When you go out to lunch or dinner, say to Chili’s or Friday’s or Saltgrass or anywhere really, why do you choose the place that you go?
Thanks.
Sorry if this isn’t what you thought it was going to be about. I needed a catchy title and I thought this one would work
Not that I go out for lunch that often anymore…but if I do there are several reason.
Not necessarily ranked in order - and on any given day, one item could take precedence over another.
My current moment-by-moment food preference, the opinions of whomever I’m eating with, lack of ridiculous crowdedness.
Because it’s familiar and it won’t break the bank.
My usual thought process when it comes to dinner time is:
Because I know I can get something I like there, and it won’t make me take out a student loan to pay for it.
what Angel said. BTW I wonder about the frequency of occurence. I probably only eat lunch out, say, one day a month. I probably eat supper out, say, one day every 6 months.
Thanks all for the replies.
It sounds like meal prices are of pretty high concern. What is a reasonable amount of money to spend on a meal per person for you?
And what do you expect to get for what you are willing to pay?
Also, NinetyWt brings up another good question. How often do you go out to eat?
How do I decide?
What do I want to eat?
What does my SO want to eat?
Which restaurant that will fill that desire is the most convenient to where we are now? (note that most convenient doesn’t necessarily mean closest, since we prefer to take the T when going out so no one has to be the designated drive)
Cost is not a big deciding factor for us because only rarely does one of us want something expensive. A typical meal out for us costs about 30USD per person, including beer.
How often:
lunch - once a week
dinner - once or twice a week, plus takeout once a week.
I’d like to eat lunch for under $10. I like to get a “blue plate” special or a po-boy with fries. Supper ~ since it’s so rare that we eat that meal out, I might pay up to $20 per person.
Lemme see… in this order:
howzat?
My criteria include:
Parking–available? Close?
No wait for a Table - I have no patience
Kid-Friendly (if kidlet with us)
What we’re hungry for
Decent Service
No scary inspection reports
We’ve got a nearly a half-dozen diner-like places we like that are pretty much interchangeable (and have parking) so then it comes to service.
Not too far away, unless it’s really worth the drive.
Two or three times a month.
I’ve been there many times and know I can get something good that won’t break the bank.
Coupons!
I want a friend to try one of my favorite places.
Wow, I interpreted the title of this thread wrong…
:o
We eat out (lunch and/or dinner) 3-5 times a week, get takeout food (lunch and/or dinner) 2-3 times weekly.
Criteria:
When I go out alone, that’s my guilty pleasure. A restaurant has to have high-quality cheese fries to earn my repeat (solitary) business. (The Hammer-babe is not so similarly inclined.)
And in that vein, Outback rules!
Whether or not they have a Fat Free or very Low fat menu option…whether its fruit plates or salads with fat free cheese and egg white.
Im not aware of any having this with the exception of Applebees.
but…if you want the real truth…i dont go to the theme restaraunts,
What do I want to eat? Sometimes I want a specific something, and this pretty much decides the where.
Is the restaurant within a reasonable driving distance? Do I really feel like driving 45 minutes just because I want Wedding Soup?
Is the price reasonable?
Can I go dressed as I am, or do I have to change into something besides jeans? This is probably the biggest factor.
Ah, a thread made for New Yorkers.
Generally I eat lunch out two-three days a week, most often from a very nice salad-bar-ish place across the street from my office. When I do that it’s my main meal, I’ll just snack for dinner.
No beverage, ever, I refuse to waste money on that when we have a nice water filter in the office and decent coffee for the pot.
Dinner: almost never eat out by myself, and when I do it’s usually just a couple of slices from one of the pizzerias. If I get two slices with toppings, plus a seltzer, it comes to $7.
When I’m with friends, it varies. Might be one of the diners, where I can get by for $12-15, or I might spend more for a good evening. Bearing in mind, of course, that a good meal here with drinks, etc., will usually set me back $50 or so. But subtract drinks and dessert and you suddenly chop that down to $30, including tax and tip. I try to keep that to maybe once or twice a week at the most, and since almost all of my friends are budget conscious it’s not that difficult.
I won’t travel very far for food. [New York Snobbery] There are at least 40 restaurants within 5-10 minutes’ walk of my apartment, which covers my needs at every price point I could dream up (short of Alain Ducasse*): burgers, pizza, burritos, fish & chips, new American, English, French, Mexican (real), Cal-Mex, sushi, Northern Italian, Southern Italian, Spanish, Indian, Belgian, Cuban, Greek, Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Thai, Sichuan, Cantonese and the Old Homestead steakhouse. With pride, I can honestly say that not a single one of them is a franchise, although a couple are mini-chains. [/New York Snobbery]
That said, I do appreciate chains when I’m on the road. Sizzler has done me well a few times, as has Outback. In the South, I have a real weakness for Waffle House…mmmmmm, waffle-y!.
*Alain Ducasse is probably the most expensive restaurant in New York, almost impossible to get out of there spending less that $200/head. From a recent review in the Times, noting that a little bit of sense had finally got through Ducasse’s head: Many of the silly rituals have been dropped. No longer do diners have to choose from a dozen pens when signing the check. The herbal tea is brewed from fresh-cut leaves, but the waiters no longer snip the leaves with white-gloved hands. :eek: