Hey, remember dinner dates? Well, forget ’em

Restaurants are coming off a busy Valentine’s Day, but many new couples avoid them.

In recent years, somewhere between endless Tinder swipes and countless OkCupid matches, the dinner date went the way of the doggie bag.

As online dating surges, few millennials have the time, money, or desire to sit with a stranger over a long meal.

Only 7 in 10,000 messages in a recent OkCupid survey suggested “grabbing some dinner,” and a somewhat less scientific survey this reporter conducted of several dozen actively dating 20somethings found that dinner has be- come a highly taboo first date.

Moody’s Investors Service recently slashed its operating-profit growth forecast for the restaurant sector.

There’s good reason why people don’t want to sit through a meal with a stranger for an hour or longer.

One first dater said it was her “worst nightmare,” and another said the idea of sitting through an unspecified number of hours of food, drinks or dessert makes her anxious.

Dating online can be more miss than hit, even when you see the photo beforehand, so there is a risk that the dinner will feel even longer. “In theory, I like the dinner date, but nearly every time I’ve gone on one as a first date I feel like I’m trapped with somebody who got stale after the first 15 minutes,” said Christine Victoria Waller, 35, a childhood educator who lives outside the city. “For beginning dates, I prefer a cocktail someplace nice, with the option of dinner if we are feeling it.”

Online dating has been instrumental in this shift toward more casual outings like coffee, shakes or cocktails, said April Masini, a relationship and etiquette expert. In large cities like New York and Los Angeles, a dinner tab for two at a midprice restaurant can be well over $50, not including wine and aperitifs. Even for a casual dater going on one or two dinners a week the costs quickly add up.