Americans Opting To Eat Out More

Time-strapped Workers Are Abandoning the Family Kitchen in Droves

The Christian Science Monitor Saturday led with its top story on how eating out is at historic highs in America. And it explains why: Eating out has become less expensive in many cases  than eating at home. Restaurants have been better able to absorb inflationary prices. CSM also elaborates on what the future restaurant will increasingly look like -- a kitchen away from home huddled around family table-top televisions.

60 percent of mothers work outside the home. Leaving Mom's family table for plasma-TV plastered lounges is also about the capitalism of the kitchen: Restaurateurs are absorbing rising food and gas costs and even inflation to keep their menu prices low for patrons... For the first time this year, American restaurants will bring in above a half-trillion dollars in total sales, according to the National Restaurant Association. The US has about 925,000 restaurants and at least 8,000 are added each year.

NRA surveys show that diners increasingly view restaurants as extensions of their own homes, and a large percent would like to see table-top TVs installed at their favorite eating joint. In the next decade, more than half the average household food budget will be spent on meals bought outside the home compared with 25 percent in 1955, the NRA reports.

...Despite all the money Americans are spending on eating out, restaurants' profit margins are below 5 percent, the NRA says. A dearth of new cooks and waiters has meant the end of many eateries.

So how about telling the cook what ingredients we want cooked and how to cook it? Now that would be a home away from home that saves Mom a lot of time.