One of my sons works for a company that does consumer studies on foods.
Yesterday he casually tossed out a two part concern that may or may not be related. We didn't get into it, except for pointing out these two issues.
1. The food business is rapidly turning away from meat.
2. Restaurants are having serious financial strains.
Since I hadn't heard of either of these concerns, I thought to toss it out as a possible subject for discussion. I haven't seen this in the news, except for the possible effect of the move to vegetarianism.
Thoughts?
We don't eat out much and it's mostly because we don't want to have to tip on top of sky-high prices. We're such easy customers that all we require is silverware, napkins, and the occasional refill. We choose places that are the "order at the counter and someone brings it to you and leaves you alone" variety. We find that often, when we do go to 'real restaurants', one of us is left with an empty glass and waitstaff nowhere to be found. And we still have to tip? No thank you.
Also, we find that we don't enjoy the atmosphere in 'real restaurants' anymore. They are too loud, too cold, too crowded, and it seems that no place is off limits for kids, so there is always a screaming child or two nearby. Even in the expensive places. Again, no thank you.
As for the part about meat, we have noticed that meat of all kind has been pared back into smaller portions, while the price either remains the same or has gone up. That salad with steak strips? it's now decreased by half the steak it used to come with. A Greek salad with grilled chicken breast on top? It's now "thin slices" and suspiciously looks like a much smaller portion than before. Chicken sandwich? They bring back memories of the "where's the beef?!" commercials, except in this case, it's "where's the chicken?" We don't order steaks much (I never do because the cooks never get it right--it's always too red inside), they are smaller, thinner, and much tougher than they used to be, so a steak ordered out for one of the guys is a rare thing.
Restaurants are suffering/closing? That's interesting to me. In my area (about 500,000 in the county, more in the wider metro area) where people seem to do nothing but eat out, the eateries are always full... from Ruth's Chris down to Chick Fil A. Busy all the time. In fact, Wednesday, I met a friend for lunch at a steak & seafood place, and at 11:15, the wait for two people was an hour. However, there are always restaurants closing and opening, so I wonder if that it is just the people in my area who get tired of the great, new place after a few months of it being open, or is that the nationwide trend? I thought this area was 'special' in that during the Great Recession, one STILL couldn't get into any kind of sit-down restaurant without an hour-long wait for a party of two. We used to be astounded at the people standing around outside on any given day, waiting to be seated, when the nation was in a recession. Either it didn't hit here, or people simply financed all of their meals. So, I wonder how much of what you and your son noticed is regional?
I don't think the is a link between the move to eat less meat and the struggling restaurant industry is a big one yet. In fact, it's darned hard around here, even with umpteen million places to choose from to eat a meal, to find a place that has more than one or two vegetarian meals on their menu. They all still have an abundance of meat dishes.
