You notice it before the food even arrives.
The menu prices are higher.
The portions look smaller.
The server seems rushed.
The place feels louder but less attentive.
You leave thinking the same thing:
“That used to be better.”
You’re not imagining it.
Something changed.
Going out to eat used to feel like a small reward.
You worked all week.
You didn’t feel like cooking.
You wanted someone else to handle it for an hour.
Now it feels like a gamble.
Will it be worth it?
Will the bill shock me?
Will the food arrive right?
Will we feel rushed out?
It’s not that restaurants suddenly forgot how to cook.
It’s that the whole system underneath them shifted.
Start with labor.
A lot of experienced restaurant workers left the industry a few years ago and never came back. Some retired. Some found steadier jobs. Some decided the hours and pressure weren’t worth it.
Restaurants reopened fast. Skilled staff didn’t.
Now you often get newer workers learning on the fly. Managers stretched thin. Kitchens running with fewer hands.
That shows up in timing. In attention. In how mistakes get handled.
Not because people don’t care.
Because the depth of experience isn’t what it was.
Then there’s cost.
Food prices rose.
Rent rose.
Insurance rose.
Utilities rose.
Credit card processing fees rose.
Restaurants run on thin margins to begin with. When costs climb 15 or 20 percent, something has to give.
So they raise prices.
And they trim where they can.
Portions shrink slightly.
Ingredients downgrade subtly.
Prep gets simplified.
Menus get tighter.
It’s not dramatic. It’s incremental.
But you feel it.
There’s another shift people don’t talk about.
Speed became the model.
The goal now is turnover.
More tables per night.
Faster rotation.
Less lingering.
Because rent is high and labor is tight.
So the experience feels transactional instead of relational.
You sit down.
You order.
You eat.
You pay.
You leave.
Efficient.
But not memorable.
Add to that the psychology of tipping screens.
When the device flips around asking for 20, 22, or 25 percent before you’ve even processed the meal, the mood changes.
You’re calculating while you’re chewing.
The bill climbs in your head before it lands on the table.
That tension changes how you experience the whole evening.
There’s also something else at work.
After 2020, people recalibrated their expectations.
You’re paying more for everything now.
So you expect more.
But the system delivering the meal is thinner than it was five or ten years ago.
Higher expectation. Lower margin for error.
That gap creates frustration.
And then there’s the quiet truth.
Some places are still excellent.
Local ownership.
Hands-on management.
Smaller menus done well.
Those spots feel different.
Because they didn’t just optimize cost.
They protected care.
The middle ground is where most of the disappointment lives.
Chain restaurants trying to hold price points while costs climb.
Staff learning under pressure.
Customers arriving already tense about money.
It creates an atmosphere you can’t quite name.
Not bad.
Just thinner.
Dining out used to feel like value.
Now it feels like risk.
“Will this be worth it?”
When that question enters your mind before the appetizer, something fundamental shifted.
And here’s the part nobody says plainly:
Home cooking got better.
People learned during lockdown how to cook.
They bought better pans.
Better knives.
Better recipes.
When you can make a solid meal at home for a fraction of the cost, the bar rises.
Restaurants now compete not just with each other, but with your own kitchen.
So no, you’re not becoming grumpy.
And it’s not nostalgia.
The economics changed.
The labor pool changed.
The pace changed.
Your expectations changed.
That’s a lot of movement under one dinner plate.
The restaurant industry isn’t collapsing.
It’s recalibrating.
Some will go upscale and intentional.
Some will go fast and simplified.
The middle will keep thinning.
Until it stabilizes again.
In the meantime, be selective.
If a place earns your loyalty, support it.
If it doesn’t, don’t keep paying for disappointment.
Going out should feel like a reward.
If it doesn’t, stay home and cook something good.
Sometimes the best table in the house
is the one you already own.
micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
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© 2026 The Faust Baseline LLC
