Saw an article recently, can’t remember where, that basically said that the sole reason fast food was doing so poorly was pricing. That McDonald’s was charging Texas Roadhouse prices, so people were choosing to skip McDonald’s and go to Texas Roadhouse.
found this, they all outpace the inflation rate so it’s just greed as always.
It’s sad that Taco Bell thinks it is gourmet Mexican Food now. Any local taco shop with Mexicans working in the kitchens will give you huge burritos for cheap. Without adding tofu to the ground beef.
I very rarely eat out but if I am going to end up blowing on 30 on two meals I may as well blow 45 on a local spot with a seat and a hefty tip to the waiter.
and a hefty tip to the waiter.
And I detest tipping culture, though I of course don’t fault the wait staff. I’d rather go to a local joint that pays its people appropriately…which are hard to find, admittedly.
There are a couple floating around out there, CNN/investopedia/Eat This Not That. The most scathing one I saw was from CNN, oddly enough: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/09/business/consumer-spending-travel-value-nightcap
Unless you get the promoted deals it’s starting to be like that everywhere. Near me if im getting two burgers and two fries, I spend less at five guys than I do at burger king. Why would I ever go to BK?
Even FG is unreasonable.
My wife and 6YO kid went to FG last week and spent $27 on a meal for two and they split the fries.
A few ounces of meat, 50 cents of soda, a couple potatoes and an arguably 2 nice quality rolls. That meal cost them $5. Even with inflated labor it should be more like $15.
Five guys has been expensive for a long time. The rest just caught up more recently.
Five Guys at least has better food than most fast food and the portions are so massive you basically have to share
I haven’t even considered McDonald’s because their pricing skyrocketed post pandemic when inflation was high. They saw other businesses justifying large price increases by blaming inflation and the idiot consumers accepting the lie, and just ignored the niche their product is in, cheap shit.
Before the pandemic to be able to get a McDouble, Spicy McChicken and Fries for $4 with tax. Granted, the fries were only $1 with a digital coupon, but that coupon was always there. It was like the 2 tacos for 99¢ deal at Jack in the Box, you just gotta use the app.
Now that same group of food is $9 and the coupons available are dogshit. 15% off my $10 meal is not a good deal when sales tax is $12%. I’m not really saving much compared to things like BOGO offers and $1 items like it used to be constantly.
I believe it. The whole appeal of fast food is that it’s fast and cheap.
As a european, fast food is just like a category of food, and more of an occasional treat for me. Normally, I just eat my own homemade food, which is even cheaper. So I guess I see it a little differently, and fast food is allowed to be not cheap if it’s “good”.
Hell yeah, gimme that cancer patty and those artery clogging fries, baby! But make the obesity water size “for kids”.
For many Americans it’s just lunch. If McD’s costs $5 they’re buying. If it costs $15 they’re packing.
I have no clue how they don’t get it. The selling point of fast food was always the speed, convenience and a price. They’ve been degrading all 3 of those selling points and now it’s just not fucking worth it anymore.
But like it’s nothing new, I don’t belive I’m the only one, that for the last few years, every price hike just started picking less and less form the menu. And I’m not poor, far from it, I can definitely afford the price hikes, it’s just, once it’s 8x times more expensive than home cooking, the convenience no longer outweighs the shit ass quality. I hate paying as if I was at a fancy place and getting pure shit, might as well just go to a fancy place for fucks sake!
How much could a banana cost? $10?
Pretty soon that won’t be funny anymore.
I went to a BBQ joint here in Texas a week ago. Got 3/4 lb of brisket and some potato salad for the missus and me.
To my surprise… It costed the same thing as 2 menu items at McDonald’s. Like seriously?..
What’s the point of going to subway and McDonald’s if I can just get some BBQ at a restaurant.
(Didn’t name the restaurant since I’m concerned this will make them realize they can charge more)
they brought the quality down to match the 5$… did they bring it back up to be worth 14?! i kinda doubt it
Not only that, they lowered the quality at the same time. I remember when a subway sandwich was still kinda gross, but at least it was filling and you could have a decently healthy calorie dollar if you ordered right. Now, half the weight of your sandwich is in that super sweetened bread and the meat portions are tiny
That’s the same price as a succulent Chinese meal.
I see that you know your judo well.
There’s a great last week tonight segment on subway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDdYFhzVCDM
Covers a lot of the insane shit they do / have done.
IMO, no sandwich on Earth is worth $14. Especially not one from SooubWay.
I disagree, there’s a sub place near me with a 16" sandwich with like 5 meats, 3 cheeses, and lots of toppings that costs about $14. The heft is noticable, even when I’m hungry I can only eat about half.
Apparently it was creating massive problems for their franchisees in becoming profitable. Ever go into a subway and have the owner practically force you to buy a cookie? They’re trying to make up for the cheap ass sandwich.
I tried to actually go to one about 2 weeks ago. 5 workers, and they said - “oh he’ll help you” and pointed to another worker. While the 4 of them stood next to the till gossiping about home life, and the poor dude just kept making Sandwichs for the online orders coming in. Only said hi to me once, after the 5th sandwich, I just told them I’m out of time and I’ll go. They thanked me for coming in. They’re just awful top to bottom. Bad corporate culture
THEY WHAT?
I don’t even eat at Subway, but nearly tripling the price in one go? My gawd.
I go to Subway with an upsetting degree of regularity, but it’s the only place where I can get fresh vegetables as part of my meal in under 30 minutes. The cheapest footlong on the menu is the Spicy Italian (or whatrver their latest menu refresh is calling it) for $10.99. Any other sub is $11.99 and up.
You can get more reasonable prices per sandwich with coupon codes. For the ones near me, they almost always have a “FLBOGO” or “BOGOFTL” or “FTL1299” or similar variation to get two for the price of one. But YMMV and you have to be ok with leftovers if you’re eating alone.
You also have to order from the app to use these.
The “$5 footlong” campaign was a terrible idea, because it just makes consumers aware of how overpriced fast food is today.
They changed out their bread too, didn’t they? Not in a good way like you’d expect because of the price change, but like, dough mixed with cardboard.
From where I live calling that «bread» would get me diswoned, disspossesd and awaiting for summary execution. By my own parents.
Can’t imagine how half of the western world survives with the aberration they call bread.
I think their bread always sucked personally. Like they bake their own bread and it always smells like ass in their restaurants. How is that even possible? Freshly baked bread usually smells good.
What you described is exactly what I’d expect, sadly. Gotta vote with your dollar which means being choosy as fuck
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Jersey Mike’s sucks though. Like, abysmal. I’ve been to their stores against my preferences often enough that it isn’t even a single store problem, the food is just unpleasant.
Which is a matter of opinion, obviously, but all food opinions are subjective to begin with.
Isn’t jersey Mike’s a right wing douche restaurant?
You might be thinking of Jimmy John’s.
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Exclusive transcriptions from the meeting room:
CEO: Why are those peasant stop buying? It can’t be the price. It’s just $9 raised, it’s not even a whole $10, which is by the way, should be a coin by now.
That’s like, what, a banana maybe?
I’m not gonna look it up, but who recently bought Subway and is now cashing in on tanking it so they can sell the corpse?
If you ever watch CompanyMan on youtube, it’s like 90% of all “The Fall of [Company]” involves either going public and then rapidly expanding, or “acquired by private equity firm then died in 5 years”
Its like the saying, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
By far the worst one is always the private equity/leveraged buyout. It always ends in failure for the company.
I hate that cliche’d, untrue, glurgey phrase with a passion. But your point is good.
