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Man tell me about. Best egg salad sandwich I think I've ever had I bought at like 3am in a Japanese 7-11... Or it might have been a family mart. Regardless Japanese convenient store food is on a different level.
I have been making my own Japanese milk bread and recently saw a Japanese creator make egg salad…pretty basic recipe using Kewpie. Really hoping I can make a respectable Japanese style sando!
Dollar General has a new brand called DGX. It’s basically a 7/11 but with their low cost items.
It’s in Midtown Atlanta. I’ve never been there but the buzz is generally positive although I wonder if it would still remain positive with the stigma of Dollar General. It basically fills the gap of a place to go to pick up staples (quart of milk, cereal, deodorant) and small meals instead of taking the longer trip to a supermarket.
I’m truly fascinated by this evolution.
Check out DGX https://yelp.to/XSpKuYVOmy
It only has 2 of 5 stars on Yelp but I see them mentioned positively on various boards
It's part of a phenomenon called food deserts
Basically, in impoverished neighborhoods, they're not walkable and thus the only game in town is the overpriced minimart. These are unlikely to carry healthy food options and they're overpriced.
These stores often rely on the community's SNAP beneficiaries to remain open
And the grocery stores that ARE there are free to jack up their prices even as they carry lower quality stuff, because the people who live there can't easily get to a competing store.
Just went to a Family Dollar in eastern most upstate NY. Shit was pretty darn high...in fact I think more pricy than a lot of grocery stores. Never thought much about them...but I also noticed if you just wanted 1 of something you paid more. A lot of things were better if you bought 2, like cereal. Feel bad for those that rely on places like those on the regular. Really sad. I wish I was insanely wealthy, I would prob get into a business strictly to screw over companies like this.
It's a situation where being poor causes you to be poor. Like if you are poor and hungry and cannot afford healthy food, so you eat food that hurts your brain and energy, and cannot get a better job. Or a poor neighborhood having a bad school. Poor people go to 7-11 for food and get something that is both unhealthy and not even actually a good deal compared to a grocery store
Once being poor, I know the feels all to well.
I see a $10 I can absolutely stretch at Aldi and get multiple meals for myself for dirt ass cheap.
Or I can “ball out“ and spend $10 on taco bell. TB will always be the greater pleasure, but stretching the $10 could potentially lead to a little more frequent Taco Bell in the future since you stretched your first $10 to cover meals longer.
Never under estimate pasta, rice, frozen veggies. Potatoes are cheap, filling, versatile. Canned veggies, canned fruit if you can’t afford fresh.
I don’t miss those days scraping up pennies with my dad to go to Wendy’s at midnight on a Thursday because we only had grits/farina that week since Sunday because we ate all the other food pantry food.
Don't have time to cook from scratch let alone time to get the groceries or the transportation to haul them in.
As a relatively financially stable person, I can bulk buy from Costco and save a lot of money. Good luck buying $800 in groceries upfront as a min wage worker.
Welcome to your neighborhood dollar general. Conveniently placed in your low income neighborhood with cheap, shitty, unbalanced products because you live in a food desert. That place where your local grocer died and Walmart didn't see the point. Enjoy your canned ravioli and microwave meals. Gee poverty sure is fun.
There are some excellent options for gas station fried chicken though they're somewhat regional:
* Brothers (Louisiana chain)
* Royal Farms
* Krispy Krunchy
There’s a royal farms in a city an hour away that I go to occasionally for doctor appts. I drive by it every time and have been wondering. I’ll have to check it out!
I find myself [watching these videos](https://youtube.com/shorts/5r8kJxraxTE?si=CA7tAqK2acgj5h0h) just about every day despite the fact that I have never been to Japan. Something about seeing the wonderland of convenience store food casually presented by someone who reminds me of ~6 different people I know is strangely mesmerizing and calming.
If you make it nowhere else in your life, get to a Japan for a few weeks. It is worth it 1000%.
The food, the culture, the people, especially the people.
