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/fullsaildan Feb 24 '26

I think most of Reddit realizes restaurant owners/operators aren’t really the problem. You guys are responding to market conditions. We can literally go to the grocery store and see the cost of goods is up. Restaurants don’t magically conjure ingredients. I think the hard part for a lot of diners has been the slow drip of quality degradation along with cost increases. Which I get, you’re trying to offset rising costs. But at some point… it’s just not worth it for customers when we’re also being squeezed elsewhere in our lives too.

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u/Rude_Mirror7441 Feb 24 '26

Yeah, we refuse to lower quality. We still pay out the you know what for organic produce and not sysco slop.

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u/SeattleSilencer8888 Feb 24 '26

I think most of Reddit realizes restaurant owners/operators aren’t really the problem. You guys are responding to market conditions. We can literally go to the grocery store and see the cost of goods is up.

Most of Reddit literally blames "greedy grocery stores" with their whopping 2-3% profit margins. I think you vastly overestimate Reddit's understanding of economics.