Okay, fess up, how often do you go out to eat?

[Phoenix84]

Let's have a "confessions of a YM'er" thread and state how often on average we go out to eat.

And to save me the trouble of having start a new thread, what are your favorite restaraunts?  It might be helpful to list chains, because if you list local places chances are we'll have no idea what you're talking about.  But if your favorite restaraunts are local places, then by all means list them.  It just might be helpful to have a description.

[Deleted]

Are we talking breakfast lunch and dinner?  or just dinner?

[Shooby]

Not that much. There are 5 of us so that gets pretty pricey. Probably every other month or so. But, individually, we all hit the fast food or pizza or whatever on a more regular basis.

[The Captain]

As a family maybe 3-4 times a month.  I may pick up take out may one or two times a week.  Some weeks not at all.

[milee]

It varies widely. Probably 80% of the time, we'll go out to eat only once a week or once every other week. I like to cook and I like to make healthy, tasty stuff which is often hard to find at restaurants.

But there are other times when we'll eat out 4-6 times a week easily.  DH does not cook - ever - so if I'm too busy or can't for some other reason, we eat out.

We're kind of schizophrenic about the eating out, though. It's an all or nothing type thing in that it's usually fairly high end or very low end.  Much of the stuff in the middle doesn't appeal, probably because if we're just grabbing something quick, it's easier and quicker to grab salads or a burrito at a low end place or if we're looking for a good meal then we want the stuff served at the high end place.

[Deleted]

I order lunch at the office about once a week. We go out to dinner as a family once or twice a month. So, for me, it's 5 or 6 times/month. 


I think DH eats lunch out almost every day at work! That comes out of his cash so I am not going to get on his case about it. 

[Blonde Granny]

It's usually 4-5 times per week. That includes breakfast , lunch & dinner. Most of the places are local, or will have 2-3 locations.

[tractor]

I go out to eat six days a week. Usually just lunch, but I often throw in a dinner with the family at least once a week. On average I spend @ $3,500 a year dining out.

[violagirl]

I struggle to keep groceries in the house during busy season. My husband could do the shopping/cooking but his idea of cooking is opening a can of soup and I've never seen him voluntarily come home with vegetables.

Usually Thursday nights are wing night at a local place. We like to go and support our local restaurants more than chains. 

There is this great place right across from my office that I like to eat at. It  kind of a hipster place, but the food is great. Right beside them, they have a little cafe where you can get sandwiches and soup, fresh bread etc so I usually will get lunch there. 

I could get lunch at Subway or Tim Hortons for $8 or get a unique sandwich and a different soup every day for $10 at the other place...the extra money is worth better quality food. 

A Freshii (?) I think that is what it is called is supposed to open soon so I'll try them out. 

Fortunately I work from home a lot so I save my lunch money on those days. 

[Deleted]

Mostly when we travel. When we're home- dinner once a month with a church group and MAYBE takeout or dinner at a sit-down restaurant once a month. Our favorite local places are not chains. We don't need gargantuan portions of the same dish you could buy at any of their other places, prepared in Cleveland, trucked here and microwaved.

And DH will treat himself to a cheeseburger from the nearby Burger King after a doc appointment, probably also once a month.

Over the last 6 months I've racked up $35 of Starbucks credits through the company wellness program. I've been to Starbucks once in that time.  I got a cup of good ol' Cafe Americano.

[Deleted]

About once a week.  We don't have chains in our town, except fast food and we don't eat fast food.  It is usually one of 3 local pizza places or our favorite sit down family restaurant. 

[swamp]

usually subs on Tuesdays between dance and figure skating, and take out on Friday.

I don't like going out to dinner with my kids. 

[resolution]

We go out to dinner once a week. We also do brunch after church a couple times a month and pick up fast food for lunch a couple Saturdays a month. So I guess 8 times a month, and I am a bad YMer.

There isn't a lot of variety around here, so the most common place we go is the Texas Roadhouse or the mom and pop pizza place.

[whoisjohngalt]

Not nearly as much as I'd like.  I am a huge eat-out junkie.  And I don't even go to fancy or "special" places.  I am super low class when it comes to eating out.  I could do Applebees and Subway and the like 4-5 times a week.

That's one of the reason I miss working, we were eating out all.the.time - I LOVED IT

[CarolinaKat]

Well currently the only fast food place that doesn't trigger my migraines consistently is Bojangles. So we pick up take-out about once a week.

