Oh, hello there. Welcome to the indicator VIP room. Clearly you have discerning taste and

people find you funny and intelligent. And you would never fall for something as obvious

as bald-faced flattery, am I right? And because of that, I'm going to let you in on a little

secret. You could support this show and local journalism at the same time by donating to

your local member station. We made a special website just for you to do that. It's donate.npr.org

slash indicator. Check it out. But just keep it between us, okay? NPR. This is the indicator

from Planet Money. I'm Stacey Vanick Smith. The pandemic has been hard on all kinds of

businesses, but especially restaurants. Between quarantine rules, social distancing, and

other rising cost of labor and food, it has been a brutal time. About 10% of restaurants

in the US have closed permanently. And a lot of restaurants have also been raising prices

to try to cope with the rising cost of labor and also food. Food's been really hit

by inflation. But also in general, food in the US has been getting cheaper for decades.

As farming has gotten more efficient and supply chains have gotten better. And also eating

out is just a lot more common now than it used to be. And all of this got us wondering.

Was eating out a lot cheaper in the past? Or was it more expensive? What has happened

to restaurant prices? The Consumer Price Index tracks inflation in the US, and it's been

doing that ever since about 1913. And we found a menu from around that time. It's from

1915 for a restaurant in New York called Francis Tavern. Francis is still around today, still

serving food, even some of the same dishes. So today on the show, we look at Francis' menu

prices back in 1915 and compare them to its menu prices today. And then we adjust for

inflation to see how much more or less people are paying for meals out. Spoiler alert,

apparently back in 1915, you really wanted things to taste like chicken.

...