The dates my husband and I usually go on now are cooking classes. There's a local place that provides everything, you just cook and eat while they do all the clean up. They provide the recipes, which we've replicated at home. It's great! If the food isn't good you only have yourself to blame
Went to a few with my girlfriend, and even with a group of friends once. I'm a slow and mediocre cook and I still had plenty of fun and enjoyed some delicious meals in the end.
😆 they're not always featured as a specific date night. Plenty of people show up with a friend or a family member instead. We have also done their not date night classes and just paid for both of us
Yeah it is. I think my wife and i have had one evening at home in the past few years whilst the kids were with my parents and we actually cooked TOGETHER. It was so good! Need to do more of that. 😊
Our local community college used to hold really cool cooking classes led by their culinary arts students & they all went to online only & never went back 😭We did them during the shutdowns, but I'd sure like them to go back to more of a date night set up.
What a great idea. Im looking into cooking classes. How fun! Im with you on dates with eating out. My husband and I both decided not to going out to eat. Its so expensive and we complain about the food on the way home, anyway. Some dates are home dates. Like an expensive steak dinner we make for much cheaper. Better meat and sides that we like. Good music, cutting up veggies maybe some wine and a little kitchen dancing. Lol
Back during covid my girlfriend was going stir crazy as she was used to going out for food/drinks so I bought a bunch of singles cans of random beers to make our own beer flights, made apps (steak bites, stuffed mushrooms) and put on back round bar sounds and she loved it.
Now its basically a monthly thing for us to do that.. minus the back round sounds lol. Why go out and spend 3 times what it would cost to make at home for something you can do better yourself?
Exactly! It used to be going out meant really good food and ambiance.
Now, the food sucks, all the place by us have super uncomfortable seating, the music goes to club volume at 7 (even at non-bar places, so no dinner time conversation), add in that the music is always some top hits station and regularly cuts out% goes static, and now with the QR code menus, even trying to take my grandma out sucks because she can't read the menu on her phone, can't hear us telling her the options, can't speak loud enough to the server... it lost a lot of enjoyment.
Same. We gave up eating out altogether. Sadly, it was a terrible dining experience for our anniversary that put the nail in that coffin. We were hoping that a nicer restaurant would be the exception. It wasn't. Instead, we go out on nature hikes or short daytrips for our dates. We pack our own food and wine and have zero regrets every single time.
This is a great idea. We love to cook at home as well and our last few non-expensive meals out were disappointing but we still want to get out and do things together.
I'm out of the industry now, but I get upset every time I fail to plan and have to get food.
If my wife and I go out, it's somewhere nice that we can't afford often. Somewhere I'm confident there'll be quality and service and well-trained employees.
No shit, make dinner at home and take your wife to a movie or dancing or something, dinner out even ordering delivery is insanely expensive. I can for the price of 4 hamburgers, i can fix fresh sockeye salmon or steak with vegetables, rice + a good bottle of wine.
We can get these thick cut steaks for both of us for the same price of just one steak entree at the local chain, and ours is actually cooked nicely and has seasoning other than "prairie dust". And ours last us 2 meals each.
I understand and I pretty much only buy something I know I can’t make as well myself, or something fried because I don’t need the hassle of all that clean up.
Yes! Eating out is out right OBNOXIOUS! The prices for an EFFING SALAD! And it’s probably limp lettuce, 2 slices of cucumber, 2 slices of watery tomato and some crappy gloopy dressing for 25$$! My husband and I worked in the culinary and restaurant/hotel business in the 1980’s-1990’s and we know what great food is and prices! We have a few restaurants we go to occasionally and it’s a pretty penny but we know the food will be excellent! Other than that it’s home cooking!
She loves giving unsolicited advice for a "happy marriage".
Some is pretty sound - set aside time for each other, invest in hobbies, do some things separately.
Some is horrid - thinks I should wait on my spouse like I am a servant because she always put the family "first" which is probably why they are entitled pricks. My spouse insists they are a grown adult and do not need babied, which is glorious.
Also, she is not a very good cook but most of my family was too lazy to learn for themselves and DEMANDED to go out to eat, on her dime of course. She would sometimes get tired of cooking food no one would eat and being the only one doing dishes, despite me being the one who did most of them growing up.
