re: How often did your family go "out to eat" at a restaurant when you were a kid?

Very, very rarely. Certainly not to "real restaurants".

We would go to Picadilly on Sundays often, and places like that. And maybe Mcdonalds here and there, maybe mall food court if we were shopping.

But "real" sit down restaurants? It was not common at all.

My grandparents loved Bruning's so we would go there on occasion. That was about it