When dining out didn’t cost and arm and a leg

We all get a bit nostalgic at times, especially when we see where we are now. With perpetually increasing prices for everything, and no declines in sight, folks get particularly sentimental about what things used to cost. Obviously, it’s “because of the economy,” or so we’re told, but why have things gotten so out of hand?

Like most folks, I have no answers to that question. All I know is for years we went along with occasional price increases, but also saw decreases with prices generally staying around a baseline. Now there seems to be no baseline for anything.

For example, the cost of eating out has been a hot topic. A $6 burger used to be a fancy burger. Now you’re lucky to find any burger for less than $6. It’s hard to get out of a fast-food chain restaurant for less than $10 a person. Prices at independent eateries have climbed crazily, and it’s not the fault of the owners who are trying to stay in business.

Doing a little research, I noticed that restaurant prices seemed to be on that economic baseline and changed little for years. You could get a lot more for a dollar than you can now. I’ve been going through back issues of The Bulletin courtesy of Newspapers.com and it’s interesting how the price of going out to eat has changed.

I checked local restaurant ads for the years since I’ve been in Mountain Home, starting with 1979, 45 years ago. There were a lot more local cafes then, most of them gone now. I was a bachelor then and ate out more rather than cooking. One of my favorite places was Simple Simon Restaurant, located where Town East Centre now stands. They had homestyle food, and you could get a Sunday dinner, “soup to dessert,” for $3.25. It consisted of your choice of fried chicken, baked ham with pineapple, or beef tips and noodles, vegetables, rolls, and soup or salad and dessert.

Simple Simon also had a Friday seafood platter with stuffed crab, catfish steaks, oysters, shrimp, and scallops plus soup or salad along with choice of potato and vegetable. Today a meal like that would cost at least $15. Then, you paid $2.95. A glass of tea can cost $2.95 now.

Another favorite of mine spot was the Mountain Homestead next to the North Arkansas Electric Cooperative offices. It served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For $1.75 you got a family-style plate lunch with your choice of entrees – “a large variety to choose from” – plus salad, potato, and vegetable.Mountain Homestead also was the only place you could get “SOS” for breakfast. Ask your grandpas what that was.

If you wanted to go out for a fancy dinner, the Tam O’Shanter at Briarcliff Clubhouse was one place to go. It offered a Friday night special featuring a pound of Alaskan King Crab legs with soup, salad, and potato for $6.50. Appetizers cost more than that today. Or you could get a fish and shrimp platter with salad, soup, and potato for $4.25. The Tam O’Shanter also had a Sunday buffet with “four mouthwatering entrees, 13 tasty dishes from our salad bar, several potatoes and vegetable choices.” All this for $4.25, $2.15 for children.

Speaking of buffets, Bowen’s Restaurant at the Ramada Inn had a Friday night seafood buffet for $4.95, $2.35 for children 3-11.

If you didn’t want to cook Thanksgiving dinner that year, Little Pines Restaurant had you covered with its holiday buffet. For $4.75 you could have your choice of turkey and dressing, baked chicken and dressing, roast beef, baked ham, Cornish hen with wild rice, leg of lamb with mint jelly served with candied yams mashed potatoes, green beans almondine, corn on the cob, salad, soup, relish tray, fruit Jello, and pie. If that was too pricy, the Holiday Inn had a buffet with turkey and dressing, roast beef, barbecue ribs, vegetables, salads, rolls, and dessert for $3.95.

As for chain restaurants in Mountain Home in 1979, Kentucky Fried Chicken offered a full meal deal of two pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, biscuit, and cherry pie for $1.98. You could get a family dinner with 12 pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, slaw, and rolls for $6.99. Now that’s the price for a full meal deal without the corn and dessert.

Bonanza – where Casey’s is located on Highway 62 East – offered a ribeye dinner for two with a steak, potato, Texas toast, and as many trips as you wanted to the Discovery Salad Bar for $5.99. You’d pay $19.99 a pound for ribeye at the store in Mountain Home now. Bonanza also had a ribeye lunch special for $3.29, and a chicken fried steak lunch for $1.99.

Let’s go back just 25 years, to 1999, in Mountain Home. By then Bonanza had been Ponderosa Steak House for a while and was now Brangus Feed Lot. A lunch special of chicken fried steak, chicken Monterey, or a chopped sirloin with potato and Texas toast was $2.99. It had a Sunday prime rib dinner with two sides for $12.95.

At The Atrium Restaurant on Cranfield Road you could have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for $6.95. Over in Cotter, you could get two eggs with bacon or sausage, hashbrowns or grits, toast or biscuits and gravy for $2.95 on weekend mornings, Reel ‘Em In Catfish offered 10 lunch specials with all the trimmings for $4.50.

There were local places where you could buy a burger for a buck, and chain restaurants selling plain hamburgers and cheeseburgers for less than $1. You could get large pizzas for less than $10. A lunch for $2 or under wasn’t unusual. Somewhere along the line, “because of the economy,” prices started upward and haven’t slowed down yet.

When I was in high school, back during the days of dinosaurs, I read a book in which the writer in a semi-joking manner suggested that in 20 years you’d go into a diner to order a hamburger and the waitress would say, “That’ll be $8.” His prediction was a little early, but now it’s proven accurate.