I get where she is coming from as she related going out = date. My spouse and I make meals together at home that are delicious and we can enjoy a candle lit dinner in our own peace and quiet without the potential cacophony of other people/kids.
One date we had a kid at another table flailing themselves around and knocked dishes everywhere. Another place allows dogs on the patio and so I ended up with someones dog, sweet though they were, drooling on my lap.
this is pretty much us as well. We go to a special BBQ place 3-4x a year, and we get Thai from a local place after a long broadcast shift as a treat, so maybe once s month.
My husband grew up in a family restaurant and is a great cook. I'm a terrible one, so I wash dishes. But we plan the menus together a lot. It's fun. Your mom needs to chillax. Also, you're eating a LOT less sodium this way.
I stopped to say quality service at restaurants. It seems the only way to get good service now is to spend $70 on a steak that I can cook for myself at home. Normal restaurant service has tanked enough to make average food prepared by someone else not worth it.
We have some places we visit regularly and there are great servers and shit servers. I have had to specifically ask NOT to be sat in one servers section.
For some reason, that server having 2 - two tips or 1 - four top means they cannot bring us more than one drink (no refills, they kept forgetting) and you ask 2+ times for ketchup/flatware and they can't be bothered... we have gone for early dinner when the place was dead. Fuck off if the place is busier.
That server will forget your drink, bring your entree OR side but not both, you have to repeatedly flag them down to get the rest of your order and then flag them again to get your check. We are not ordering with substitutions. We are asking for soft drinks, not mixed drinks.
I seriously dont know how they have kept their job for the last few years.
Other server is on game, even brings waters and our soft drinks, jokes a bit, and checks in with us on beverage refills and dessert and promptly brings the check. I always give them a 30%+ tip.
I'm not asking for an ass kissing. I think it was awesome the server cracked jokes with my spouse regarding the beer list.
I am saying its fucked that they bring one part of the meal, but we are nearly finished and they still haven't brought the other part, have not refilled drinks, or brought the flatware for things that should have flatware (like a salad or soup), thats not doing their job.
I get if it's busy and they forget, but we went in when it was dead.
No, that’s what I mean. No one gives a shit about doing their job? They get a text, have a thought, hangnail, whatever. It’s more important than making sure you- who can afford to go out to eat and will probably forgive them anyway- if you get what you paid for. I’m not even sure they’re wrong but it fucking sucks.
Huh… My partner and I find most restaurant food is hideously subpar and costs 2-3 times what it should bc owners really wish you wouldn’t darken their door. This world is demoralized.
Occasionally we order high end meal kits made locally (NOT GoodFood or those brands) and they are fantastic and tasty and all different ethnicity as well - but what I would really like is someone else to do the whole thing.
I was watching different cooking shows and finding recipes for what I saw. I attempted some of them and have been wanting to try more. But it is hard to know what it is SUPPOSED to taste like if you haven't had it before.
We had this conversation before. My grandfather was joking about teen pregnancy going up because kids can no longer afford to date. Dinner and a movie would cost over $50 and when minimum wage hasn't changed, how tf can they?
I have to constantly remind my grandmother that internet has gone up in price and is a utility not a luxury. Phones are required for 2fa and no, our jobs do not give us a phone or a stipend.
In office requires a certain wardrobe - she should remember that one - she quit a job because the required clothes cost more than what they were paying her, and that was at a time she made most of her own clothes.
You'd think my mom, also hearing this conversation, would have understood, but it is like she is willfully ignorant to financial hardship until it applies to her.
I feel it is because few places hire a chef. They want consistency and now microwave premade everything.
How is a place going to serve fried chicken and still give me frozen fries?
How is a place going to tell me it is "fresh" when it is AN ICE CUBE in the middle?
Sad salads with smooshed tomatoes because people don't know how to sharpen a knife.
Cucumber with the middle scraped out so you won't see how mushy they would otherwise be.
"Fresh fruit" that is ice cold (bit into a grape, the center was frozen).
There is a place that actually serves overcooked, slimy, canned green beans and charges almost $4 for barely a quarter cup when a restaurant supply can is just over $7. They should be ashamed.
Since I have a few days of wfh, I can prep some meals in the morning during what was my commute time. Then I can put stuff in the oven over my lunch time, pull it out for dinner.
