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Restaurant prices have been creeping up in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Mike Kemp\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In May, my bill at a new downtown hotel restaurant<\/a>\u00a0hit almost $1,000 for a party of four after the tip. It was the single biggest bill I\u2019ve been handed in 10 years as the restaurant critic<\/a> for the San Antonio Express-News.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure why it triggered something in me, but it did. I\u2019ve paid that and more at restaurants in Malibu, New York, London and Tokyo. My friend and fellow restaurant critic Matthew Odam<\/a> at the Austin American-Statesman called it \u201cchild\u2019s play in this overpriced city (Austin).\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n This was Oak & Amber,<\/a> the lobby steakhouse at The Monarch San Antonio, newly risen at Hemisfair like the shiny monolith from \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey.\u201d And I was one of the apes shaking my club, wondering why it was there. And who was it for? Sure as hell not San Antonio, not in this pre-Project Marvel space-time continuum.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not like we went crazy: A single seafood tower as an appetizer. Four entrees, including a cheeseburger. Two down-list bottles of wine, two desserts. And we didn\u2019t even get into the more serious big-ticket things: caviar, foie gras, Lobster Thermidor, a $235 porterhouse steak.<\/p>\n Things have gotten out of hand. The restaurant price creep has come for San Antonio. I know times are tough (they always are), but it\u2019s time to come back down to Earth, where your customers live.<\/p>\n HIGH STAKES: Oak & Amber review<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Oak & Amber is the new restaurant on the lobby floor of The Monarch San Antonio hotel, which opened in March at Hemisfair. The menu includes a Royale platter from the cold seafood bar that includes oysters, clams, lobster, shrimp, scallop ceviche, tuna tartare and smoked trout roe.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mike Sutter\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n It feels counterintuitive for me to lodge a price complaint. I\u2019ve held nothing but contempt for people who howl when a cheese enchilada plate dares to cost more than $5.99. Like cheap Mexican food is some kind of sacred right. Or how about 99 cents? Some of my most popular stories online reported 99-cent enchilada specials when\u00a0Tia\u2019s Taco Hut rolled out its new locations.<\/p>\n Somewhere in the middle, somewhere between 99 cents and a thousand dollars, too many restaurants have lost their sense of value. I\u2019m not talking about price. Price and value are two different things. Price is what we pay; value is how we feel about what we pay. I\u2019ve paid $599 and felt like I got away with something. I\u2019ve paid $5.99 and felt like going full Karen.<\/p>\n Value is my sacred space, the space where I\u2019ll defend any restaurant at any price if I walk out feeling not just full, but fulfilled. Feeling like I got my money\u2019s worth, and more.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n I get it. Restaurants live in a world where something vital to their\u00a0supply chain is in full meltdown all the time. If it\u2019s not tomatoes, it\u2019s eggs. Or avocados, or limes, or beef.<\/p>\n As of June, the year-over-year Consumer Price Index shows tomatoes up 19.5%, ground beef up 12.4%, steaks up 11.4% and heaven help us, coffee up 12.2%. For reference, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the inflation rate at 3.5%.<\/p>\n The good news? Eggs are down 27.9%. That\u2019s cold comfort to businesses and their customers paying 27.3% more for gas.<\/p>\n As the Express-News restaurant critic, my own per-ticket dinner expense has risen about 37% in five years, with close to 12% of that increase coming in the past year alone. The Express-News believes in real restaurant criticism, and so it believes in an expense account. No free rides, no friends-and-family discounts. Accounting departments just love this kind of spike.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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