[lozenge]

Restaurants have gotten more efficient over time? I don't think so. Not enough to explain why their price is so different from education or housing.

Class sizes haven't gone down in colleges, admin costs have gone up though.

What's common between them is they're essential services and the government increases their affordability. Student loans, mortgage interest deduction, tax breaks on healthcare spending (HSA, etc).

[dreamcompiler]

Yes, restaurants have gotten more efficient. When was the last time you went to a restaurant where you sat down and then someone walked over and took your order?

Okay it still happens but until the 1990s it was pretty much all restaurants except fast food chains. Now, it seems like most new restaurants use the "customer orders at the counter" model to save money on wait staff.

[steveBK123]

My original point was more on the farming end of things, but yes I'd argue there's clearly been efficiencies in restaurant service.

First, like it or not, chains are a form of efficiency in terms of management/procurement/logistics overhead.

Certainly more fast casual formats than before that reduce the need for front of house staff.

And as always with labor shocks, efficiencies get found. With the recent pandemic shock of restaurant shut downs & slow reopening... a lot of restaurants are back to full pre-pandemic high tables served (or more, in places like NYC where seating has expanded to large outdoors spaces never occupied 2019 or before), but never hired back their full staff.