Here in Spain the restaurant is actually part of the experience. Like a beneficial thing. It's nice to truly get away. With colleagues we eat at a restaurant for lunch at least once a week. It helps that pretty much all places have a three course daily menu with drink for around €12.

It's absolutely incredible how much you can learn about cooking from youtube.

My family rarely goes out to restaurants anymore, not because we don't love restaurants, but because it's more fun to cook at home.

You quickly realize that most restaurants serve terrible food and so it isn't worth eating out at all.

I pretty much only go out now for stuff I can't make my self, or as a social thing.

Most restaurant food needs to be simple and easy so they can get you in and out quick.

You are so lucky to have a family who cook together!

It can be fun but its literally a two hour commitment usually to prepare a big meal, eat it, then deal with the hellfire you created in the kichen. I don’t always have the energy for that at the end of the workday.

Eating out isn't uncomfortable. You get to people watch, make small talk with the waiter, talk with the person you are eating with, read a book if you are alone. You also get a chance to get out of the house for a while, I love eating out, and honestly only having a baby (which does add complexity) is the only reason I don't eat out more.

> Eating out isn't uncomfortable

That really depends on your personality. Not only is "people watching" not my thing, but the idea of other people "people watching" me is terrifyingly uncomfortable. Sends shivers down my spine level of discomfort. Please don't watch me while I eat. Some of us find the idea of "making small talk" with anyone, let alone wait staff, to be inherently uncomfortable.

For others, eating is a social activity, or an opportunity to socialize, and they like that. Some people feel "trapped" if they are cooped up inside their homes for too long, and need reasons to "get out of the house." That sounds like you, and that's great. Nothing wrong with it at all and you should enjoy eating out as much as you like. For others such as myself, who are introverted and find great comfort in the solitude of our homes, the reasons that you find eating out to be comfortable are the same reasons we find eating out to be uncomfortable.

> Please don't watch me while I eat

If it makes you feel any better, and maybe I'm only speaking for myself, but when I people watch, I'm barely paying attention, and I'm never really watching people actually eating. It's the activities around the eating, mostly just walking and talking (this is why I really like European sidewalk cafes, you get an endless river of people passing by to watch). I'm not taking detailed notes on anything, and definitely not bite sizes, how many times you chew, how messy you are etc. That's all too close for my own comfort. Couldn't care less about that stuff. Probably the most info I retain is new ideas on how to dress myself, outside of exceptional or weird situations that might arise in public. Which, OK, in the context of this thread, I might notice the people carrying two or more heaping mountains of food to their table at a time.

That’s certainly a very valid viewpoint but it sounds like some form of social anxiety. I’m pretty introverted and rarely make smalltalk with anyone unprompted but I still enjoy going to certain restaurants and kind of nursing a drink while zoning out. I usually avoid the bar while alone because some bartenders think you want to chat.

It's actually not social anxiety. Believe it or not, my wife and I are performing magicians, so I'm actually a part time entertainer on the side. I have no issues mingling, making small talk if I have to, and enjoying the company of others.

But it's when I'm not seeking those things, when I want to enjoy a meal or a private conversation, then I start to a) feel protective of my privacy (and yes I know, restaurant = public place) and b) I just have no interest in the type of socializing that we're talking about (making small talk with the wait staff etc.).

In other words I just want to be left alone, and I find the concept of people "people watching" me while I eat or go about my daily business to be, well, creepy. If I'm asking for attention it's different. If I'm enjoying a meal with my wife, leave me alone.

I will add, however, that the privacy element is probably a bit more "extreme" for me than others because of having experiences as a child where privacy and boundaries, when there was an expectation of privacy, was violated. And so I am more concerned with privacy than probably even the typical tinfoil hat wearing techie who is paranoid about Internet and device privacy. That's undoubtedly where the thought of people "people watching" me while I eat at a restaurant creeps me the hell out comes from.

Its interesting how a few positive or negative experiences can affect the way we feel about something for so long.

I am unduly paranoid about my privacy when working from my home office, and I absolutely hate anyone approaching my screen to look and ask what I’m working on. I always have to catch myself to avoid snapping at my wife when she barges in. In my case its probably that my father used to aggressively check our screens and say like “oh who is that girl you’re talking to on Facebook etc” (not in a fun way, kind of ridiculing or trying to embarass you kind of way).

Its completely irrational but the back of my head is yelling “an authority figure is about to come tease, ridicule, question you etc”. So I definitely see where you’re coming from.

You and I say that, but mistrusting strangers and being "anti-social" is the dominant paradigm - in America much more than in other countries, I think.

True. But it is more about trend like watching movie in multiplex is fun, there are those large butter popcorn containers, soda machine, bigger screen, better sound and so on. But more people are now streaming than going out for movie.

So now I think more people then ever will be having restaurant food at comfort of home and not worrying about traffic, driving, cabs, parking, crowd, one more beer or wine glass etc.

“Eating out isn't uncomfortable.”

For you. If a person says they don’t like eating out because it’s uncomfortable, you can trust they know whether they are uncomfortable or not.

I don’t like loud, busy places. It’s great when I can have a meal at a restaurant when it’s not packed, but you never know until you get there.

Don't forget the benefits of not having to set the table and not having to clean up, including doing the dishes. Also: not having to prepare, if you're cooking yourself.

Re: baby: If there's an Ikea near you, you might want to try that. Around here, they typically are very well-prepared for small children (say, 1+). Basically, all of the cutlery and china they sell for kids is available for use in the restaurant. And they have play areas integrated into the dining area - kids play and parents can eat.

For me, that completely depends whether I'm there alone or not.

With friends, family or coworkers, eating out is fantastic and a fun social activity.

Alone, it's awkward, uncomfortable and unpleasant.

If I'm not with someone, I'd rather it be delivered.

At which point its always better to just pick it up yourself unless you absolutely cannot go do that for whatever reason. Not only is it significantly cheaper, but the food is also significantly hotter.

> Because you can eat it in the comfort of your own home, instead of the discomfort of an unfamiliar place surrounded by strangers.

People never ate out because of the food. They ate out because of the dining experience.

You can make better meals, cheaper, at home, in less time than it takes to go out. Yet people still dined out.

And, they pay a premium for it. There is no sense in paying a premium for home delivery, because you are getting substandard meals[1].

[1] Few dishes travel well in a bag, even if it's packaged properly and delivered quickly - steam rising off hot food that is not ventilated causes things to go soggy. If you do ventilate it, then it goes cold in minutes while traveling. Then reheating the food makes it less nice than it was when cooked. Hence, all delivered food tend to be slightly different to eating it off a plate when it is freshly cooked. Even pizzas suffer from being steamed while traveling.

I actually assumed eating at home increase wouldn't be because of doordash, but because of improved quality and variety of frozen meals. I remember what was available when I was a kid was mostly mediocre to outright bad. Now a lot of things like quite good frozen pizzas and lots of entrees you'd normally get at a sit-down chain are available in the frozen food section. I'm a pretty poor cook but I can't screw up following the oven directions on a box and I'd get the result faster and cheaper than doordash.

It isn't as good as a home cooked meal but it is a lot better than the awful TV dinners I rarely ate back in the 80s.

> You can make better meals, cheaper, at home, in less time than it takes to go out.

This is going to be highly dependent on your local restaurants and what you like to eat. I can't make better bbq or pizza than the restaurants near me. I can make either of those pretty well, but not faster. I can make a pretty good burger, competitive with almost all the restaurants near me, but I can't make French fries as good as a restaurant with a fryer.

Average HN work from home remotecel autist.

While this is a valid preference, I think it may be a rather unusual one; people tend to like going out.