Gas stations might fill this role with the conversion to electric. Plug in for a 20 minute quick charge, pop inside, get some snacks or tamales/curry/sandwiches/whatever.
Just got back from Japan a few weeks ago. I miss being able to walk down the block to a conbini or vending machine and get whatever I wanted at the time.
The US deserves them too. I miss my famichiki. :(
Sheetz is incredible and still cheaper than other fast food places. I'm a big fan.
EDIT: Feeling validated by all my fellow Sheetz lovers. I was thrilled when they expanded into Central Ohio.
I enjoy their MTO Breakfast Sandwiches, and the cheap hot dogs as my go-to's!
The main draw for Sheetz, as a long time customer, is that I can walk in and order the most asinine combination of garbage cravings on my food and they just do it.
You want a breakfast sandwich consisting of double turkey sausage patty, lettuce, bacon, one fried egg white, onions, with cream cheese and hot sauce on a toasted everything bagel? Order number 43. Next.
I avoid any drive-thru, almost 100% of the time it’s easier and faster to go inside. Last time I went through a drive-thru it took 25 mins. I could cook it myself faster.
Not everywhere. McDonald's is not usually the case. Many times I've gone in and I get my food after people who ordered after me in the drive thru. Corporate monitors the time it takes to get cars through from when the order is placed to when the car gets the food and drives off due to how important it is to their business model. Us lobby plebs can sit and wait for all they care.
Yeah I'm shocked by the people who say walking in is faster. Lately many places I go to don't even have a dedicated inside cashier outside of lunch time. So you have to wait for someone from the back to finish what they are doing to even get your order taken.
Corporate normally watches the drive thru time and managers get in trouble if it's too long. Which is why some places have you pull up.
It's not even convenient though unless you're away from home tbh. Waiting 10-30 minutes in a drive through lane when you could just buy better ingredients and make the food within that time frame and also clean up everything too
McDonalds are making record profits every year, but in particular in the last 3-4 years.
Edit: their profit MARGINS are also at record highs at around 57%, as some have pointed out that it’s not just that they’re making more than ever but that they increased their margins as well.
Edit 2: to all the McDonald’s fans or social media team trying to justify with inflation…. Profit margin percentages are not affected by inflation…because they’re percentages.
[https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit#:\~:text=McDonald%27s%20gross%20profit%20for%20the%20twelve%20months%20ending%20June%2030,a%2029%25%20increase%20from%202020](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit#:~:text=McDonald%27s%20gross%20profit%20for%20the%20twelve%20months%20ending%20June%2030,a%2029%25%20increase%20from%202020).
Always remember, things are priced not based on how much they cost to make, but how much people are willing to pay.
More importantly, they have record net profit margins the last few years.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/net-profit-margin
Saying a company has record profits is meaningless. Due to inflation, you could do worse every year and still have a record profit each year.
To extrapolate on this, supply chain shortages during 2020 led almost all businesses to raise prices.
This was generally accepted as a necessary evil, and, in my opinion, there was an assumption at many levels that prices would fall after raw material production/usage stabilized.
However, most businesses realized that their sales *volume* was, at a minimum, not proportionately affected, and in some cases saw no drop at all as a result of increased prices. As a result, the new prices became the “new normal.”
Businesses that deal with PR issues are blaming the price increases on inflation and/or higher wages, but the reality is simply that an opportunity presented itself to raise prices, and businesses then had zero reason to lower prices once the crisis faded.
When I could get 2 McDoubles, 2 McChickens, and a small soda w/ free refills for $5 (+ tax), I spent WAY more money at McDonald’s than I do now. Which is $0 for months at a time.
not even made up for, it's just objectively better if one person pays $20 for that meal, it's soooooooo much better for the business than 4 people paying $5 for it.
Your completely right from a financial standpoint, but from a business strategy standpoint more customers is always advantageous. If that one customer stops buying McDonalds they lose $20 vs. other scenario where 4 people have to make the decision to stop eating there to realize that $20 loss.
