Price gouging by the pub, restaurant & hotel industry

This.

Plenty of people dont bat an eyelid at 20 euro for a burger and fries.

lots of people have large budgets and fair play to them.

Very few places to eat where I am Mondays and Tuesdays now. No staff so shut those days. Even bank holidays places close now as not worth their while paying extra wages.

I think some posters have their head in the sand to the tsunami of extra costs since COVID. With petrol heading back towards E2 and interest rates sky high for punters I wouldn't fancy heading into this winter as a restaurant owner.

I think I have said it before. I will say it again. It’s not even the cost that’s the issue…..it’s the terrible sevice and sometimes substandard ingredients.

A 25 euro burger…..if the service is good, and the food is good…..is far cheaper in my eyes than a 14 euro burger with cheap frozen chips and a bit of side salad that was fresh a day ago.

Exactly what I was getting at earlier.

It's not about price. It's just reverse snobbery.

No.

It's about a mediocre, every day, product pretentiously presented so the price can be jacked up.

"reverse snobbery"

🤣

FFS.

Oh just stop. 🙄

Your empty excuses and snide sensibilities are just nauseating at this point.

I was in the Olympia last week. Asked for 2 glasses of Prosecco. Bar man rooted around in the bottom of the fridge. Found an already opened bottle and went to pour from it. Before he did he turned to me and said that’s €15. For two? says I. No, one, says he

Dominos pizza is 20 euro.

20 euro isnt expensive anymore for food in a bar.

People said that last winter. The restaurant association of Ireland said we'd see loads of businesses close. It didn't happen, and prices continued to increase.

Iirc our hospitality rate at 13.5% is the third highest in Europe? 9% which it was reduced to is probably the average in Europe.

Our normal vat rate of 23% is 3% more than the UK. It all adds up and makes us dearer.

There is a coal buying from the north thread. Artic loads are coming down here every day as the north has miles lower carbon levy.

We are a dear country to do business in n that is due to government taxes, Levy's, inaction on compo payouts etc etc

The issue is when the rate dropped it wasnt passed on so no whinging now when it has gone back up to what it was the idea was for it to be passed on.

Yes, Id imagine our room rates, menu prices and other services are vastly more expensive for the most part vs the 4.5% difference in the VAT rate though.

I worked in the hotel industry when they brought in the first round of vat reduction - back when 8.65 was minimum wage.

No additional hours for staff, still worked to the bone and never had enough staff to do what was required.

Menu prices stayed the same.

And of course nobody got a few cents extra on the hour.

Customers saw no benefit, staff saw no benefit, the balance sheet did though and the owners got a nice profit off the back of tax payers. I'd imagine the same is playing out again, maybe even on a bigger scale.

I don't think hospitality should be treated any differently to any other business at all generally, maybe in niche cases like B&Bs of a certain size or maybe as a mechanism to encourage new business opening i.e here's a reduced rate for your first year.