How Inflation Is Quietly Eating Your Restaurant Meals

Inflation and Your Money with Fexingo: Protecting Purchasing Power and Beating Inflation · Jun 26, 2026 · 7m · transcript

Episode 76 of Inflation and Your Money. Lucas and Luna dig into a specific inflation blind spot: the restaurant menu. Most of us think we notice when prices go up, but restaurants have been using a subtler strategy — shrinking portions, reformulating recipes, and shifting menu mix — to conceal the real inflation hit. Lucas walks through data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that 'food away from home' has risen 5.2 percent year-over-year, while grocery prices are up only 1.8 percent. But even that gap understates it, because restaurants are also quietly reducing the amount…