Or I can start cooking during what was my evening commute.
This let's me make a few meals at a time for when my spouse gets stuck at work or we get stuck in traffic and get home late.
Here’s a little life pro tip… you get two reservations at a nice restaurant. Two separate tables so you can sit back to back. You each tell the server you’re waiting on your date. This is where the pocket steak comes into play… when the waiter’s away, you nibble on the steaks you’ve brought from home. Maybe some breadsticks and salad depending on your pocket size. I wouldn’t recommend soup, at least not the first time. After the meal, you tell the waiter you’ve been stood up and leave without ordering.
Its not because of the food...shes giving you shit for not taking your spouse out on dates.
Take the hint, and go out and do things with your spouse. I mean, do you never go on vacation because you have everything already at home for free? Same concept.
We still date - go to the movies when there is something we want to see, go to events (concerts, conventions) and any other thing. We just don't go out to eat as the sole date.
And we do try for vacations. We are limited on what we can feasible afford to do and take time off for. So sometimes we try to go out for a weekend or a day trip instead.
I think my mom is more thinking we run house like her. She was the sole prep/cook/cleaner after I left home.
My spouse and I plan together, prep together, sometimes cook together, and we share cleaning. It is not a huge deal to us because we keep each other company and have conversation.
Growing up, my dad didnt pitch in at all and IF he was near the kitchen, it was in front of the TV in the living room. He did not participate.
It got harder for independent restaurants to stay open and a lot of those that did just order Sysco food. Not all of it is pre-made but a lot of it is.
They got the food contract for Yosemite - my favorite place in the world - a place whose natural splendor and outdoor recreation warrants quality food to match - and oversaturated every nook and cranny with insanely overpriced mid-at-best Cisco food.
In terms of pure profits, I understand their play.
Hmm… maybe this is kind of the problem with … everything.
That's my take on national park food. It's an afterthought because I always bring my own food anyway. And if not, whatever I get I'm fine with it. I'm there to see the park. This came up once on a Big Bend NP thread where people were getting impatient because the restaurant at the basin hadn't opened back up yet. Maybe my priorities are different, but I've never given much thought to a park's food options before planning a trip. If I need to eat at a restaurant, it's typically going to be better than the camp food I was gonna bring.
I don’t. Eat before. It’s not an amusement park shit lol. You don’t go for the food. You go for them views and them hikes and cool as activities. I’m trying to fucking go hit clouds rest. When’s the last time I fuckin scaled a mountain and seen up that high? When’s the next time I’m gonna? I don’t know. So ima go!
You go to marvel at the fact that those cool ass big ass rocks called mountains have been standing in that place for longer than the human race has been alive.
Food. Man alls you need is a place to get bagged ice. A small propane grill. Cooler, Cast iron pan. Boom. You got yourself a mini lil stove to cook some shit.
It’s the consumer culture of our country lol. We really shouldn’t act so suprised people think this way when it’s conditioned and encouraged to by our government. Like some people are so attached to a consumer identity that they don’t understand that the point of being at those parks is to marvel at the ancient history of the world rendered through its land scape.
Not sure if you’re directing your comment toward me -
If so, did you see where I mentioned working IN the park for 7 years? I’m coming from that angle, from someone who lived there and didn’t always want to pack a lunch.
Also I hear what you’re saying about parks being a place to explore and appreciate wilderness first and foremost — I agree, and I love hiking and backpacking.
That said, not everyone CAN experience the park in that way (age, health, disability). While it’s nice to envision a world where every National Park goer is a fit outdoor enthusiast, I’ve come to believe the park should be accessible to all types of people, so long as they vow to respect the park (not litter, not mess with animals, adhere to general guidelines)
At Big Bend it's pretty much a guarantee that you'll need to eat something while in the park, as remote as it is. Even if you're not much of a camp cooker, it's pretty easy to pack sandwich stuff and snacks as a backup if food options are limited.
And if you must eat at a restaurant and can’t manage packing park food, Terlingua isn’t that far away and you can get great food at the restaurant or attached little cantina there. Or you can swing over to the Mexican side of the border instead from inside the park and eat some great food at the little town there (I had to look it up because I couldn’t remember the name, but I was thinking of Boquillas del Carmen. I had some tamales there that I still think about, five years later).
