Ask your friends how this economic mess is affecting them, and I bet the first thing they say is that they are eating out less often - or maybe not at all.
At a time when you can't cut back on your mortgage payment or your car payment or just about any other payment, dining out is one expense you can reduce. That, and shopping for clothes.
While it makes me feel sensible and thrifty and virtuous to give up clothes shopping, putting an end to dinner out with my husband or my daughter or my friend Betsy just makes me feel sad.
It isn't the food and wine I am giving up. It's the people.
We never go to very fancy places. And we are never among the first at a new restaurant. As a matter of fact, we usually go to the same places.
My husband and I go to his favorite crab cake place at the City Dock in Annapolis. After he returns from a long stretch out of town, he craves a taste of home. He has a rum and Coke and I have a glass of white wine, and we have a conversation that isn't over a cell phone.
Jessie, my daughter, and I go out for half-price wine night at the restaurant where she used to work as a hostess and split a couple of exotic appetizers. It is the only way I can get her to sit still long enough for a conversation.
And Betsy and I always end up walking to a cozy restaurant in the neighborhood. We are usually in a desperate flight away from annoying family or stressful jobs when we go.
A Parade magazine poll reported that 48 percent of Americans are eating out less than they used to.
And according to a survey by the Nielsen Company, 62 percent of fine-dining patrons and 52 percent of casual-dining customers are eating out less.
Tim and Nina Zagat, of the popular restaurant survey, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that their survey of 45,000 restaurant goers nationwide showed that one-third were eating out less, 28 percent were visiting less-expensive places and 20 percent said they were cutting back on alcohol, appetizers and dessert.
No doubt about it, the restaurant business is getting hit six ways to Sunday: fewer customers, smaller checks, smaller tips, and soaring food costs.
Restaurants are trying to draw those customers back by offering small-plates menus, more substantial appetizers, fixed-price menus, expanded bar menus, drink specials and happy hours.
Independent restaurants are more nimble, and they can adjust their menus and their prices every week if need be. The chains can't do that, but they have the advantage of a national advertising budget.