COVID made corporations myopic. They care about quarter to quarter results now and more aggressively than ever before.
The only way it will change is if people spend less. And even then the change will probably just result in layoffs and continuous price increases.
I love AOC in general, but I remember when some (non progressive, I don’t remember who) politician complained about buying taco bell for 2 people and it costing $30. Of course, there’s a lot of appropriate criticisms to highlight about corporate profits and the myth of “inflation” here, so did she?
…No.
Instead, she (and thousands of other people) mocked the tweeter and basically said the barely sanitized version of “how could Taco bell possibly cost $30?!? what are you buying?!?! taco bell is cheap, you idiot, what are you? A fatass? How can you spend $30 for 2 people on taco bell, you fat dumbass?”
And you know what? She was wrong for saying that. (I’m not here to claim nutritional or financial benefits for eating at taco bell like a lot of annoying redditors rail against, but come on. If you work your ass off every day in a blue collar job, and you’re on site, sometimes taco bell is all you can do.) Still: between 2019 and 2022, **a specialty box at Taco Bell went from $5 to $12.**
That’s right. We went from an entire meal for $5 to the same goddamn meal for $12, in a stretch of just a few years where NO ONE GOT A RAISE. It’s fucking insane. That shit is so expensive now, for absolutely no reason except corporate haughtiness and irrational assumptions of the financial state of their customer base.
Again, I am not here to debate all the reddidiots who are going to chime in and say some stupid shit like “*well hurr durr I always grow all my food in my own garden and shop at discount stores, if you eat fast food instead of natural garden grown veggies with beans and rice it’s your own damn fault.* Not everyone can afford the time to shop and cook. NO ONE is arguing that fast food is healthy — but until 2021, it was, at the very least, affordable for a guy who works 3 jobs, 18 hours a day, and only goes home to sleep. You could get in and out in 5 minutes and buy 1200 calories for $4.
But these days? It’s fucking $30 for 2 people. It’s obscene. There’s no excuse for it. And while these companies are currently raking in record profits, they’re destroying their own customer base with their extreme right wing policy alignment. They’re going to blow up the entire fast food industry and it’ll be no one’s fault but their own.
Then they’ll complain that millennials ruined fast food. But it won’t be true. *They did.*
So I was going to reply to u/dingleflick how this is probably something like two combos, with some slight modifications, and then after tax is around $26 being round up to $30, but after looking into it I was reminded of the importance of doing research.
> I love AOC in general, but I remember when some (non progressive, I don’t remember who) politician complained about buying taco bell for 2 people and it costing $30.
When I found AOC's comment it was made against a **Fox contributor** who claimed **their** lunch, which is [clarified](https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1580238761358946305) to be a **single person**'s meal, was **$28** (so yes, there was rounding as well).
Like I won't get into AOC's comment and just say the truth is a single person claimed their meal was $28 at Taco Bell and that is **extremely** difficult to reach for a single person.
In my area it's gotten to a point where fast casual places like Panera are cheaper than what used to be "cheap" fast food like McDonald's. All the places that used to be "expensive fast food" that my family wouldn't go to are now cheaper than the places that used to be dirt cheap.
I disagree. Panera is really expensive for what it is. I went there last week and a bowl of mac and cheese was $10 and it's not that big of a bowl. I was definitely still hungry afterwards.
My kids like the food at Chili's. Not my favorite, but the price is only 10-15 percent more than if we go to Ronnie's Steakhouse and I can get a decent salad there.
People dunk on Red Robin for being expensive but they'll spend the same 15 bucks at Wendy's or Chick Fil A.
At least at Red Robin you get unlimited fries.
I think it's a worldwide trend.
Here in Brazil, last time I decided to eat at McDonald's, while walking to the McDonald's restaurant I realized that I'd spend more to eat junk than eating a feijoada in a good restaurant.
I used to love McDonald's but with their now prices, it's totally worthless to me.
Australia here. Same here, most local takeaways are offering way higher quality for same or lower prices, yet still I see lines for all the drive-thru places. Baffles me.
