Restaurants just seem like an intrinsically bad type of economic activity. To create the experience, the chefs and waitstaff and support people labor and labor and labor. Then the customer eats the duck confit, drinks the wine, and that's it. The labor isn't wasted, but neither is it invested for the future. Compare the situation with a simple real estate construction company. Your architects and construction workers and electricians labor and labor and labor, and then you have a house that people can live in for a hundred years or more.
I've never thought about it exactly that way, but that may just sum up why eating out feels like such a waste of time and money to me. It is all a big show. In the end, I leave with a full belly. I can do that at home for less and have time left over for building something useful (physical or software).
