ABSTRACT
The last half-century has seen phenomenal developments in dining-out from post-war rationing to the current scene of plenty in which all manner of tastes and appetites can be stimulated and satisfied. The transformation has been extraordinary: profitable for the supplier and convenient and pleasurable for the consumer. Food rationing continued long after the end of the Second World War, while dining out was controlled in two ways: by means of allocations of supplies to caterers based on their trade (Hammond, 1954) and by restricting the price which could be charged for a meal to a maximum of five shillings. This limit was not revoked until May 1950. From 1950 onwards rationing was relaxed by stages, but not until1954 was the British public free to buy as much as they could afford. Even so, there was no immediate rush to fill the available restaurants as people were concerned to restore, as far as they could, the pre-war pleasures of dining at home. But the British had got used to eating away from home more frequently at one level at least: eating in the office or factory canteen, or at school or college. Mervyn Bryn Jones (1970) showed that between 1950 and 1967 there was only modest growth in demand for meals away from home. The famous 1959 general election slogan of Harold Macmillan 'You've never had it so good' reflected both complacency and awareness of a steady growth in incomes and expenditure. Bryn Jones argued that income was the only factor of importance in determining the national demand for meals away from home, for income contained the effects of many other variables such as social class and the propensity to eat out.
