[HN Gopher] Restaurant prices in the 19th and 20th centuries (2009)
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Restaurant prices in the 19th and 20th centuries (2009)
Author : benbreen
Score : 51 points
Date : 2021-07-31 02:59 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com)
| [deleted]
| arh68 wrote:
| Interesting, the prices and choices. See also
| https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index and
| https://github.com/TheEconomist/big-mac-data , though you may
| want more historicals.
| telesilla wrote:
| >[1987] However, at a top restaurant such as Masa's in San
| Francisco a fixed-price meal runs $48 (almost certainly excluding
| drinks and tip), while diners at Berkeley's innovative Chez
| Panisse can expect to pay at least $45.
|
| Gosh - I'm pretty sure the last time I walked out of Chez Panisse
| it wasn't for less than $250 each (with wine).. inflation surely
| doesn't count for this?`
| Aunche wrote:
| Part of it is that fine dining is much more labor intensive now
| than it used to be. Chocolate lava cake was at the pinnacle of
| fine dining desserts in 1987, but now it's considered rather
| pedestrian.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Cook it a bit longer and it's a souffle
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Nope, a proper lava cake is a layer of cake surrounding a
| layer of ganache. Under-cooking a chocolate cake is the
| lazy way.
|
| Also a souffle has a high % of whipped egg whites versus a
| typical cake which has unwhipped eggs but a bit of baking
| powder.
| tony0x02 wrote:
| Source? Just wondering where you got this info from.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Do we have an index of the ratio between the cost of fine
| dining and peasant/fast food over the last few centuries?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| it might be hard to do, particularly for anything that was
| pre-industrial. aristocrats mostly ate in their homes with a
| massive kitchen, gardening, hunting staff.
|
| fine dining in a city needs a support base, and for a good
| deal of history there weren't enough people who could afford
| to eat out luxury food to support a fine dining scene.
| vkou wrote:
| Overall inflation doesn't account for it. A dollar today is
| worth ~40 cents back then.
|
| Wage inflation for professionals living in San Francisco,
| however, does. A lot more people in SF are making
| ~$400,000/year, than were making ~$10,000/year, back then.
| Hence, the restaurant can charge ~4x, and still be fill its
| tables every night.
| [deleted]
| daggersandscars wrote:
| There's multiple factors in play here. Inflation is one.
|
| Population growth is another. The Bay-area population went up
| by ~2 million people between 1990 and 2020. Even if the income
| distribution remains the same, the number of potential diners
| who can afford an expensive meal goes up.
|
| Income distribution is another. If the percentage of the
| population who could afford an expensive meal and would buy one
| goes up, the number of potential diners goes up even faster.
|
| Perceived social impact of an expensive meal is another factor.
| If more people believe there is social benefit in buying to an
| expensive meal, the number of potential diners goes up. This
| could be due to a larger pool of expensive meal buyers trying
| to impress each other, better awareness of expensive
| restaurants by the general population, etc.
|
| Edit: changed "going to an expensive meal" to "buying [...]"
| paulpauper wrote:
| _1981 The chain restaurant TGI Friday's charges $2.95 for its
| Plain Potato Skins appetizer, which comes with sour cream and
| chives for dipping, but $5.20 for Loaded Potato Skins which
| arrive with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon._
|
| Seems way too much
| mleonhard wrote:
| The information would be much more interesting if it were
| adjusted for inflation or purchasing-power.
| code_duck wrote:
| I thought the non-adjusted prices were interesting. No idea
| what story it tells if you adjust it, but non adjusted, the
| prices were essentially the same from 1840-1925.
| choeger wrote:
| Yes. That's interesting. Your grandfather could tell you what
| a dinner should cost by his experience. How did that happen?
| Did wages not increase?
| geogra4 wrote:
| The Gold standard
| dsr_ wrote:
| The data's not available before 1947, but the trend is
| clear: you're looking at the early part of a compound
| growth formula (with large annual variability).
