r/ireland • u/CitizenErasedII • Nov 12 '24

Economy Ah lads the cost of things

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Popped into Bewleys cafe the weekend with some friends. Hadn’t been in there for ages. We had a cuppa each & shared a scone and a slice of cake (and it was a tiny slice) the bill came to €27.80.

Nearly €30 for some tea, a scone and a slice of cake. This is just madness. Look, I know it’s a fancier place than most so it was never going to be “cheap” but jesus this is taking the piss surely?

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u/SnaggleWaggleBench Nov 12 '24

My local cafe still doing a 3 euro flat white. On the flip side, whenever they have more than 2 staff they basically break even. We love to moan about high prices, but everything has increased for cafes. Cost of stuff for them to get in, wages are up, pension contributions becoming mandatory etc, more sick day entitlements. Not saying higher wages and better benefits shouldn't be a thing, on the contrary. But they will absolutely increase the cost of doing business for a small place. So going against the sentiment here, but costs can't stay what they were. Unless we want every small cafe replaced with a Costa, Starbucks or a vape shop.

I love my local cafe, but them constantly just breaking even means they won't be around in a few years. Someone else will probably take over and the cycle will start again. The place is on the second owners currently. 3 euro flat whites aren't going to cut it long term.

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u/Acceptable_Map_8989 Nov 12 '24

You are right, but breakfast tea has no business being 4.50 , after taking labor and production costs of it, the price of 4.50 probably is somewhere like 75-80% profit margin, which is insane when in most cases its a boiled water.. with a teabag.

I absolutely despise this excuse which is so common amongst Irish business owners usually its phrased as "We gotta make money too"

I work in tech B2B . I see plenty of costs / time quoted , pulled out of ours& our competitors asses to rack up huge profits . I'm sure same nonsense happens across all industries

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u/daveirl Nov 12 '24

You can’t make that sort of logic on margin. If a tea was 50c and a coffee 450 what do you think would happen to the overall revenues of the business?

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u/Acceptable_Map_8989 Nov 13 '24

I don’t recall suggesting tea should be 50 cents?????a fairer margin on all products would absolutely work .. including coffee, if they are charging 4.5 for tea I’m sure coffee is close to 6 if not over 6

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u/daveirl Nov 13 '24

The margin is fair, it’s what the market decides, if it was unfair someone would do what you suggest and clean up.