DH and I technicallly eat out every work day for lunch, we both eat in the employer cafeteria

we go out to eat at a sit down resturant 2-4 times a month

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

At least a couple times/week. Normally I'll meet TD for lunch one day and we'll go out to dinner another night during the week. Last weekend, more than normal as we lost power so lost the ability to cook.  We've got a few local places where we go, very rarely chains.  In fact, I think that the last chain restaurant we hit was Red Robin and that was several months ago.

Going up to Vancouver for dim sum this weekend.....YUM!

[cktc]

I average $100 per month on non grocery food. Most of that is pizza here, bagels there, snack at a bar, treating a friend, grabbing a spontaneous bite. Sit down, restaurant dinner, maybe 2x/month. It's hard to keep track when you trade off paying for things with friends/family/SO.

[Tiny]

I think you need to define "going out to eat".... since you didn't... here's how my life plays out:

I go to a 'sit down' kinda restaurant maybe 6 times a year max (special occasions).   i don't have a favorite restaurant - I don't eat out enough AND I hate ordering the same thing everytime I go out for a 'special occasion'.

I tend to 'eat non-homecooked/hand made food as a meal' about 2 to 3 times a week - on a good week... 4 or 5 times on a bad week.

A good week - is me just going to work (usually 1 take out lunch and possibly 1 take out dinner) and having ONE outing on the weekend (a fast food delivery or some sort of party with a lot of brought in food)during that 7 day week.

A bad week is 2 or 3 'social events' or outings on the Fri-Sat-Sun weekend and then the couple of take outs during the work week. If I've got that busy of a weekend I'm must less likely to have "homemade" food for upcoming week - because I didn't have time to prepare. If I have enough consecutive 1 weeknite, Sat/Sun outings in a row (like 3 weeks worth).. I pretty much just start having 'fast food dinners and lunches' everyday because I had no time to menu plan/cook and I've exhausted my supply of 'quick to make meals'.

I don't consider grabbing a roasted chicken from the grocery and then using veggies/sides I already have at home as 'take out'... unless I load up on the calorie heavy premade sides at the grocery.

I tend to hit the Cafeteria at work for food during the work week ... the weekends could be any sort of delivery/take out sandwiches/pizza/chinese/burgers/italian beef/mexican/

I can say with confidence that it is less expensive to not eat 'take out' food on a routine basis.

I've gotten to the point where it seems most 'eating out/take out' food experiences involve "smushy" or texture-less very beige food.    Well, except for the work Cafeteria where there's a wide variety of yummy stuff thanks to our Chef (and his staff) 

[steph08]

Times we eat out.

Breakfast - almost never. Maybe 1 time/month.
Lunch - DH eats out for lunch 4-5 times/week. I am trying to get him to cut down. Me - maybe 2 times/month. We hit up the chains for lunch - McD's, Sheetz, Subway, etc.
Dinner - Usually 2 times/week. One night of pizza and one other if we are out running around.  Pizza is usually a local place, occasionally Papa John's. If we go out for a Saturday shopping, usually Olive Garden or Red Lobster.

We are trying to cut back. This week we've only eaten out once so far (subs from a local place).

[Formerly SK]

Feb 27, 2014 13:20:30 GMT -5 swamp said:

usually subs on Tuesdays between dance and figure skating, and take out on Friday.

I don't like going out to dinner with my kids. 

  We go out as a family 2-3 times a year.  We do get Papa Murphys pizza 1-2x month though.

[Wisconsin Beth]

We tend to get the kids McD's once every 7-10 days. 

DH is gluten and dairy free so that severely limits where we can go.  A lot of places have cross-contamination issues with their flours and often DH isn't willing to risk it.  Plus a lot of places have a gluten free menu that has lots of dairy or soy in it. 

I'd guess we go out for a sit down meal every 4-5 weeks.  Some times that includes the kids, sometimes it doesn't.  We've got 1 place that's kid friendly, one that's definitely not and one that is kinda kid friendly but I don't trust the kids there.  DH is willing to risk the cross contamination issues at Mexican restaurants but the kids keep asking to go to the kid friendly place (mainly because they can get applesauce there, I recently found out.)

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Actual leaving the house and sitting down to be served type eating out, not very often.  Going out with a toddler is a HUGE PITA.  We do McD's once a month or so, she likes going there and it's good practice.  We'll go out for breakfast every once and awhile, we stick to places like Village Inn or Cracker Barrel since she likes both.

We do a lot of take-out lately and I need to get a handle on that.  I've been all over the place when it comes to cooking in the past 10 wks.  Hopefully that'll start changing here soon and we can get back to making it 1-3x a month.