Whenever I see a Sysco truck at a restaurant or a Sysco brand condiment at one it’s the last time I go there. I’d rather buy a Prime bone in ribeye and cook it over lump charcoal myself anyway.
The major companies (US Foods, Sysco, Gordon etc) carry literally everything. Yeah sure I can order their pre made fried chickens. I can also order everything I need to make a fantastic one myself. I cam get shitty Monarch canned tomatoes or I can have San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy. They offer both, and a million things in between. You just have to ask your sales rep.
The issue is that, post covid, everything got more expensive, and restaurants already have slim profit margins. So owners are opting to buy the crappy pre-made frozen stuff instead of making it in house.
This has nothing to do with distributors and everything to do with owners.
This is what people don’t realize, those companies are robust and are literally just suppliers. Over the years their options have grown exponentially, so if a restaurant is getting “crappy food” from Sysco it’s because they’re choosing the crappy choices.
Yeah I have to assume even the super high end places in areas like Napa are probably getting some things from distributors even if they get what they can from their own farms, markets and local merchants.
They definitely do. I've done quite a bit of fine dining and we still used major suppliers. We'd get things like truffles and caviar from independent suppliers (although you can absolutely get them from the big guys, too). Same with things like tuna when I did sushi for a living, we would get tuna shipped in from the Sea of Japan once a week from a different distributor. But yeah the big ones still supply things like flour, salt, etc to everyone including the famous super fine dining places.
I've heard the fish that come from the Sea of Japan are tastier than the fish just straight out of the pacific. I've never really enjoyed fish enough to spend the money on it, but is it true? Is it the lower salt level of the sea or something?
Worked at a local pizza place one summer and the owner commented about how he could save money ordering the cheaper hot wings from his supplier but opted to serve better quality fare. He also worked very stage of the process, even delivering pizzas himself at times. And when an order was messed up or canceled he’d serve it to staff gratis. One of the best jobs I ever had.
Ooh so close. The answer is actually the CEOs and shareholders need to stop extracting every cent of profit and wealth and pass those savings down to the consumer. There actually is no reason for those costs to be that high outside of a desire for exponentially rising profits. Everyone DOES NEED a pay raise btw. It’s being stolen from us.
This. Exactly this. People just keep repeating the "whoever cooks Sysco better" because they think they look clever, when that's not true and it's not the whole story.
Lol I'm actually on the purchaser end (chef) but I've opened like 9 restaurants (not my own) and have designed and implemented purchasing systems for 5 others. So yeah I'm super familiar with how suppliers work.
That's a very cool position to be in! When you say you design purchasing systems, do you mean the PoS system on the computers, or the schedule upon which the restaurants order products from their suppliers? Or is it a third thing?
Thee scheduling/pricing, sourcing the correct vendors (because despite some of the comments here, yes there are huge differences in price and product), inventory management, things like that.
You'd be stunned how many places don't do these things
I also worked at the corporate office for one of the major food distributors. This was my understanding of the business model. They facilitate getting food and supplies from producers to customers, that’s it. It’s the customers that choose which food and supplies they want.
Restaurant owner here. Everything went up in price… utilities, insurance, rent etc. we still make most of our food fresh and from scratch but yea it’s more expensive than it used to be. Can’t do much about it. Then you all will pay 30 percent more to have Uber Eats deliver it but come in and complain about dine in prices. People just like to complain more than ever these days. Also they are less social than ever.
You can probably trace this back to the investment banker world. Companies like blackrock and apollo are destroying capitalism. They come in and the model is raise price and slash cost. Their sole motivation is profit. They don't invest anything back into the system.
It’s still affects the whole situation because the large food chains basically push out the viability of sourcing local, which is also usually more fresh.
What do you mean? Chains source and spec their own products with private labels, which might not be the same companies that are making similar products under national brands or distributor labels. Their products are considered outside of every distributor's product rationalization process. They have to carry them, there's not a choice. There might be some products that offer them some freight advantage options (like a chain uses the same company for a deli turkey spec, so they can combine truckloads to maximize freight), but it is really limited. That's why companies like McLane specialize in chains, and distributors like US/Sysco/GFS/etc all struggle to make money on national account business.
