Originally Posted by
violist
Yes, our restaurant portion sizes are generally too large. I see it as an effort to retail more product to an unsuspecting audience which has subsequently grown to expect the excess (hence the readily availability of take-out containers in pretty much all restaurants).
It's not that they want to sell more food per se, but rather that their prices are going to be high regardless, and "selling more food" makes those prices more palateable to most customers.
With some exceptions, the raw food itself is a relatively small part of the cost of a meal: Fixed costs - space, equipment, wages for non-tipped staff - of serving a meal tend to be quite high in comparison. So for most dishes, increasing the portion size has a relatively small impact on the net cost of the meal.