Part of the expense is the size of the meal. It’s not uncommon for a sit down restaurant to offer up an entire day’s worth of calories on one plate.
At one of our local places I ordered clams and pasta. When it was delivered I knew this had started out as a full pound of dry pasta. 1600 calories before figuring in sauce. And don’t forget the unlimited sugar refills on that soda.
Would you like an appetizer or dessert?
It’s cheaper to make more money off fewer people than it is to get a lot more people to make a little money off of.
Once someone decides to eat out you need to make it seem like they got their money’s worth. Feeding them more than they should eat gives the appearance of value. The alternative is expensive staff training, ingredients you can’t get from Sysco, or laundry service for table cloths and napkins. Better to pile a large portion on a plate than to step up quality.
Yeah I guess it also is culture. It’s mostly that sit down restaurants (and then fast food) got into an “arms race” over “value” which in this case value = bigger portion sizes for the same or less money than other places.
I just say capitalism as more shorthand for this kind of thing where there is some weird market forces at work, and half of that is just marketing and perceived “bang for buck” and trying to one up the other guy. Like I’m not even sure people actually want these giant portions shoveled into their obese gaping maws but it seems to be where we’ve arrived.
Part of the expense is the size of the meal. It’s not uncommon for a sit down restaurant to offer up an entire day’s worth of calories on one plate. At one of our local places I ordered clams and pasta. When it was delivered I knew this had started out as a full pound of dry pasta. 1600 calories before figuring in sauce. And don’t forget the unlimited sugar refills on that soda. Would you like an appetizer or dessert?
…but why?
It’s cheaper to make more money off fewer people than it is to get a lot more people to make a little money off of.
Once someone decides to eat out you need to make it seem like they got their money’s worth. Feeding them more than they should eat gives the appearance of value. The alternative is expensive staff training, ingredients you can’t get from Sysco, or laundry service for table cloths and napkins. Better to pile a large portion on a plate than to step up quality.
Capitalism is fucked Is the short answer
Norway is a capitalist country as well
Yeah I guess it also is culture. It’s mostly that sit down restaurants (and then fast food) got into an “arms race” over “value” which in this case value = bigger portion sizes for the same or less money than other places.
I just say capitalism as more shorthand for this kind of thing where there is some weird market forces at work, and half of that is just marketing and perceived “bang for buck” and trying to one up the other guy. Like I’m not even sure people actually want these giant portions shoveled into their obese gaping maws but it seems to be where we’ve arrived.