The grilled chicken burger has long been James Deegan’s dish of choice at his favourite restaurant – but he’s not particularly impressed by it these days.
“It used to cost £12, it’s now £18,” he tells me. “Plus a drink, obviously, it’s quite a big jump.”
This “ridiculous” leap in price over the last few years is frustrating for James, as it means dining out is a luxury he enjoys much less than he once did – now only a couple of times per month, reports the BBC.
The 27-year-old from Crewe, a basic rate taxpayer who works as a carer for autistic people, says he has to keep a tight grip on his spending to ensure he covers all of his outgoings – limiting what he can do socially.
“You have to budget for the little things,’ he says, “the things that you enjoyed [freely] before.”
The cost of living crisis in the UK has been well-documented over recent years – James turned to a food bank for help a few years ago when his finances were really strained – and one of its impacts has been on people’s disposable incomes.
It means less money to spend on socialising with their friends and family, whether that’s going on holiday, a drink in the pub or eating out at a restaurant.
Hospitality bosses say their industry faces a significant double whammy – customers with less money to spend and rising business costs including taxes, food, wages and energy.
Many restaurants have had to raise their prices to stay afloat but, even then, some have not survived.
Figures from Hospitality Market Monitor show the number of restaurants operating in the UK fell by almost a fifth between December 2019 (just before the Covid pandemic) and December 2025, dropping from 43,000 to 35,500.
A YouGov report also found people in Britain said they were dining in restaurants less frequently than they once did.
Published last October, 38% of 2,000 respondents said they were eating out less frequently than they did a year ago.
Of these, 63% said price rises were the main reason, closely followed by the increased cost of living, cited by 62% of respondents.
Petrit Velaj has been working in Greek restaurants for 30 years and in 2010, opened his own near St Peter’s Square in central Manchester.
Awards for outstanding cuisine adorn Rozafa’s shelves and pictures of famous diners, including Priscilla Presley and Boris Johnson, line its walls.
Petrit’s family originally come from Corfu and, as well as serving Greek dishes, the 48-year-old enjoys hosting traditional Greek music and cultural events in his restaurant.
For how much longer? He isn’t sure.
“Honestly, I love my job,” he tells me over a white dressed table at Rozafa. “I love to cook good food and offer good service to people – to make them smile, make them happy.”
Petrit explains that for every £100 the restaurant takes, it spends approximately £55 paying various taxes.
“With the £45 left over, you have to pay for everything else – gas, electricity, water, rent, food, wages.” He says all these costs have been increasing or are higher than a few years ago.
Petrit also has a restaurant in nearby Stockport and has 18 employees in total – some of whom he has worked with for 20 years.
He’s keenly aware they have families to support and some months at the restaurant are so tight Petrit won’t pay himself a wage.
“Fortunately, my children are grown up and they have their own money now,” he says.
To him, it feels as though all aspects of running a restaurant have become more difficult since he started in the industry.
Like many chefs, he bemoans National Insurance rises and increasing business rates, but also more local problems like limited car parking and unclean streets, which put off diners.
His concerns over tax are shared by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who said restaurants were “facing a bloodbath”, and called for rises in business rates to be implemented more carefully.
A few days after Ramsay’s comments, the government announced a support package for pubs – but not restaurants.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she was particularly concerned about the impact of these rates on pubs compared to other high street businesses.
Petrit fears the closure of Rozafa, not just for himself and his staff, but also for the local community.
Several well-known eateries near his in Manchester city centre closed last year, including TNQ Restaurant & Bar, after 22 years of trading.
“Restaurants are a good thing for society,” says Petrit. “For people to come out, enjoy their nights and have a taste of other cultures. The Greeks, you know, are the oldest culture on the planet.”
Kate Nicholls, chairwoman of the UK Hospitality trade body, agrees about the cultural and economic importance of restaurants to British towns and cities.
“If you want to have a well-invested high street, if you want to have jobs for your sons and daughters – as well as Saturday jobs or summer jobs – then it’s the restaurant sector that is going to be delivering that,” she says.
Nicholls says restaurants are key to how appealing high streets are for people to spend time in – and if people are dining out, they are likely to be drawn into other shops and local businesses too.
“They are valuable assets – use them or lose them.”
But even for diners with greater than average disposable incomes, a higher cost of living means they don’t go to restaurants or use them in the same way they once did.
Vicki Broadbent, a children’s author who also blogs about parenting, is a big believer in the importance of restaurants as her family ran one when she was growing up.
She and her husband live in Harrogate with their three children and they usually dine out about once a week.
It’s something she says they are lucky to be able to do, not just to enjoy good food, but also to spend time together reconnecting after a busy schedule of work and study.
But Vicki, a higher rate taxpayer, and her husband are also feeling the pinch and have adapted their restaurant habits accordingly.
“We don’t tend to order starters anymore,” Vicki tells me. “[They] are quite expensive and some dishes could be £7-9, which could go towards a bigger main course instead.”
Adding to the bill are her two growing teenage boys – “one is 6ft 2in and towers over me now” – for whom the cheaper and smaller dishes on the children’s menu are no longer sufficient.
To help reduce their overall bill, Vicki and her husband tend to avoid ordering alcoholic drinks – unless the meal is for a special occasion like a birthday or anniversary – and get soft drinks and a jug of water instead.
The Broadbents also occasionally order takeaways instead of going out to try to save cash, though Vicki says portions are smaller than they used to be, making value for money tricky to find.
“Inevitably, my teenagers are frying eggs and making food a couple of hours later,” says Vicki. “Then you think, ‘Well, what was the point in that £100 takeaway?'”
Vicki’s choice of restaurant is often influenced by which businesses are offering discounts – something Sarika Rana says many other diners look out for too.
Rana is head of consumer research at YouGov and its October report found that while people still valued the experience and joy of eating out, “the cost of living is shaping a lot of the things they do”.
Half the diners she surveyed said they had made different choices to save money – including eating in cheaper restaurants and ordering fewer dishes. “Forty-six percent of people told us they skip desserts,” she adds.
Back in Crewe, James is keeping a close eye on his money – something he says is necessary “just to have a nice meal with a friend or family member”.
Eating out is an experience he values, a way of recharging mentally after stetches of demanding care work. But he wishes affording small luxuries like this didn’t require such careful effort.
“It’s crazy,” James says. “It’s ridiculous how hard it is.”
