My city has had several local diners the seniors always frequented. Unfortunately a few of them are gone. Not sure where they go now.
Having been in a couple of those places since the pandemic, mostly the people wanting to go there the most are *really* old. One possibility is that the senior contingent that really loved eating there simply died in the interim.
On the other hand, I was at a fish fry at a tavern in far south Chicago tonight which looked like the dining hall at a retirement community. It was full of customers.
It’s the high prices. Secondarily, it’s the realization that these joints are starch central.
When times were a tad looser, these folks could go for a $10 meal and escape for $15 beverage, tax and tip.
Now that most of these restaurants have skipped right over the $15 price point for a meal and gone to $18-$20 and the escape price is bordering on $24-$30 all-in for truly unremarkable food, it’s turned into a dumb decision.
I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve eaten at an actual restaurant in the last 2-3 years. And I am no kind of cook, I can work a Geo Foreman grill. There was a kind of Mediterranean kebab burger joint that had a very good $10 burger near me that I liked. That burger today is $18.50. I cannot physically make myself walk into the place, sit down, and order a burger.
This is no knock on Olive Garden (well, maybe a little), but if you have a local Italian restaurant, try to eat there. They could use the business, too.
Let see in the US people have exhausted their saving and credit over the last 3 year due to the underreported real Biden created inflation. When people have to spend all they got just to make ends meet, there no money for “extras” like eating out. You see all dozens of social media posts daily by people saying how broke they are. I never use to see these prior to Bidenomics.
Cracker Barrel doesn’t want the senior crowd. They have tried to rebrand by offering alcohol and getting rid of the old favorites that seniors liked and replacing them with crap that they think will attract a younger crowd. With the current conditions in Bidenistan they’ve had to raise prices and cut corners on what was already pretty plain fare. And they pay crap, so they can’t keep cooks and are constantly training new ones.
It’s not working. The younger folks that wouldn’t be caught dead in a CB still aren’t coming, and a lot of us older folks have either reduced visits to CB or stopped altogether. Used to be a decent, value meal - now overpriced and inconsistant.
Another thing people miss is how inflation creates disaster in the supply chain.
Restaurants have to pay much higher costs for everything from food to lighting to wages. The short sighted corporate response is often to start cutting corners on the quality of the food. Doesn’t take very many poor quality meals to lose the senior crowd.
Nonsense. Covid has little to do with declining business at these restaurants. The economic downturn during the Covid scam was, first and foremost, self-induced. The teacher’s unions wanted everything forever locked down, as did many other socialist Democrats.
All that notwithstanding, I sense a cultural shift. Whether permanent or not I don’t know, but it’s combination of factors.
Let’s be honest, first, people are just not as happy as they once were, are generally more grumpy, and go out less. Second, the economy is a driving factor regardless of how great the media keeps telling everyone the economy is. Third, let’s face, a lot of things, including dining out, has become a chore. A lot of retail places are woefully understaffed making almost everything in daily life much more difficult than the way most of us remember. People have less money. People are not as carefree cheerful. Retail transactions have often become much more hit-or-miss with every retail worker now begging for tips.
They chintz out on their salad dressing. You get this huge salad with a small cap full of dressing. Ask for extra, you get two tiny cap fulls of dressing. They’re likely saving three cents on your salad, but you’re losing $40 of me and my wife’s business. They’re so dumb. And their cutting corners doesn’t go unnoticed.
Never mind that their prices are up 20% or much more
The stock market is stuck on stupid going nowhere
Fuel prices are back up in the stratosphere making travel difficult
Everyone has taken at least a 20% haircut even if their assets had not gone down thanks to wild inflation
Anything else?
Never mind that none of us need an endless carbohydrate bowl and bread sticks all swimming in butter.
I’ve already had a say on CB.
The place is always packed when I go by there
Even evenings
But I’m one of those who has to limit the times a month for restaurants and carry out
I just live my life like always, except that since my son died 3 months ago, I’m actually looking forward to death, so I really don’t GAF anymore, which is kind of liberating.
Liberal crap.
I live in middle Tennessee. Cracker Barrell’s are always busy and lots of seniors like me.
My little pizza joint looks like an old folks hoke at 4 pm. A medium supreme is $22.
I either cook at home or splurge on high quality restaurants every now and then. Mid and low tier chains are avoided by me - not worth it.
Maybe it’s because people realize Olive Garden is swill. And CB is worse.
Also because they’ve both gone woke.
Besides that, both restaurants’ food quality has greatly diminished over the past 3 years (if not longer). Olive Garden used to serve several hearty meat and ravioli dishes but now have pared back to pasta combinations and a subpar lasagne.
Cracker Barrel still has its mainstays for breakfast but has dropped its sandwiches and other items for a reduced dinner menu.
Now both are arguably doing that from a supply chain standpoint but they’re also following the subpar taco bell model - where they have one or two main ingredients and then mix them up in combinations to make it look like they have a wide menu when it’s beef, beans and a combination hard and soft taco shells/wraps.
Why eat out?
Before our bug-out my Mom and I visited Cracker Barrel regularly, and regularly made purchases from their store. That was 18 months and a lifetime ago.
They spent the prior years gorging themselves on crap. Now they have type II diabetes and can’t eat the carbs.
All restaurants are expensive now. I just spent $14.00 for a KFC 4 piece chicken dinner. Never mind a good restaurant.