Something that the pandemic has rammed home with my wife and I is just how poor the out of home dining experience is in general. The food is lackluster, the ambiance is awful, being surrounded by other people eating is terrible (my wife is a quiet talker and being fat always makes eating in public a shameful experience), so we'd MUCH rather eat at home. The quality of the ingredients are far higher, the food is tastier (my wife is an amazing and experimental cook), and we don't have to yell to be heard. We eat out when we're traveling but thats about it. Eating at home is better in every way.
I've found that eating out varies a lot city by city (estimate: 50%+?). Some cities have excellent base-level food; others are terrible.
As someone who lived in Atlanta during the restaurant revolution, it went from "I could do better than this at home" to most places being able to put together an interesting plate I couldn't/wouldn't do at home. And oddly, pre-pandemic prices didn't change that much when it happened.
My working theory is that restaurants only strive to be a bit better than the average restaurant in an area.
I may be spoiled, but its extremely rare we eat someplace where I find the ingredients, flavor, and options to match what we have at home. We don't travel a crazy amount (compared to people with traveling jobs or a real wanderlust), but we get around a fair amount and I see the variability you describe--but only up to a point. There's obviously places where the restaurants are truly awful, and there's places where the food is ok. But no place where on average the restaurants are excellent.
I'm probably in the minority but pasta and frozen pizzas are about the extent of my cooking skill and there are about dozen excellent restaurants within a 10 minute walk... it isn't good for my wallet.
Whether the average person likes to cook or not, I'm pretty sure that between lack of easy access to good restaurants and or reluctance/inability to spend on eating out, the majority of people make most meals at home.
