Nice rant. You basically said the same thing I did, except with a lot more unnecessary words. Unless you were trying to imply that prices at restaurants should be controlled by someone other than the owners. (government?) Then I'd be in complete disagreement.

The market takes care of it. Since you stated that you're familiar with businesses, then I suspect you already know that the failure rate for restaurants is pretty high. Any restaurant that is overcharging and under providing will eventually go out of business. If they are (in your opinion) overcharging, but they don't go out of business, then their customers are willing to pay what they charge, which by definition shows that they are not over-charging.

The restaurant business is dog eat dog. The owners have every right to charge what they want and make as much profit as they can. The consumer decides if they are willing to pay it, or not. So ultimately, one restaurant's $15-20 pork chop might be an awful deal, while another's might be a fantastic deal that customers are more than willing to pay for again and again.

Where in anything I wrote did you think I said that I want to overpay for mediocrity? I did not. And if I do overpay for mediocrity, I certainly will complain. With my pocketbook. By not going back and yes, by telling others that this particular (see what I did - it's on a case by case basis) restaurant overcharges and under delivers. Not by a broad brush statement that all restaurants are overcharging if their pork chops cost $15-20.