Price gouging by the pub, restaurant & hotel industry

Its ridiculous obviously but so is their rent and bills. Pubs, hotels and restaurants do not want people sipping a coke for an hour or two. You paid €7 for a table and two drinks. The hotel didnt make any net profit from your visit.

At the same time, the price per item doesn't decrease when you order more items. Restaurant owners who find themselves with customers choosing to order only one or two items per visit should examine their business model instead of making every expensive so people order nothing and complain.

Had breakfast on saturday in a place ive been before, its expensive, i know that, but its nice and really popular and my friends wanted to meet there. Grand enough.

Full Irish is 14.50 and an extra 4.50 for a coffee. Its not a hotel, just a country cafe. The food is okay, nothing special and if anything a bit mean at that price (who gives one slice of toast with brekky?) its more the place thats nice. Fair enough, I knew and accepted the prices.

As we were finishing our coffee, one of the group asked for a glass of tapwater to which the response was, sorry we don't serve tap water, but we have bottled still or sparkling for five euro a bottle. A 330ml bottle of WB yeats branded water.

That is the first time ever, in any cafe or restaurant, in any country ive ever ever been in where tap water was refused.

I will not step foot in there ever again. Everybody in the group was disgusted by that, Gougey McGougeface.

Obviously I wouldn't expect to pay the same but for a small 330 can it was over the top and as I said when you see your local publican stocking up on supermarket boxes of beer on offer and selling at pub prices it does gall a bit

So I’ve been out and about in Ireland throughout the last few weeks- pleasantly surprised in some respects:

The Good:

Staff very pleasant overall in cafes and restaurants

Quality of food, if restaurant chosen well, was good

Price vs quality of food good overall but there wasn’t much in terms of gourmet restaurants to begin with (North west) so expectation was low overall on this front, but still I’ve nothing to complain about.

A pint of Guinness and a G&T -11.50

Cant remember what the pint was on its own but certainly not too bad a price overall

Not so good:

There’s either staff shortages or businesses trying to do more with less staff- we were in no rush with any of our meals but you could see that from time of order to delivery of food was slow- didn’t impact our enjoyment but it could have. One waitress in a hotel warned us it was just herself on duty - the restaurant wasn’t that busy but you could see she had plenty to do as just one person - took a good 20 -25 mins to get our starters out

With fish plentiful throughout the west coast you’d think they’d be more imaginative in terms of their menu offerings - we’ve a long way to go to meet French standards of fish platter menu offerings - they could make a real name for themselves if they did such platters - saying that I was pleasantly surprised with one restaurant in particular and many restaurants were doing moules marinere so good to even see that but just too much deep fried stuff on menus- it gets monotonous after the first 2 days.

Accommodation costs- Airbnb in particular- are just insane - I guess it’s all demand/supply but my god, what people are asking for very average accommodation is just incredible- and I assume they’re achieving these prices- and besides the unpredictable weather, that to me is the key reason why people are driven to holiday abroad . The value just isn’t there

I was told it was illegal to not give out free tap water if you were a food place, back in the 90s. We were instructed, working in McDonald's, that if anyone came in and asked for one, we HAD to provide it. I've never looked it up but assumed it was true as it came from the employer's side.

I thought so too, but what i found on googling it is that its not a legal requirement here. Unusual to be refused but not illegal :(

If the food is nice n decent portions I've no prob with that tbh. The missus got a Camille Thai the other night e14.50 n it small enough portion.

I get a full breakfast with tea, toast and brown bread for 13 euro, 2 x large sausages, 2 eggs, 2 bacon, mushrooms, beans, black and white pudding and the pot of tea is filled up again if you want without extra charge. The medium breakfast of 2 x sausages, 2 bacon and two eggs with tea and toast is 10 euro.

In Dundalk.

I noticed that in one of the towns alright- a few big hotels closed but “active” - well the Airbnbs are doing very well up there and know how to charge too

That's shocking.

A chicken curry in my local is now 17 euro. And I reckons it's uncle bens curry sauce.

SO for two people you are at 50 quid for two curries and 2 pints. Yeah I'll vote with my feet too. Bag of cans and a chinese.

Never ever did pub grub. Almost always sub standard. Charging 12 quid for an average panini.

For 17 quid you could get a lovely arrabiata or cacio e pepe or carbonara in a nice Italian restaurant. 8 quid for a glass of wine. Theres still good value out there.

really good podcast on the subject, difficult situation for everyone...

The "traditional" Irish pub has been dying in this country for the past two decades at least. Covid has accelerated it. Lots of pubs havent and won't reopen since Covid. Those that have have struggled with high costs and having to pass them onto their customers. This winter will see another large tranche of pubs close.

I know of three licensed premises up for sale not a million miles away from me and one which closed in the past few months - never to reopen again. The ones that are for sale are at various levels of delusion - the pubs have been owned by families for a few generations but the kids dont want to take them over - for obvious reasons. It's a 24/7 job for the summer at least where these pubs are and they are dead in the winter - no chance of making full time living out of them.

In relation to restaurants - the input costs have increased significantly, only a fool would say otherwise - they pass on to the customer but there's a limit to what customers will take. This coming winter will be leaner than last I think as increasing interest rates bite and costs won't ever fall back to pre-covid levels.

On the other hand you still have coffee "huts" popping up all over the place - again, I don't see these as sustainable in the medium term - there's not enough business for all of them.

Jesus mate 8 quid for a glass of wine is good in comparison to some of the places. 13 quid in one of the average enough places where I am.

Had the Pollo Alla Diavola in my local Italian recently for 16.50 , 2 breasts of chicken and large plate of chips and salad. Glass of wine for 6 euro, pint of Peroni 6.50

https://littlecaesarsrestaurant.com/evening

Moules frites and a glass of wine for 25 euro is about 10 euro more than what a similar restaurant in France would charge for that exact same dish

Frites are frites and mussels are the cheapest fish you can buy

I was never a fan of pub grub in the first place. I absolutely despise "gastro pubs", they're feckin bullshit. When I go to a boozer, I go to meet mates and have a few pints. I'll eat on the way home. Bloody hate the smell of food when I'm out drinking TBH.

But if we head out for a meal, we go to a couple of places we like. But even the places that we thought were reasonable before are getting out of hand. We were in one place a couple of weeks ago and the bill came to the guts of a 100 Euro. She had two starters, I had a pizza and we shared a bottle of wine. We had a glass each after.

That's mental money for such a small meal.

I foresee us just doing that type of thing less and less if there isn't a reversal of this gouging nonsense.

You can imagine the wholesale price of a coke… significantly less than a euro, yet they are asking for 3.60 from a client. Coffee the same….

A mate has a cafe and a restaurant. He was saying he makes the same amount on each place. The cafe is open twice the hours the restaurant is. Wine n cocktails make the money in the restaurant, pints make pennies.

He put Guinness up 10c n complaints all day. Put up cocktails e2 they can't get enough of them.

Love a good cocktail but the problem in Ireland is theyre not allowed to put any booze in them really. Pathetic measures.

Shame.

We used to like to treat ourselves in the one above Ryan's on Parkgate St. But it's ridiculous prices now. I shuddered to think what the prices in the Trocadero are like these days. But it's actually cheaper for the 9oz fillet and mash!