Restaurants Feeling Diners’ Cash Crunch
With the recession blooming like an Aussie onion appetizer, it’s not surprising chains from Outback to Legal Sea Foods, and mom-and-pop ops, too, are finding new ways to cope with diners’ lighter wallets, the Boston Globe reports:
Outback Steakhouse is serving up smaller steaks at the same price, while Legal Sea Foods is unveiling a seafood roll that costs $4 less than its $22.95 lobster roll.
Restaurants across the country are similarly shaking up their menus as talk of a recession grows to a roar. Many chains are slowing new openings and attempting to reduce expenses to offset soaring food costs and shrinking consumer spending. And, unlike in past recessions, the restaurant industry faces additional challenges this time: overexpansion, and a shift by consumers to grocery stores that offer high-quality prepared meals.
A banker friend who dines out regularly–and so has her finger pretty well trained on the pulse of dining economics–worries that the next year will likely be an incredibly bad one for restaurants.
The WaPo, meanwhile, reports how restaurants go about cutting corners without sacrificing quality by cutting back portion sizes.