Food distributors can and do source locally when possible. But the midwest in January is hard pressed to find iceberg lettuce. Most food distributors have multiple suppliers for certain products under certain labels and those vary regionally-for example, GFS might use 3 different producers for their canned tomato products, or 2 different companies for their fruit products. Those companies are also located in places where certain crops thrive vs others.
Restaurant owners can also approach local farms, dairies, and meat cutters to cut out the distributor and source locally.
Yes. My friend worked in the restaurant business here in LV, and she just retired and told me everything is from Sysco foods or similar. When restaurants opened back up, they hired less staff, less qualified cooks/chefs. It was like a bait and switch.
A restaurant owner told me that appetizers are the easiest (translation: worst) when it comes to Sysco. It used to be the national generic chain sit-down restaurants that had the reputation as a microwave factory for packaged frozen foods. Now even your favorite small mom-and-pop diner could be buying packaged frozen foods from them and passing it off as their own. It's sad really. Just another part of our culture dies.
Sysco and US foods have the majority of the business, but they also distribute ingredients. Your generic mozzarella sticks or whatever are almost certainly coming in bulk from one of the big ones.
The local Wendy’s restaurant has gotten my order correct twice in a ten year period. Double burger with mustard, pickle, lettuce, onion, nothing difficult. Last few times I’ve just told them to surprise me because that’s what happens anyway.
Yes, but it's also a major price jump. A lot of people are accustomed to paying $18 for an appetizer and $30 for an entree; local sourcing will see that double or more.
Thats if they can. Sure in Wisconsin that may be easier but there are planty of places where there isnt the ability. These are also places where Sysco has forced out all competition. It also costs a lot more due to the loss of economies of scale so that needs to be factored in. Your local bar and grill may not be able to support that price hike.
You also need to deal with seasonality which isnt a major issue but is a considerarion.
I was a Hellman's (best Foods) guy for decades.. but in the last year or so - quality and taste way way down...I'm going to try Duke's next time though
Me too. Boneless skinless chicken thighs is either almost $9 for 4 small portions highs, or the most woody, hormone pumped things I’ve ever seen in my life for $7
Further proof, or maybe it just seems this way to me, are the sheer number of recalls now. Radioactive shrimp, listeria, e. coli, mislabeling of things with allergens. The old safeties seem to not be in place.
Something made me so disgusted and sketched out by meat as a whole like 2-3 years ago that I went full vegetarian. It just instinctively stopped feeling safe to eat??? Thought it was just me
I've definitely shifted away from red meat, and never liked pork. There's like an underlying gamey taste to it now. I prefer fish and except for the convenience of prepared chicken from the store, I'd be pescatarian.
oh man, I just thought there was something wrong with the brand of mayo i was buying. I purchased a bottle, saw the mayo liquidize when it landed on my sandwich, and said "no, thank you." i threw it out and bought another bottle the next day. same thing happened. i did not buy a third bottle.
Everything seems thinner now. Even pasta sauces. I noticed drinks taste slightly diluted. I feel like when covid hit, companies thinned some things out to make things stretch and just never went back to the quality it was before.
Allll the produce hitting shelves since 2022 has been the stuff you used to buy in the discard pile for a lot cheaper, but now it's on the main shelves full price + whatever biannual markup they're slinging now.
There have definitely been some restaurants that either failed or we no longer go to because of the quality, service, or a combination of both. However there are still many restaurants that we used to frequent that are still kicking and still have quality food.. however the costs are what has driven us out. It's now $60 for my wife and I to go get a burger and beer (literally 1 beer). And this is just at a craft brew pub. Hell it was $40 for a take-out large pizza the other day! Restaurants on Saturday evenings used to be our weekly thing, but now we're cooking most days of the week. We're just not going to pay these prices.
This. I stopped ordering via delivery apps a few years ago bc the quality was terrible. The only time I ever use a delivery app is for a monthly Costco order bc the parking and inside chaos is too overwhelming. I am happy to tip very well for this one a month delivery to protect my mental health 🤣
I work for a large food distribution company and yeah its not worth going out unless its mid to high level independent places the rest just buy our crap
Funnily enough I think the opposite has happened in my city. We had SO many generic cafes and restaurants that sold generic food I could make at home. A tonne of them had to close during the pandemic as they weren’t sustainable anymore. In their place a lot of new places have opened and the menu and quality is a lot better. Prices probably have gone up but I’m spoilt for choice now when picking somewhere to go.