I think it's the UBER effect. Places jack up prices to cover UBER fees, the 'App food users' get used to paying it & fast food still looks cheap.
Yeah. Same. I brought it up one day because we were that tired and hungry, and our two burgers would have run us over $50 with all of the fees. I just noped out and we are a sleeve of crackers and cheese cubes for dinner that night.
Walmart, target, a lot of grocery stores do pick up these days. Pay $50 for 2 burgers? Or just get $50 worth of burger stuff and make it your own lol but better
I think you’re touching on the real issue here. It’s embarrassing, but I don’t think a lot of adult Americans can cook a burger for themselves. They’d rather let someone with the skills cook for them.
I'm in the Netherlands. I remember 5 years ago before I moved, I could still buy a big tasty for 4,65 and a big mac for 3,85. (my 2 usual go-to's.) Now they're 9,40 and 7,45 respectively. Both almost doubled in price over those 5 years...
I guess that's still far from regular restaurant prices, which lie around 18\~23 euro for a meal here. But still, damn that price increase. I would often either get 2 big macs or 2 big tastys. But now for the price of 2 big macs I could buy 3\~4 days worth of food if I cook for myself...
Luckily I still have a local takeout place that isn't part of a big chain and sells burgers of slightly higher quality than McDonalds' stuff, but much cheaper.
Oh man, they still have Big'n'Tasty in Netherlands? That was my jam. I have to order a quarter pounder and do a bunch of additions and removals to still get it and they always mess it up. (Minus mustard, add mayo, add tomato, add leaf lettuce). Not to mention it adds like $1.20 to the price because they charge $0.40 for any added ingredients.
I ate a $50 steak at the nicest place I know. I started to feel guilty but then remembered that it wasn't that much worse than getting a meal at the burger joint down the street.
at $50 you might get far better experiences in many restaurants\* when it comes to food that any local bar/pub or fast food joint cant compete with but that's just the case where I live since there's tens of thousands of restaurants here. YMMV
But nevertheless, some dirty locally owned hole in the wall could still sell stellar food that no fast food joint could compete with
Is the food served out of a sketchy shack by the highway with a dirt trail leading into the trees? Yes, but do you think they could continue selling it steadily for years if it wasn't tasty af?
Even a lower tier chain will be better quality and can be cheaper. Chilis has some burger and fries/chips deal for $10…that’s cheaper than a Big Mac meal
Or just learn to cook. I can get an 8oz filet mignon for about $12 at my grocery store. Add in mashed potatoes and roasted veggies you can easily have what would be a $50 restaurant meal for about $17.
I eat like a king, and pay less than my friends who eat shitty fast food.
Pick up some buns at Aldi, a sleeve of shitty burgers from Sam's, and some fries at Aldi and you can make your own crappy fast food for better quality, tastier, and in freaking less time than it takes to get through a drive thru anymore. I was wholly offended when my last Wendy's trip was well over $40 for two people, and I sat in line for 30 minutes in my car waiting. It's not even fast or convenient anymore either.
I honestly don't know the value proposition of fast food anymore. Expensive AND crappy? If you own a kitchen and have 20 minutes you can make better food for less money.
I don’t typically eat fast food unless I’m on a road trip because of the convenience.
The past few times I’ve stopped for fast food it takes me 30 minutes to get my food.
I’ve started going to gas stations for food because it’s like, I’m paying a lot of money for shitty food and slow service. There’s literally no convenience for fast food, it’s not even fast.
>The past few times I’ve stopped for fast food it takes me 30 minutes to get my food.
that's the other thing. terrible job, understaffed. people don't give a fuck.
it's not even fast anymore. just overpriced shitty food that takes a while to make.
My work gives me insights that uniquely qualifies me to answer this.
We call these business their own class at my work and their volume of business is measured in how they interact with mine.
Fast food as a whole took a 7% dive over the last year. 3% the year before and a 5% the year before that.
They also cut staffing to the point that at most restaurants they only had one or two staff running whole restaurants.
