Google+ Positive Psychologist: Eating thru recession

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Sunday, November 2, 2008

Eating thru recession

You know that an economic slowdown has gotten really serious when it starts to make its presence felt on even the Dining pages. Over the last few weeks, publications in the U.S. -- and especially in New York, home to the enfeebled Wall Street -- have started examining how restaurants are responding to weaker wallets. Even in states like Florida and California, Wednesday's New York Times reported, independent dining establishments are sputtering, and some analysts are predicting that bigger chains will weather the slowdown better.

The economics of food and of eating varies from country to country, naturally. There aren't, for instance, as many restaurants in New Delhi serving foie gras as there are in New York. Then too, the sausages served at a middle-bracket Manhattan restaurant are of a higher grade than those sold by a hot-dog vendor; but in New Delhi, there are many middle-bracket restaurants making parathas out of basically the same flour as the Rs.10 paratha chap near my house. The cost of rent is somewhat different; the cost of labour is vastly different.

Source: Livemint

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