Waiting in the line for Olive garden I witnessed atleast ten groups of people marching outside, all of whom had a take out bag with them.
The financial part of me started thinking about the comparative costs of take-outs, dine-in or the to-gos.
A typical dinner menu at a restaurant like Olive garden varies from around $11-$12 to around $20 . This might not include appetizers based on what you chose. For an average price of $15 with taxes and tip we round up around $36 for a dinner for two.
If you take do take left overs home and use it as next days lunch it counts for $36 /4 which on an average is $9 per person which is not that bad. However if your intention is to cover next day's meal with the leftovers then this is not a bad choice unless ofcourse you are too hungry or your whole intention was to spend time together and did not care about take-out.
On the other hand if you go for a buffett at a restaurant at night the pitfall is you pay the price pretty much for that meal and cannot take-out. That being said specials like the Sweet Tomatoes deals for $8.79 dinner specials still end up around the $9-10 average per meal.
Can take-outs be cheaper? Answer is it depends. If you already have some food and want something more substantial to make a meal,say like left over curry, combind with the fact that you want to watch a favourite movie at home then yes it makes sense to take out. Moneywise you might save tip if you are the kind who does not tip take outs.
This is ofcourse comparing restaurants of reasonably similar standards and not comparing fast-food or subway type of food outlets.
Ofcourse at the end it depends where you are comfortable and would like to eat.
Monday, March 21, 2011
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1 comments:
Interesting post, one that makes you really think. I would much rather go out to eat sit down and have a nice dinner. With that said if it was a restaurant that served nice size portions (like some Italian Rest.) and I had enough to bring home, then I would certainly get the rest to go. Taking the left overs you can then get another meal for yourself the next day or evening. Of course money for the dinner plays a big role in this. I very rarely do take out, or are you calling taking left overs home left overs? Glad to see you are back in blogging. I've been slacking off,but trying very hard to get back on track. jj
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