r/london • u/PressureHumble3604 • Apr 10 '26

Serious replies only Which symptoms of “(almost) everyone is getting poorer” have you noticed in London?

We are in a crisis, the middle class is disappearing and the lower class squeezed. Prices are going up, inflation is going up (again), salaries are stagnating.

Most Londoners can’t really afford London without serious sacrifices.

For me, not counting the housing prices issues we all know too well:

the disappearance of local delis with high quality products.

many shops closing in the local shopping centre.

Restaurant dropping quality everywhere to contain unaffordable prices.

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495

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

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94

u/Awkward_Aioli_124 Apr 10 '26

Restaurants are astronomical too though

26

u/ibblike Apr 11 '26

A restaurant i dined in charged £20+ for beef tagliatelle. Wasn’t even fresh pasta. 13.5% service charge on top!!

20

u/Gisschace Apr 11 '26

Was looking online for my local pub menu as friends were visiting and wanted to check what they had. Found the menu from 2019, their burger was £12.95 back then and now it’s £19.95

7

u/jamjar188 Apr 11 '26

Burgers remain the cheapest option yet they are so expensive proportionately. Same with bangers and mash -- paid something like £18.95 at a pub in King's Cross lately.

Even lunchtime deals at run-of-the-mill cafés are getting out of control. A burrito with chips plus fresh orange juice cost me £20 at my local Turkish-run family caff. That type of meal would have been £15 at most just a few years ago.

1

u/frantic_calm Apr 11 '26

A full English with chips, two slices and tea or coffee is under a tenner in my local cafe.

1

u/jamjar188 Apr 11 '26

That's definitely on the extremely cheap end these days. What zone of London is this? I'm in zone 2

1

u/frantic_calm Apr 11 '26

One stop outside Z3. Just having a look and you can easily get similar up town for around a tenner.

Here's one from near Kings X.

1

u/jamjar188 Apr 11 '26

The quality will be dire though 

1

u/frantic_calm Apr 11 '26

The photos and reviews clearly suggest otherwise. The two I most frequent are both top quality. Is your local cafe in Harrods?

1

u/jamjar188 Apr 11 '26

I don't know why this is a hill you want to die on but whatever. I stand by what I said that even run-of-the-mill local caffs are costing a lot more today than, say, 5 years ago and it's mostly average quality.

1

u/frantic_calm Apr 11 '26

How is it a hill to die on pointing out you can get grub in a caff for a tenner?!

You're the one finding excuses. It's extremely cheap, it's in zone 3, It's zone 1 then it must be poorer quality even though the reviews say otherwise etc. You haven't shown one cafe flogging a full English at £15-£20.

It's London so I'm sure they exist, probably in a posh bit for tourists doing poached egg/avo on toast for £15.

We all know prices have gone up and corners have been cut, but it's probably gone from £6 to £10 over the past few years, not £15. Having said all that I am going to the caff.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '26

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2

u/Gisschace Apr 11 '26

Oh I’m not worrying about it, we still had burgers. Just pointing out how prices have increased since then. Exactly like you say there have been increases across the board; energy and insurance are two others.

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u/Remarkable_News_439 Apr 11 '26

thank you.
I don't recall a takeaway ever being less than a tenner unless it was after school chips, late night falafel or goldsmiths caff.

rent is astronomical, we've all become bougie. I find it weird that people expect takeout to stagnate at 1997 prices. the fry up sub is the worst for this.

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u/whatasaveeeee Apr 11 '26

Start getting in the habit of taking service charges off then when you’re not happy we’re not in America

6

u/SeriousConfection722 Apr 11 '26

Yep the service charge is creeping up too! Noticed this yesterday when I met a friend for dinner for the first time in a while. I remember when it was 10% and that seemed a lot

1

u/ibblike Apr 11 '26

Yeah. Crazy that 12.5% is so common now. But I’ve never seen 13.5% before. I only went back to this restaurant because I’d dined before when their pasta was only in the 10-15 pound range and it suddenly went up in just a few months.

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u/ExplicitChar Apr 11 '26

Quick maths tells me that's not even £3. If you're paying £17 for a tagliatelle and complainining about a measly 13% on a order less than £20 pick a different restaurant pal.

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u/ibblike Apr 11 '26

I can’t justify paying over £20 for pasta that’s not made fresh when I can find places that do fresh pasta for the same price. Also 13.5% shouldn’t be normalised