Your Dinner Out Is Getting Pricier Faster Than Your Dinner In, and New Yorkers Are Feeling It

You feel it at the grocery store. You feel it when your dinner check comes, too.

If you’re trying to cut back, which bill should you worry about more?

We found numbers that give an answer.

Here’s how New Yorkers’ groceries and dinners out compare, and how the rest of the country is doing.

What It Means for Your Wallet

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks food prices in two buckets.

“Food at home” means groceries.

“Food away from home” means restaurants and takeout.

In the Northeast, groceries cost 2.6% more in August than they did a year earlier.

Restaurant food cost 3.5% more.

Food as a whole, which blends the two, rose 2.9%.

Prices overall rose 3.9%, so both kinds of food rose less than everything else.

Here’s what that looks like at the register. A $100 grocery run from a year ago now costs about $102.60.

A $100 restaurant check now costs about $103.50.

Now picture a real budget.

Say you spend $500 a month on groceries and $200 a month at restaurants.

That 2.6% adds about $13 to your grocery bill. The 3.5% adds about $7 to your restaurant bill.

So restaurant prices are rising faster.

But in dollars, groceries cost you more, because that’s where more of your money goes.

Which Parts of Your Cart Got Pricier

Not everything in your cart moved the same way.

Drinks rose the most, up 5.1%. That group is nonalcoholic beverages and drink supplies.

Cereals and bakery products rose 3.7%.

Fruits and vegetables rose 2.9%.

Meat, poultry, fish and eggs rose just 0.9%. Dairy went the other way and fell 0.1%.

So if your cart is full of bread, cereal and drinks, you probably felt the squeeze.

If it’s mostly meat, eggs and dairy, you got more of a break.

There was some good news in August. Compared with July, grocery prices fell 0.3%.

Drinks dropped 2.1% and fruits and vegetables dropped 1.4%.

Restaurant prices, on the other hand, rose another 0.2% that month.

The BLS posts its September numbers on Wednesday, October 14, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

How the New York Area Compares

If you live near New York City, prices have run a little hotter.

In the New York-Newark-Jersey City area, restaurant prices rose 3.6% over the 12 months to August.

Grocery prices rose 3.1%.

Both are higher than the Northeast numbers. Groceries are half a percentage point above the region’s 2.6%.

Restaurants are a tenth of a point above the 3.5%.

In this area, a $100 grocery run from a year ago now costs about $103.10.

A $100 restaurant check costs about $103.60.

From July to August, restaurant prices here rose 0.5%, while grocery prices fell 0.2%.

Five of the six main grocery groups cost more than a year ago.

Fruits and vegetables jumped 4.2%, well above the Northeast’s 2.9%. Dairy was the one exception, down 1.0%.

Wondering if you count as “New York area”?

The BLS means 12 New York counties, 12 New Jersey counties and Pike County in Pennsylvania.

If you shop in Westchester, Nassau or Bergen County, you’re in. Upstate cities like Albany and Buffalo are not.

Philly and Boston

Prices didn’t move the same way in every Northeast city.

Philadelphia-area shoppers got a smaller bump.

Groceries rose 1.7% over the 12 months to August, and restaurants rose 2.5%.

That’s 1.4 points below the New York area on groceries and 1.1 points below on restaurants.

Even so, drinks rose 7.4% there. A catch-all group the BLS calls “other food at home” rose 6.1%.

Then there’s Boston.

Its report covers the 12 months to July, one month earlier than the others.

Grocery prices were up 3.2% and restaurant prices were up 2.8%.

Of the three cities, Boston is the only one where groceries rose faster than restaurants.

The Big Picture

Across the whole country, grocery prices rose 2.2% over the 12 months to August.

Restaurant prices rose 3.4%.

Looking ahead, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS) expects grocery prices to rise 2.4% in 2026 and restaurant prices to rise 3.5%.