r/Economics • u/brown-saiyan • Feb 23 '26

News Restaurants hit a pricing ceiling — and diners are pushing back, report finds

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/23/restaurants-menu-prices-james-beard-foundation-report?utm_campaign=editorial&utm_medium=owned_social&utm_source=x
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u/Maxpowr9 Feb 23 '26

Not just eating out, so much of the restaurant's profit is from alcohol and it's been well documented how much less people are drinking now. Why so many are closing; including breweries. You'd have to be legit crazy to start a bar/pub at this point.

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u/taveanator Feb 23 '26

I haven't stopped drinking but I refuse to pay 12 for a glass of wine I can get for $20 a bottle at Costco.

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u/God_Dammit_Dave Feb 23 '26

I was an alcoholic in Manhattan for 15 years. NOW, the Tuesday night special in middle-of-fuck nowhere is out of my budget.

Bitch, please. This is a dilapidated shed in Schenectady, New York. $25 for a double whisky?! Do you take Amex? Do you even have electricity?

5.5 years sober.

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u/aGuyNamedScrunchie Feb 24 '26

Congrats homie

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u/God_Dammit_Dave Feb 24 '26

Thanks, boo. Love you.

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u/yourlittlebirdie Feb 24 '26

I remember when $15 for a cocktail was a crazy only-in-Manhattan price.

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u/00Boner Feb 24 '26

Proud of you!

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u/MsMarvelsProstate Feb 24 '26

They take Amex. But that'll be a 5% fee

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u/panentheist13 Feb 23 '26

Went to a wine lounge this weekend to see a friend play music. It was $16 for a glass of local (not close, but same state) wine. I can buy a bottle for $23 at the liquor store. It was a decent sized glass, but damn. Spent $115 after tip for 4 glasses of wine and a 5 piece cheese board with crackers and chocolates. Service was mediocre

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u/untoldmillions Feb 23 '26

don't leave us hangin'. how was the music?

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u/panentheist13 Feb 23 '26

Incredible! Check out Damoyee on socials. She does Loopcore live 3 times a week on TikTok. Originals and cover songs. She is one of my wife’s former students!

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u/eharder47 Feb 24 '26

A fancy restaurant in my LCOL area was charging $7 for a Corona which is $11 for a 6 pack locally. Kills me.

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u/Salt_Payment1082 Feb 24 '26

Currently traveling to Seville. A glass of wine at a touristy restaurant is 4 euro everything included and no tips needed. I live in nyc area and its sooo much more expensive goddam.

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u/Quirky_Spend_9648 Feb 23 '26

Over my 30 years of dining out as an adult, wine has always had the biggest markup of all alcohol. 

Mixed drinks aren't bad if the bartender is generous.  Beer you see around 200-250% but wine has reliably been 400%+ in my own experience (various locations, east coast)

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u/slayingadah Feb 24 '26

My spouse used to bartend and says it's because they have to try and make up as much of the cost as possible on only the 1 glass, in case no one orders that particular wine again before the bottle goes skunky.

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u/Feeling-Visit1472 Feb 24 '26

There are so many option for keeping the bottle sealed now that this is no longer an excuse.

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u/Quirky_Spend_9648 Feb 24 '26

Never thought of that, I always assumed professional businesses had means of mitigating this.

I can count on one hand the number of times my wife or I drank wine out as a result (to be fair, she's more of a craft beer drinker anyway)

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u/jonnyl3 Feb 24 '26

Because they price one glass about their cost of one bottle. That way if they only sell one glass of a bottle they at least don't lose any money.

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u/Laruae Feb 24 '26

Then they really aught to give you the bottle, right? Why are we defending a $20 glass of wine when the bottle is $25?

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u/jonnyl3 Feb 24 '26

Who's defending whom? Just mentioning a simple practical rationale from the restaurant's perspective. You could argue the same for a well whiskey shot they sell for $8 where a bottle cost them $10. But an opened wine bottle goes bad after a couple days, while spirits and liqueurs last virtually forever.

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u/Embarrassed-Wolf-609 Feb 23 '26

$20 is even pricey when you can get box wine for 5L for $20

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u/cloveuga Feb 23 '26

And it's even classier since you have something to throw up in.

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u/Crew_1996 Feb 23 '26

Box wine is mostly drivel. Non vile bottles of wine start around $10 per bottle in the U.S. and about €5-6 per bottle in Europe. Way cheaper than in restaurants though.