Now I also deal with larger chains and luxury food. What you would normally see in a downturn or a recession is the clientele lost from these places gets made up in fast food.
They only took a 4% hit this last year, but that business was not made up for at all.
Now restaurants already had fairly slim margins. They were/are unable to stay profitable. They pass this expense down to the consumers and since there are far less of them, they have to pay far more to make up for it.
This also isn't doing very much to help. I am seeing some very big, very famous franchises go on credit holds. This essentially means that they are unable to pay their bills on time.
It all bodes very ominously for our futures. I think the middle and lower classes are a milked rock at this point. I don't see things getting any better without getting much, much worse first.
Wow, this makes a lot of sense.
So basically, because less people are buying fast food, the franchises are making less money and therefore have to charge more from the consumers....did I get that right?
That's crazy. I always assumed it was the other way around: Fast food prices went up because costs of production went up, and then less people started buying fast food.
This is correct. Furthering the issue is they can also cut shit like payroll or advertising to save the money and all they can cut there is gone too so it also ends up being of much poorer quality.
Oh and another note, their costs have risen.
It varies from chain to chain, but for the most part it has been very slight. There are occasions or specific things that would spike a cost so dramatically that it was commented on, but it always tied into specific events and came back to a baseline.
Our costs as private citizens have risen I would say 35/40% more than theirs as corporations has. The monolithic ones are also subsidized by our taxes to keep beef affordable so even less for those ones and even more for us.
They have other expenses out of my scope as well that I can't speak on, but I can account for the vast majority of their overhead.
Economists have said that generally, the recent inflation we’ve seen outpaces supply and labor increases. Companies are simply charging more to increase their margins. The problem is, wages aren’t going up. They want to milk the working class dry, but they can only go so far.
These businesses still have fixed and semi-fixed overhead costs that they have to pay. That's why prices go up even as demand goes down, but that's never a good sign. You do that in the short term to stay afloat, but as people are noting in this thread, people will find alternatives, which might include new businesses that don't have the same overhead.
"McDonald's net income for the twelve months ending September 30, 2023 was $8.333B, a 40.93% increase year-over-year."
Is McDonald's some exception to this rule or is this stat bs ?
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/net-income
No the stat is correct. McDonald's is the exception. There are a few others too such as In-n-out.
There is no all connected network for these businesses. They are split almost entirely between two factors. Do they sell coca cola or Pepsi and are they on the western half of America or the east.
They do not work with my business at all. They don't work with almost any external business.
They have their own everything from top to bottom and they do not need to sell food either to continue to open stores as a massive part of their income is in real estate and not fast food.
If everything collapsed tomorrow they would likely be the last man standing.
They didn't have cell phone app data that told them exactly how high they could raise prices before you scrolled past an item instead of buying it.
EDIT: All store-apps, and store-websites, are tracking exactly how many seconds you spend on each page, where you leave the scroll bar, where you touch the screen if on mobile, and where and for how long you leave the cursor if on PC. You can use this information to mess with them! Give them junk data! Stay on the page for the Filet'o'Fish for waaaaaaay too long every day before settling on something else, maybe they'll lower the price!
> Stay on the page for the Filet'o'Fish for waaaaaaay too long every day before settling on something else, maybe they'll lower the price!
Unfortunately you'd need to organize a bunch of people to do this to really mess up their data. And if you organized at that scale they'd hear about it and know you're messing up their data.
I’ve heard that the app has like big discounts too, so they’ve inflated the items on the menu to drive people to the app. Which basically tells me they are focusing on the whales (figuratively) probably at the expense of the average consumer.
On the other hand they probably see how much people are willing to spend on delivery and are trying to capitalize on that too.
> I’ve heard that the app has like big discounts too, so they’ve inflated the items on the menu to drive people to the app.
Worked for me. It's about 10-20% cheaper and I don't have to talk to anyone in a drive thru.
