When I lived in Denmark, I did indeed eat out at restaurants less, but probably ate socially about the same amount. It's legal to drink alcohol in public, so on nice days, we'd either get takeout, or a single-use grill and some burgers and beers, and picnic in a park or on the waterfront. On particularly nice days you can see tens of thousands of people doing this in Copenhagen. On less nice days, just go to someone's apartment.
Now I'm back in the US, where it seems going to a restaurant is the default way of eating socially, even for just informal meetings with friends. Partly because it's cheap I'd guess, and partly there is less public space and more legal restrictions on what you can do in it. Overall I don't really like that aspect of the culture. Seems unnecessary to me to have the whole formality of a waiter who takes orders and serves you plates and whatever just for a random weekday meal with friends. But I'm presumably not representative.
Yeah. I kind of alluded to that in another part of the comment tree. In fact, I have bought food from the McDonalds in the main Copenhagen train station.
Now I'm back in the US, where it seems going to a restaurant is the default way of eating socially, even for just informal meetings with friends. Partly because it's cheap I'd guess, and partly there is less public space and more legal restrictions on what you can do in it. Overall I don't really like that aspect of the culture. Seems unnecessary to me to have the whole formality of a waiter who takes orders and serves you plates and whatever just for a random weekday meal with friends. But I'm presumably not representative.