It’s a delightful Saturday morning and you decide to take a walk down Werribee’s main drag, Watton Street.
You grab the paper, wander past the shops and then it hits you. A nice cold milkshake would go down a treat.
You approach the Three Little Pigs Cafe, a small pop up shop before crossing the river bridge and ask for a milkshake. The largest size available is shown to you, a cup roughly comparable to a standard small takeaway coffee.
Then comes the price.
“That’ll be $9, please.”
Suddenly, that craving for a nice cold milkshake starts to disappear.
With Australians already keeping a close eye on the rising cost of groceries, power, rent, insurance and other everyday expenses, being asked to pay $9 for a small cup of flavoured milk is enough to make even a regular cafe customer question whether it is really worth it.
There is no suggestion the cafe has done anything wrong. Businesses are free to set their own prices, and hospitality operators have faced their own rising costs, including wages, rent, ingredients, electricity and supplier charges.
But $9 for a relatively small milkshake raises a broader question about just how expensive a simple trip to the local cafe has become.
For many people, a milkshake has traditionally been one of the cheaper treats available from a milk bar, takeaway shop or cafe. It is hardly a luxury item. Milk, flavouring or syrup, perhaps some ice cream, and a disposable cup have been the basic ingredients for decades.
That makes the psychological jump to almost $10 particularly noticeable.
For a family with two adults and two children, four $9 milkshakes would cost $36 before anyone ordered food, coffee or anything else.
Add a couple of sandwiches, a few coffees or lunch for the family and what was once a casual Saturday outing can quickly become a sizeable expense. The price also highlights how Australia’s rising cost of doing business is increasingly being passed on to customers.
Hospitality businesses have spent recent years dealing with higher food costs, increased wages, commercial rents, insurance premiums and energy bills. Smaller independent operators often have less purchasing power than large chains and can therefore face higher ingredient costs.
Customers, however, are dealing with exactly the same cost pressures at home.
That creates an uncomfortable balancing act for local businesses. Raise prices too far and customers may simply decide they can no longer justify the purchase. Keep prices too low and businesses risk operating on margins that are no longer sustainable.
In this particular case, the decision was easy.
The $9 stayed in the wallet.
The milkshake stayed behind the counter.
And the walk along Watton Street continued.
Whether $9 represents the new normal for a small cafe milkshake or one particularly expensive example remains to be seen, but for anyone who still remembers grabbing a milkshake for a few dollars, it is another reminder of just how much the cost of an ordinary day out become.