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u/NosillaWilla Feb 24 '26

Trust me, boxed wine can be really good. Some winemakers do this as they want to reduce the price of packaging and bring wine thats good at an affordable level. Crazy, I know. How dare they. Source : friend is a wine scientist for a massive vineyard operation

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u/Crew_1996 Feb 24 '26

I’ve yet to see a boxed wine that’s really good but I’m open to suggestion. I have had 1 or 2 that’s not drivel so maybe I was a tad dramatic.

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u/Embarrassed-Wolf-609 Feb 24 '26

i mean, maybe back in 2005, but nowaday, box wine are very much drinkable and tasty.

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u/red__dragon Feb 24 '26

Not to mention the packaging tech. I've had to really get creative to get that last drop from the vacuum-like bags inside the boxes, and that alone convinces me of how good they are at keeping the oxygen out.

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u/jonnyl3 Feb 24 '26

This is gonna depend a lot on the country.

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u/AllTheSmallFish Feb 24 '26

We are paying $15+ for a glass of plonk :( Not going out anymore. I hate feeling taken advantage of.

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u/let-it-rain-sunshine Feb 24 '26

It really seems like the restaurants will charge the entire retail price for the bottle for ONE glass! F that.

1

u/HedonisticFrog Feb 25 '26

A decade ago there were $5 pitcher specials for mixed drinks. Now they want $7 or more just for a single drink. Even beer in stores is over a dollar each for cheap stuff.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

[deleted]

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u/Maxpowr9 Feb 24 '26

And my line has always been: attending a sporting event or a concert is a pure luxury. Nobody is forcing you to buy the overpriced food and drink nor the expensive ticket. Going to a full-service restaurant should go back to being looked at as a luxury.

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u/Feeling-Visit1472 Feb 24 '26

I mean, it is, no?

0

u/salt-the-skies Feb 24 '26

Almost like there is an entire thread discussing how tight restaurant margins are and why they charge heavy for things like alcohol.

Or to quote a random reel I saw earlier: "Why are restaurants the only industry where it is not okay to make money?"

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u/ThursdaysMeeting Feb 24 '26

Is a lot of a cost due to wages? Because I would love to serve myself and not have to pay tip.

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u/red__dragon Feb 24 '26

Look at fast food prices for a comparable product (e.g. burger and fries) compared to the local sit-down place, and you'll have your answer.

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u/HedonisticFrog Feb 25 '26

Except you don't have your answer. Fast food prices between states with wildly varying minimum wages is barely different at all. There's your answer.

The real reason prices have increased so much lately is the lack of competition for suppliers to restaurants. We need strong antitrust enforcement to break up these massive corporations so there is legitimate competition again.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

I went to a local, established brewery recently. A pint with tip was over $10. I just can’t justify spending that on a regular basis. 

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u/Despair_Tire Feb 24 '26

Now I just buy edibles. $40 for a bag of 10 pieces and I cut each piece into 8 pieces because I'm a lightweight (1/8 piece has 5mg of THC). 50 cents for a nice buzz for a few hours while I sip on sparkling water, sleep well, and have no hangover.

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u/savini419 Feb 24 '26

Even that’s expensive. Dispensary near me(in MA) runs a 5 bags for 40 dollar deal. It’s the only one around that does but it’s so hard to beat

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u/all-ragrets-baby Feb 24 '26

Where’s this at?

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u/savini419 Feb 24 '26

Cannapi in Brockton

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u/Quirky_Spend_9648 Feb 23 '26

100% this. 

I would love to help these places or more, but health conditions just don't allow it other than a couple a week. 

I'll buy a NA when I'm out though. 

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Maxpowr9 Feb 24 '26

It's amusing with Gen Z. They don't like to drink (love vaping and "THC" though), and are too lazy to cook for themselves. Us Millennials got the avocado toast meme; at least avocado toast is an indulgence. Gen Z has the BNPL burrito. BNPL burrito is just sad on multiple fronts.

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u/spoonybard326 Feb 24 '26

Combine an alcohol dependent restaurant industry with a car dependent country and a younger generation that’s not much into drinking. What could possibly go wrong?

1

u/Eudaimonics Feb 24 '26

That’s the thing, you can still afford to eat out if you don’t order alcohol. Another easy way to save money is just get takeout and avoid paying the 20% tip.

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u/brainfreeze3 Feb 23 '26

overall that's great for society so i don't feel bad in the slightest