A few weeks ago, while out for a drink and snacks with a couple of friends, something happened that made me question the very fabric of reality. We hadn’t ordered dinner as such, just some small plates alongside a bottle of house wine to share. Everything was fine until the bill arrived: it came to £120. I stared down at this bewildering number for quite some time, trying and failing to find a mistake somewhere in the calculations. How, but how, could it cost so much when my stomach was still growling to the extent that I was already visualising the potato waffles I’d be inhaling the minute I got home?
I’m not imagining things. Food and drink costs in the UK’s hospitality sector hit a record high in September, rising 0.7 per cent according to the foodservice price index. Dining out was declared under threat in October after a YouGov poll found that 38 per cent of people are visiting restaurants less often than a year ago, with more than half of British diners saying rising prices were the main reason they were eating out less. Meanwhile, the cost of a pint rose between 3 and 4 per cent in the year to October 2025, while a bottle of pub wine saw a 5 per cent price hike, from £23.38 to £24.55, according to analysis of ONS data by The Morning Advertiser. And The Independent’s Hannah Twiggs recently warned that we may be on the cusp of entering the £5 coffee era.