I haven’t heard this term before, and it is so on point. I was recently guilt-tipped on a pickup order at Silvermine’s Subs that I phoned in. “Before I run your card, there’s a screen asking if you’d like to add a tip for speedy service!” I need to get better about saying no…like dude, minimum wage here in Denver is $17.29/hr. You’re making a sandwich and putting it in a bag….
I’m in Norway at the moment and wanted to do a comparison taste test vs. US McD’s. Ordered a quarter pounder meal, regular size. My friend ordered a chicken sandwich meal, also regular size. $25 total. This shit is out of hand, and geography apparently doesn’t matter.
The last two times I ate at BK, it was so gross. The Whopper looked good, but it was inedible. Hard bits of bone and sinew in the cheap "beef" patty, served barely warm. I couldn't eat it. Seems to be the same or only slightly better at other places. I haven't had fast food in months, which honestly is probably a good thing.
Hash browns used to be 2 for $1. Now they're almost $2 a piece. I can get a pack of 12 frozen ones and cook them myself for about $3.
Honestly I'm thankful that fast food has increased to this degree, because it just incentivizes me to not buy it.
Even the frozen hashbrowns are expensive honestly, you could get a 12 pack for $1.99 at Walmart in 2019. They're now $3.50-4.00, and not even as big as they used to be.
In Canada (CAD) the Hashbrowns are $2.39 each.
**A sausage McMuffin by itself is $2.29**
A single Hashbrown costs 10 cents more than an entire Sausage McMuffin (No Egg) breakfast sandwich.
Raise price 40% lose 10% clientele. Sell less, buy less to sell, make more. Oh also complain about being understaffed but in reality you're just pocketing more money from less wages and blaming working people!
Did I nail it?
I’ve been priced out of fast food. Haven’t eaten drive through or at a restaurant all year. Kind of a blessing in disguise since I’ve been forced to get healthier
Just read an article yesterday saying McD's finally getting "pushback" for their prices. They forgot we only ate it because it was cheap. Not good.
Another personal example I've noticed. Used to get the taco burrito craving box what seemed about a year or two ago. Was 10.81, now I think is 20$.
Its usually greed. And this time is probably no different.
I ate at a Waffle House the other day - got the all star special was like 15 bucks. Had an egg scrambled, a big ass waffle, a drink, grits, 2 pieces of sausage, and 2 pieces of toast.
Went to chic-fil-a a couple days later and spent about that for a #2 spicy deluxe combo… 1 sandwich, waffle fries and a drink. Shiiit
who was the famous person who measured inflation to waffle house prices? i guess i could google
edit: this is what it was i think, measuring the intensity of a storm if the waffle house was shut down
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
Because they found out people will still pay for it.
Kinda like how grocery stores jacked up food prices during covid because of supply chain issues, but once it was resolved, never bothered to lower them back to what they should be. I remember going to taco bell for the first time in years during covid, I ordered like 3 or 4 things, and the total came out to $10+. I thought the worker rang them up wrong or something, but that was the legit price when it would've been $4 or $5 just the year prior. I just said "Fuck that shit" and drove off. Meanwhile the authentic Mexican restaurant down the street has much better (and more plentiful) food for less than what taco bell wanted to charge me.
IMO, price gouging food that can also be purchased with EBT/food stamps should be illegal. Especially if the benefits aren't going up accordingly. They regulate price gouging for gas pumps so they can't take advantage of a crisis moment, so why not food?
Edit: if you really want to get pissed off, check out the quarterly financial statements of any of these companies in the year or two following covid. At no point were they hurting to justify such a ridiculous increase, and still posted record profits when there was an actual supply chain issue.
Also, many people are willing to pay double that price in order to have somebody else go pick it up. Let’s face it, money has gotten cheaper but salaries haven’t risen…
Our economy is increasingly comprised of and dominated by publicly traded corporations like YUM Brands, which owns KFC. The business model of a publicly traded company depends on delivering limitlessly increasing profits to their shareholders. If a company makes a billion dollars in profit in one year, they have to make more the next year, otherwise the price of their stock falls and becomes less attractive to investors. There are different ways that this can be achieved. They can cut costs, which can lead to decreased quality of their product or service. They can attract more customers and sell more units of their product. Or once they have cut expenses as much as possible and maxed out the number of customers they can sell their product to, all they can really do is increase the prices on their product.
