The Daily Feed: Early Meals Save a Bundle

Remember “early bird” dinners? How lower-cost menus used to attract only retirees and families with bib-clad toddlers? Now young couples and large, multigenerational broods are joining their ranks in the twilight hours.

According to this article, a desire for thrift has prompted restaurants throughout Florida to offer discount pricing in the late afternoon and early evening to a financially strapped public. And diners of all ages are responding.

For families with very young kids, eating out has always been a crapshoot: you never know if you’ll hit the jackpot and make it through your meal, or be forced to throw a few bills on the table and abscond mid-bite with a tantrum-throwing toddler. At least if you eat early, you’re less likely to run into people you know (unless they, of course, have young kids, too).

That families of all stripes, and younger couples, have caught on to the appeal of early meals makes sense. Discount pricing can not only save wads of cash, but can leave diners plenty of post-dinner time to catch a movie, hit a bookstore, or engage in a rowdy game of Scrabble or Wii bowling.

Cheryl Sternman Rule is a widely-published food writer and the voice behind the blog 5 Second Rule.