I'll try to avoid the buzzsaw here for the most part....
1) you didnt get charged for ice, you got charged extra because a neat drink has more booze in the glass than a drink with ice,, been a topic of conversation in my city for the last couple of weeks
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04222009/ne ... 165615.htm
2) Most restaurants are barely hanging on these days, with many well known places just going out of business.. one can argue that they deserve to go out of business, in that the excess money that was floating around for the last few years just isnt there, so their business model got blown out of the water without the free spending people around to support them... surely gone are the Wall St. $75 hamburgers, and $150 steak dinners at places like the Kobe Club in NYC...Delmonico's, one of the oldest restaurants in NYC used to average over 200 lunches a day , now only serves between 40-60 lunches a day.. Venerable institutions like the 21 Cluyb in NYC has even relaxed their " Men must wear a coat and tie to get in" policy...
3) Fixed costs don't go down, rent, electric, gas, water, manditory municipal insepctions such as fire inspections, building inspections, ansel systems etc, taxes, taxes, and more taxes are all going up ....you'd call me a liar if I told you how much an ansel system inspection costs in NYC..
4) single establishment restaurants do not have the buying power to strong arm vendors into lowering their prices, so, in order to even keep up, they reduce portion size, hopefully not pissing off the customers too much...it is only of late that wholesale food costs are starting to go down...
5) 2 kids eating free, probably worth $15 on a menu other than McDonalds
3 beers, $15
salmon dinner $15-$17
appy $10
iced tea $2
and a Creme Brulee ,probably $5-$6
probably a $60 value, plus you got to get out of the house, and spend time with the family in a nice place, nice atmosphere, and at Mcormicks and Schmick, a well known, quality, restaurant
Moral of the story.... know going out that it's gunna cost ya, so what I do when i get edgey with money, or think a place is a rip off.. I stay home