by B. Taylor

Created on: November 11, 2008   Last Updated: May 08, 2009

We 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.

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