I'll add my view here, even though it isn't completely in harmony with the thread title. I don't want to stop eating at restaurants, but I do recognize how much $ I am spending for this particular 'hobby'. So maybe 'moderate' my habit of restaurant dining is a more accurate goal for me.
I very rarely eat lunch anyplace but at home. I'm fortunate enough to live near work so I come home almost every day for lunch and make a sandwich, etc. I realize that I'm being half wasteful here in that I do travel home for that lunch rather than just take lunch with me, but darn it, I really enjoy the break from the office. I have time to eat lunch and then read a little or play with the cat or just sit outside on my deck on a nice afternoon for a few minutes before re-engaging in the office. About twice a month I will meet a friend for a cheap ($10) lunch. So that's not my issue. My issue is eating dinner out about 3 nights a week.
Being single, approaching middle age, and living in suburbia, I have found restaurants to be my social activity. I have a few that I frequent pretty much weekly and I almost always have an enjoyable experience meeting up with other friends that I have met in this context. So I don't really want to eliminate this from my life.
That being said, I do recognize 2 negatives that result from this choice of recreation. One is the fact that I drink more than I should. I don't ever really get drunk, mind you, because my consumption is spread out over several hours (usually 3+, I make a night of it), but the total intake is probably bad for my health. On a Friday and Saturday night, I consume about 3-4 drinks. Sometimes 5. And this is directly correlated with the second negative, which is the amount of money I spend on a weekly basis. My restaurants of choice are the kind with $12 cocktails and $16 glasses of wine, so I spend an average of $85 for a meal. Now, I get some fantastic meals for that money, but it's still a lot of money.
This was a habit that I got into several years ago when I was doing a lot of freelance work in addition to my 9-5. I would come home from the office and spend a couple hours working on my side gig and then I'd find myself hungry and ready to get out of the house. The extra dough rolling in from the freelance work made it really easy to rationalize spending lots of money to blow off steam and relax. Then it became a habit. I am a creature of routine. To a fault.
When I stumbled upon MMM and the FIRE culture earlier this year, I had a bit of an awakening. I didn't realize how close I was to FI. I knew that I had FU money (a few years of cushion should I lose my job), but I didn't know the (ridiculously simple) math behind early retirement. Now, instead of a far off goal in 10-12 years, I see that I'm only a few years away. That makes it much more real and actionable.
I started by actually looking at my spending in this area. I knew I was spending a lot, of course, but I wasn't really tracking it and putting a number to it. Since I always use a CC, I was able to review my annual expenditures at my regular dining establishments. That was...unpleasant. Being somewhat a glutton for punishment, I even did the math on the opportunity cost for that money. So I decided to make some changes.
The first thing I've done is to eliminate one night (mid week) of dining out. That was something that I had most recently added and was the least enjoyable to me, bank-for-buck speaking. I was not generally meeting up with friends for that meal, so it wasn't as social as other nights. So, low hanging fruit, so to speak.
Next, I've begun to pay more attention to how much I'm spending at a meal. I'm buying smaller / less expensive portions and maybe reducing the drink count by 1. Baby steps. I'm also eliminating one or two of the weekend night outings each month. These rather small and (we'll see) painless changes should reduce my monthly spend by something like $350 - $400.
I am fully aware that even after these changes I'm spending what many (in this community) would consider a ridiculous amount of money at restaurants. But in my view, spending is ok so long as it isn't creating (or prolonging) debt and, importantly, it needs to be mindful. So long as I know what I'm spending and I make the conscious decision that it is a trade-off I'm willing to make, then so be it.