Are we getting our money’s worth in restaurants?

I’ve spent at least a million dollars on food in restaurants – most of it other people’s money. Now I’m paying my own bills, here’s where restaurants are letting us down.

John Lethlean: “I’ll argue every day of the week that a great restaurant experience is worth stretching the budget. But too many are, frankly, a long way from great.”

I keep a (decommissioned) corporate credit card in my wallet: a plastic keepsake of different times. You see, the ability to spend someone else’s money in the pursuit of happiness over many years was, you’ll agree, a pretty good wicket. But not in itself a reason to stay at the crease.

These days, however, my bills are my own, and it’s a profound change of mindset. Remember Carrie Bradshaw declaring she’d spent $40,000 on shoes yet had no place to live? Not even trying. I’ve spent at least a million dollars in restaurants – most of it other people’s money – over the past 25 years and I’m still hungry.

“Was that worth it?” It’s the question 99 per cent of restaurant-goers must ask themselves as they walk away. The professional reviewer does his or her best to wear the shoes, be they Manolo Blahnik or Zara, of the consumer, but it’s not quite the same as shelling out yourself. God knows how many times over the years the phrase “glad I wasn’t paying for that” was mumbled while escaping a dodgy restaurant. Now, in retirement from the old gig, I am paying for that. And mostly, I come away thinking: “Why?”

So here’s a secret: nothing focuses the mind on personal finances quite like having to pay your own restaurant bills. I’ll argue every day of the week that a great restaurant experience is worth stretching the budget. But too many are, frankly, a long way from great. And don’t we go out for “great”? If we’re going out less frequently, which I’m sure is the case and will continue to be for years to come, isn’t the “wow” more important than ever?

For the restaurant industry, which wants everything its way, the worm is about to turn, if it hasn’t already. With fewer diners (the Reserve Bank doesn’t want you out spending three nights a week) and inflation-driven costs meaning more expensive menus, greater competition for customers will refocus the equation in favour of the diner. So from someone with a whole new perspective arising from the direct nexus between a restaurant bill and my personal solvency, here’s where restaurants are letting us down.

1 Set menus and/or Wagnerian degustation rituals.

2 Making us jump through hoops to make a reservation. Paying up front or, worse, buying a “ticket” to dinner. And then being told how long we have to dine, “and have you read our cancellation policy?”

3 Lousy service because there’s an acute staff shortage, apparently.

4 Making us “communicate” with businesses that have decided a phone line is an unnecessary distraction. (How the hell else do you tell a restaurant you can’t honour a reservation because someone has been hit by an electric scooter on the footpath?)

5Paying excessively for meals where nothing is happening to elevate the experience beyond something you’d turn out in your own kitchen for a third of the price.

6 Spending ridiculous amounts on readily available, highly marked-up wines with virtually no value-adding in terms of cellaring, presentation and stemware.

7 Being made to feel we’ve been done a massive favour just getting a table in a certain restaurant, or having a particular individual wait at our table. Hello: this is about us, not them.

And in return, here’s what we punters can do for 2023: patronise those restaurants that make a real effort, that focus on you, not themselves; let the self-obsessed wither on the heavily marked-up vine. Because whether you’re using your own credit card, or someone else’s, you deserve better.

John Lethlean’s column will appear monthly