This Chinese takeaway menu from the 1980s shows just how much prices have gone up

For decades we Brits have been tucking in to a takeaway over the weekend or to celebrate a special occasion.

But throughout the years, the price of your sweet and sour chicken will have gone up.

From old supermarket receipts to London Underground tickets, we’ve been looking back with nostalgia at the prices we were paying decades ago while the cost of living crisis continues to bite.

Those same pressures forced Sun Rise, a Chinese takeaway in Kent, to close down this week – but while clearing out the shop they found one of their original menus from when the shop first opened in July 1986.

The difference those 38 years have made to the shop’s pricing is staggering – with a portion of boiled rice going up from 90p to £3.50, and sweet and sour chicken going up from £1.95 to £7.

Special fried rice used to cost £1.55, chicken chow mein cost £1.15 and curry sauce was just 60p.

But a combination of rising utility bills and increasing ingredient costs in the last coupe of years have forced the Sun Rise to close, as its gas end electric bills increasing by 30% and ingredients like sacks of potatoes going up from £12 to £18.

Shun Man Lee, who took over the takeaway in the village of New Ash Green from his parents, explained: ‘We have decided it is time to stop doing the takeaway. We have been here a long time but it is time to call it quits.

‘Ever since Covid, the prices of everything have gone up. We have raised our prices but it is becoming more taxing to the customers.

‘We have been trying to think of solutions such as closing earlier but we have had to think about the long-term.

‘It is a family-run business, we have all worked here, but we have to think about the family and how to move forward.

‘This business was to support the family and children, to make sure they had a good education and have a roof over their heads.

‘Like most immigrant families, we set up a shop to sell the food we grew up with and would eat.’

Sun Rise is so beloved in the village that regulars have been bulk-buying their favourite dishes to freeze, and asking for their curry sauce recipe to try and replicate it at home.

Mr Lee, who had worked in the shop since he was 17 years old, has decided to try a new role with less ‘stress and strain’ in the future.

He added: ‘We will miss everyone. It has not been an easy decision.

‘Thank you to all our customers and their support past and present. They are the whole reason that it has thrived.

‘We did not expect such support from us announcing we were closing, we are touched by it.

‘We hope to see people around the village and say hello. We will still be in the community, just differently.’

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