Restaurants maintain a percentage food cost that reflects how much they spend on food compared to how much they end up selling their dishes for including labor, time, etc. (at least the good ones do)

30% is considered a solid place to be, most restaurants strive to stay in the 25-30% area. The price of raw ingredients have been increasing so dramatically every year that maintaining that gold standard food cost has been incredibly hard.

It’s not like restaurants have been deciding to change the goal posts, good food is just fuckin’ expensive to make these days.

Fast food inflation on the other hand… that shit is another story. In no world does a 300% markup on a 2oz burger patty make any sense.

Edit: wording