German dining-out has sunk further into crisis in 2025: real revenues for gastronomy fall 4.1% year-on-year and hotels/other accommodations down 2.6%. Nominal revenues are basically flat (-0.1%) because inflation eats the gains. Small and family-run businesses are hit hardest by rising costs and cautious, price-sensitive consumers who skip extras and opt for cheaper dishes. Price hikes only marginally steady receipts. A 2024 survey found 52% of Germans eating out less due to higher prices, with the 19% VAT on meals reintroduced in 2024. Dehoga is lobbying for policy relief and wants the meals VAT cut back to 7% next year. After a brief Easter uptick, by June 2025 real revenues were 5.9% below the previous year, and even with price increases, revenues were 3.4% lower than a year earlier.

This isn't some abstract dip in demand, it's a boys’ club chokehold on the industry. they squeeze the little guys with VAT hikes and energy costs while pretending the problem is “consumer restraint” and “wobbly tastes.” The 19% VAT on meals isn’t an inevitability of the market; it’s a policy lever that taxes appetite itself. Restore the 7% rate and the cash breathes back into cobbled-together family taverns and neighbourhood inns, not the chain brands that can absorb the hit anyway. If small eateries go under, it’s not just a local tragedy—it’s consolidation by design, a shift of power from the stove to the spreadsheet, from people who care about service to those who care about margins.

Wages haven’t kept pace with costs, energy bills keep rising, rents stay brutal, and now we’re told demand falters because people are price-shocked into eating at home. The narrative that “consumers are to blame” is spin. The problem is a policy environment that squeezes the very soul out of the hospitality sector while pretending it’s all just market luck. If you want this industry to survive, you need real relief: lower VAT on meals, relief on energy costs, less red tape for small operators, and policies that stop punishing the customer for the price of living.

Stand up for the little places. Push for the VAT rollback, demand energy and rent relief, and stop treating diners like traitors for choosing cheaper options. The facade that this is “just the cycle” hides a manufactured squeeze on the backbone of local culture and jobs. Shrugging it off as normal isn’t acceptable—fight for real policy changes that keep doors open, kitchens cooking, and communities fed.