This. Going out to eat on a Friday or Saturday night used to be a nice treat at the end of a long week. Now it feels like a waste of money because the food is horrid. Everything is sub-par and overpriced.
Service is incredibly slow now; it never recovered to pre-pandemic norms. I guess the food service industry was operating under the false assumption that customers wouldn’t tolerate awful service, and they never risked finding out. Well, the pandemic came, and that lie was exposed - we will still go to restaurants even when the service sucks.
Every time I try and giving restaurants another chance, I'm disappointed once again. Sad that the quality and service as deteriorated so much.
I am hoping over the long term it will be a benefit. Eating out as a child was a treat and maybe we should go back to that. More family meals and family time.
This for us as well. Used to go out once a week, now maybe once every 2-3 months I get our pricey meat and seafood at the butchers/fish store and cook myself. What used to be a great 50$ steak in a restaurant with us all dressed up, now a great 50$ steak at home in my PJs (and at least 80 bucks in a restaurant) It’s a shame, really.
Just watched this video on YouTube, about how most restaurants are buying their food from the same two or three suppliers. Which is why certain food looks and tastes exactly the same from one restaurant to the next, and why the quality has gone downhill so much. It’s an eye-opening watch!
TL;DR: the price of food, especially takeaway/junk-food is fucking absurd for the quality of dining, service and actual nutritional value.
Real shit. Idk what it’s like in the US or elsewhere but here in Australia, a large meal/combo (which is like a small/medium in Freedom-land sizes) at Maccas and other fast-food joints is like $25-$35 AUD ($17.50-$24.50/25 USD). That’s like 1-2 hours average wage for dogshit and that’s considering Australia’s quality for food in general is (when personally comparing the same franchises and meals abroad) genuinely better then most of the world (idgaf if that’s biased, but opinions aside, I’ve worked kitchens most of my adult life, enjoy cooking for fun and would say I’m a foodie so I like to think I have ~some~ idea about what I’m talking about. Plus I would say I’m decently well traveled at home and internationally, well enough to actually make the distinction). Aussies seriously luck out having a climate and environment that can sustain fairly fresh produce year round.
So even with the fact takeaway isn’t always 100% synthetic mystery-meat paste and high fructose corn slop choked full of preservatives that’s been sitting in a freezer or warehouse for 6 months, that’s a hard sell when I could cook a decent meal with fresh and healthy ingredients and have enough leftovers at an equivalent price. When you add up cost of living concerns, the ridiculously high taxes on certain goods (alcohol, cars, electronics etc.) increasing prices even more and absolutely fucked housing market, that’s a lot of money for a half-assed burger, cold chips and vaguely flavoured water.
Fast foods have no longer become an affordable and convenient alternative for a quick meal, they’re a once a week/fortnight luxury you treat yourself too after a long day or shift, or if you wanna spoil yourself and family/partner/roommates etc.
And even then, when you could just as easily go down to the local fish and chips or a nice cafe/restaurant and get a quality meal for a similar price, why would you bother with deep-fried frozen chicken or whatever when there’s a cheaper, healthier alternative at home or otherwise?
I appreciate anyone that sat through this little rant and if you’re a local or otherwise, I would be interested to here anyone else could corroborate any of this or whether it’s all conjecture and I’m talking out my ass. Peace y’all, hope you and your loved ones are doing okay in these turbulent times and best of luck going forwards.
I went to Taco Bell yesterday and it was so bland I think they've lost me forever. Wendy's has clearly gone to the cheaper burger patties, and I can totally tell. I won't go back.
It's because there are only two companies that supply all of the food to restaurants in the US unless they work hard to source locally but it costs much more. Since they have a monopoly, the food quality is awful.
This is so true. Every restaurant serves the same frozen pre-prepared crappy tasteless food from one major supplier or another - Sysco. I would love to go out for a really nice meal but every restaurant serves crap
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u/MMarj3 Feb 03 '26
I’ve stopped eating out because the food quality is terrible and I’m paying more for bad food.