I do lunch a lot and breakfast here at work.  DH doesn't do much of either.

[Sam_2.0]

Um...it's the biggest line-item in our budget. DH is a big offender but we go out as a family 3-4 times a week. Total is about $800/month.


(and now Sam backs away as people start throwing things....)

[tloonya]

I hate going to the restaurants.
At home I can sit down in front of my TV and eat and watch it and call some one if I want to and it takes a few hours for my dinner. I do not have to rush. I can load dishwasher on a middle of the dinner when DH is talking to someone on the phone...so it is like 'dinner and communication plus housework' kind of dinner.
When we go out we can just sit there. Don't you think we had enough time together after 24 hours 7 days a week? I don't need to eat in front of him and 'discuss' something...
All these enormous portions and prices and tips and after all that fish wasn't a red snapper, it was tilapia but 'chef' is telling you that you are mistaking and you ending up paying $20 for $4 fish!!! No thanks you. And I have to tip on the top of this crap...sure...

Italian restaurant by me - $36 chicken parm and mush potato $6 extra. Really?

[tloonya]

Feb 27, 2014 13:56:57 GMT -5 @missmargarita said:

I can say that now that my kids are a little older (almost 9 and almost 11) eating out with them is much more enjoyable.  They like a variety of foods and we can go anywhere from steakhouse, to Mexican, to sushi and anything in between and they find something they like.  And eat all of it.  Nothing worse than ordering an entree (my oldest refuses to order from the kids menu now) and having more than half of it left uneaten.

uneaten?

What about doggy bag? it can be your lunch next day. Or their breakfast if you mix it with eggs...

[muttleynfelix]

Well, I consider going out to eat any meal that I don't bring with me or make at home. 

Buy Breakfast - Probably once a week a doughnut after dropping DS at preschool.

buy lunch - 2-3 times during my work week and once on the weekend with all of us (on average).

buy supper - Very rare. The kids go to bed too early to take them out to supper.

So I go out with my coworkers a couple times a week and go out as a family once a week but it is lunch or brunch depends on DD's nap time.

[Cookies Galore]

We average 1-2 times a week, sometimes more sometimes less. Friday seems to be our regular dinner out night. Some Fridays we pick up a pizza, some Fridays we go out for dinner and drinks and sit at the bar for way too long. We live down the block from a cool little restaurant so it's easy to just walk there when I don't feel like cooking. It's also a great inclement weather hangout; there's something fun about day drinking during a snow storm or tropical storm. It's an adult holiday!
I work in Philly and live in a town with a lot of great restaurants, so food and drink is my hobby. I have no qualms about that. I'm a geek for good food and wine.
I'll do happy hour with friends, brunch with friends, lunch from a food truck at work, dinner with friends, dinners just the two of us, lunch with parents, etc.
Since we're going on vacation soon I'm trying to limit meals out. Sad face.
We typically stick with local restaurants. I can't think of any chains where I have moments of "I must go there!". A good meal is an event for me and I can't waste my entertainment dollars.

[NancysSummerSip]

I eat out for professional reasons (food writer) so probably once or twice a week. No chains - all local mom and pops. And nothing "hip" or "trendy." If the local media has been to it, or the crowds have discovered it, I don't bother. I like to find the small, offbeat places.

[cktc]

Feb 27, 2014 13:45:00 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

We tend to get the kids McD's once every 7-10 days. 

DH is gluten and dairy free so that severely limits where we can go.  A lot of places have cross-contamination issues with their flours and often DH isn't willing to risk it.  Plus a lot of places have a gluten free menu that has lots of dairy or soy in it. 

I'd guess we go out for a sit down meal every 4-5 weeks.  Some times that includes the kids, sometimes it doesn't.  We've got 1 place that's kid friendly, one that's definitely not and one that is kinda kid friendly but I don't trust the kids there.  DH is willing to risk the cross contamination issues at Mexican restaurants but the kids keep asking to go to the kid friendly place (mainly because they can get applesauce there, I recently found out.)

 I'd start carrying applesauce in my person. I'm not giving up Mexican food for anyone! 

[Wisconsin Beth]

Going out for Mexican with them is funny.  Last fall I did a cousins' weekend so DH took the kids and his parents to a Mexican place near our house.  Our son hogged the chip basket and our daughter apparently ate several tacos and loved the meat.  Since then both kids are refusing to eat meat in their tacos - they just want cheese and sour cream.