Opinion

Fionnuala O Connor: Making the argument for eating out

Should you be eating out to help out?
Should you be eating out to help out? Should you be eating out to help out?

Hang on to those hackles until I make the argument. This is a touchy subject; not big ‘m’ morality touchy or big ‘p’ political, though it could be both.

In this lull before you vote – not me, I’ve found a faraway bolt-hole – as spin-doctors say, here is ‘a line to take’ for those still treating themselves to the odd dinner out.

During peak Covid, some in the hospitality trade all over the island came clean about struggles with lockdowns, furloughing staff, the difficulties of keeping going. Some restaurant owners in Belfast, Derry and the other northern towns were outspoken and truthful about the effects of Brexit.

Spanish, French and Italian staff that had adorned the narrow north, and Britain, fled. Why stay where a strident political shift made you unwelcome and made it harder for family to think about joining you?

Now, some people who re-tooled operations painfully are exhausted and demoralised. In Dublin as in Belfast and elsewhere, some have folded.

Chef-owner JP McMahon wrote last week for The Irish Times that "recent price shaming in the media regarding the price of food in Ireland, particularly in restaurants, is nothing short of hypocritical and ridiculous".

Electricity costs had trebled if not quadrupled, rents in Dublin had risen particularly high. Wage inflation forced restaurants to raise prices to stay afloat.

"We need to support our farmers and staff by paying them more than we currently do," he wrote. He wanted to pay staff decently "but it pains me when the media shame restaurants for overcharging on the one hand, and then rail against inadequate wages in the industry".

A Belfast restaurant announced it would close from last weekend. Not being able to get enough staff to open more than four days a week and with "the cost of everything going through the roof, the after effects of the pandemic", the owner of The Barking Dog on the Malone Road, Michael O’Connor (no relation), told how it had been a constant struggle. Friends in the industry, he said, had also made the difficult decision recently to close their businesses.

‘Eat out to help out’ was that very bad Sunak idea, complete with vouchers, when Covid was at its peak. It certainly helped the virus. And now? Suggesting eating out may strike the struggling – and the puritans among us – as supremely tasteless. So, touchy.

Cloth-eared as that royal call for volunteers, when many are dreading summer holidays without school meals, struggling to feed themselves and children. As wasteful and wanton an idea as the ‘Carolean’ (? Oh yes) coronation splurge on cloth of gold and whatever topped off the other ceremonial garments.

But ignore the quibblers except those you know to be truly skint. Here’s the argument.

If you boggle at today’s restaurant prices, stay at home. If you chance it, skip the espresso martini or the dessert so you can leave a decent tip. That’ll be 25 per cent this weather. Ok, 20 per cent.

Fun, cheers one up, gets one out of the house, redistributes one’s cash into a sector that needs it to continue employing the young and not so young, in jobs that don’t demand costly degrees but encourage initiative and flair.

And those of us with far-off children need contact with young people in the big world.

Lovely young staff may have orders to smile, may be told what to talk about and what is taboo. The most clued-up rarely bumble into those lines you hear across a cash register as you pack your groceries. "What are you doing the rest of the day?" Or worse: "Have you anything nice planned now?" (Oh don’t let them ask the painfully lonely.)

Asked of an averagely cheery old sod after 10pm, the risk is all on the questioner. Truthful answers are not required. To tell the truth could make a young person blush.

A challenge to us stubborn eaters-out: let us stay tasteful.