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA/
|
| US GDP per person has grown about 1% per year on average.
|
| Wages stopped increasing to match productivity in the early
| 1980s, and that trend continues.
| bluGill wrote:
| The gold standard made inflation nearly impossible. Thus
| prices stayed the same long term.
| easymovet wrote:
| Turns out monetary expansion does cause price inflation: " 1849
| Sky high "gold rush" prices at a fashionable eating house in San
| Francisco: Corned Beef & Cabbage (1.25), Sweet Potatoes (50C/),
| Apple Pie (75C/)."
| ximonn777 wrote:
| Before 1971 gold backed currency. After its fiat with only
| backing a promise and price doubling every 15 years on average.
| msla wrote:
| Gold-backed currency is fiat, with government setting gold-
| money exchange rate.
|
| Besides, there were more bank runs back in the gold standard
| era.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| Idiot. Enjoy your inflation.
| sethc2 wrote:
| Does this really effect anything? If it did you figure the
| economic statistics would show drastic changes starting round
| then.
| DavidWoof wrote:
| > 1885...Two eggs, fried or boiled, accompanied by the invariable
| boiled potato, fetch from 10 to 15 cents; steak 15 cents;
| sirloin, 25 cents; plain omelet, 25 cents;
|
| 10c for two fried eggs, but 25c for a plain omelet? Did omelet
| mean something other other than eggs back then? Or is it that
| "omelet" implies cooked fresh, while boiled and fried eggs are
| cooked in bulk and served cold?
| cco wrote:
| Its very possible the omelet contained more eggs, 4-5 would
| make some sort of sense for these prices.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Omelets take a fair bit more attention from the cook than doing
| a big batch of fried or boiled eggs all at once.
| [deleted]
| dmarchand90 wrote:
| Yeah weird the egg based dishes consistently seem to outprice
| steak:
|
| 1860 The Globe, Salt Lake City: Porter House Steak (25C/), Ham
| & Eggs (371/2C/), Bowl of Oyster Soup (1.00).
|
| 1865 The Pioneer Restaurant, Portland OR: Porter House Steak
| (20C/), Sirloin Steak (15C/), Ham & Eggs (25C/), Apple, Prune,
| or Pear Sauce (5C/), Cranberry, Apple, or Custard Pie (5C/).
| jlarocco wrote:
| Omeletes are eggs with extra ingredients (ham, peppers, etc.)
| dgfitz wrote:
| I believe it says "plain omelette" which I read to mean at
| most they added cheese.
| picodguyo wrote:
| A lot is said about portion sizes nowadays, but that chicken
| dinner from 1960 looks like a gut buster!
| legulere wrote:
| Would be interesting to compare those values to typical wages of
| the time. How many hours did you need to work for a restaurant
| visit?
|
| Most products are far cheaper in terms of hours of labour needed
| to produce them nowadays, while services and restaurants largely
| stayed the same in labour-intensity, so inflation-adjusted
| numbers would not be very helpful.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| The dinners aren't the same across the years so it's not a very
| apples to apples charting of it, but I plucked some
| representative values out and did the inflation lookups on them
| here:
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dWiKEfbXmDGcQUYMI-5x...
| ardit33 wrote:
| The old menus (from the 1800s), just read as much more healthy
| wholesome food. It seems that sometimes after the 50s,
| restaurant/dinner food quality took a dive and it looks like mass
| market food you find a groecery store now.
|
| Recently, I remember in Williamsburg, there used to be a
| food/restaurant store where you could by home cooked style meals.
| Eg, greens, beans, turkey, brisket and other home style food. It
| was cheap and good.
|
| Not sure what happened to those stores, but the replacements,
| that sell 'build your salad bowl' type of food feel more sterile
| and just not as good.
|
| eg. There is a huge difference in taste between a good local
| burito place, then going to Chipoltle and such.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| But it lacks gluten free vegan dishes, that can be eaten with a
| mask on.
| whathappenedto wrote:
| I feel like more restaurants have been going with cheap wheat-
| based ingredients and heavy batter deep frying.
|
| The trend towards fried chicken sandwiches reduces the "meat"
| part of the sandwich only 50% meat. Happy hours consist of
| flatbreads, fries, sliders, artichoke dip (mostly oil, and
| chips to dip), egg rolls, bruschetta, wings with heavy
| breading, etc.
|
| Basically even medium-tier restaurants are evolving into bar
| and diner food, and making it seem like a trendy thing.
| syedkarim wrote:
| The old menus seem amazingly bland.
| rishikeshs wrote:
| When the food became fast to make, the quality and nutrition
| value decreased!
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