, yet never be in your way. As you finish your salad or bread, your dishes are mysteriously whisked away in the blink of an eye.
Your main course arrives and your food is cooked to perfection. You hope you pick up the right silverware in the dimmed light. As your mouth is filled with the first bite, your server asks, is everything okay? I personally think this is done so that we (with our mouth full of food) can only nod in agreement.
After eating your way through a three course meal (or perhaps four or five), your server brings over a tray of scrumptious desserts. You make your decision and are rewarded with a mouth-watering treat. You briefly wonder why they use such a huge plate for a small dessert.
Finally, the check arrives it's the moment you've been dreading. You see the final price and wish you had cashed in your 401(k). But you smile and pay for the dinner, all the while impressing your date (or spouse), leaving a hopefully generous tip.
Later at home, you contemplate whether it was worth it going to an overly expensive restaurant. You think about what you paid and realize you could have bought groceries for a whole month.
Was it worth it? For me, the answer is no. I much prefer the homelike atmosphere of our favorite restaurant, where the staff knows us by name and brings us our coffee before we can even place the order. We can be causally dressed or dressed for church. We have a wide variety of food choices on the menu and dessert is included in the price. I have been to expensive restaurants, so I'm not writing this from lack of experience. The food is good at the restaurants, but not worth the cost. So I'm heading out now to our preferred restaurant. Once there, we'll talk with our favorite server, Diane, and catch up on the week's activities. It's nice to be ourselves.
Learn more about this author, Jinianne Lutz.
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