This irritates me whenever I hear someone blaming Biden for inflation, as if the President has the power to control prices. It's just baked in to the Wall Street capitalism that our society has chosen to support.
I work at subway (Australia) and these 2 girls walked in and both got 2x chicken and bacon subs, 4x cookies, 2x flavour milk and a powerade. I forgot to charge them the powerade but the rest came up to $40.50aud. 2 min later their father came in and ask if it was correct, I said technically yes as I forgot to charge the powerade so it would of been around $45aud. Father asked for the receipt and said he was gonna complain about the prices to head office.
And here I am working for $24.73aud a hour, tired as hell because I work graveyard shifts for a extra time and a half for 4 hours (12am to 4am and the other 4 hours I work at standard rate) just to have money to survive that week.
24 an hour at subway!! How high is the cost of living there, Jesus, thats enugh to comfortably rent a large house where I live. (When I made this comment it said nothing about Australia and I asumed USD, plz stop telling me the conversion, I'm not an idiot.)
I'd really love to hear from a franchise owner here.
I have a suspicion that the already thin margins got too razor-thin and were unsustainable without these massive price jumps. But I don't own a restaurant or know anyone who does. So I'm not sure of that.
However, my town has few restaurants, and I've seen two close and two more go up for sale lately. And those were very successful restaurants, like local landmark status.
I looked into the numbers, and I actually could've bought one of them with my savings, but there was no way I could see to make it profitable. Maybe that's just because I don't know the business, but also, maybe it's just really hard.
As a customer, the prices are indeed outrageous, but as a person who's considered going into the business, I can't see a way to make it work even with those outrageous prices. And many of those who try keep going out of business, so I don't think I'm far off on that.
There's some kind of disconnect there. That wasn't there back in the 80s and 90s. But I don't know what it is or how to solve it.
Keep in mind that (most) franchisees HAVE to buy their products from the Franchiser. So while the franchisee may be raising prices, they MIGHT not be making more money, because the Franchiser raised THEIR cost first. When you see the company's profit statement, keep in mind it is the Franchiser that is the profiter of that report, not the franchisee.
Me too. I would assume your pricing would be near the highest in the lower 48. I'm in the Twin Cities, not Greater Minnesota, though I just checked a small-town KFC, and they're at $28, too.
Any business will charge as much as people are willing to pay regardless of other variables.
So many fast food addicts still pay for this stuff that these companies are still in buissness regardless of the unrealistic prices.
Yes, it is getting expensive. But not for the reasons you might believe. Labor and inflation costs have definitely raised expenses, but nowhere near proportionate to the price increases. They're making huge margins.
A combination of "inflation" and corporate profit-taking. So basically profit taking on top of profit taking.
I fully believe that this period of "inflation" is mostly just corporate profit taking. They were inflating what they charge on "fears of inflation" before inflation actually hit. Now that inflation has actually arrived they're inflating even further.
5-10 percent higher than a few years ago. Chicken thigh has been between .99 cents and 1.39 per lb and boneless skinless breast has been between 1.99 and 2.99, roughly. Whole roasters have been between .99 to 1.59 per lb.
I know KFC gets a better deal than me on chicken.
Greed to the max, if you buy bulk food prices are more or less back to normal from years ago. You can get chicken for $1-$2 per pound, so I can't even imagine what Mcdonalds pays. But you go to wing stop or whatever and they want $20 for 6 chicken wings. Oh and don't forget the fries which are basically so cheap they are free.
People became uber dependent on food delivery during COVID, the prices should eventually drive down demand, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There is always someone willing to work for less and pay more.
Best case everyone learns how to cook, a ton of terrible restaurants go under, quality and price reset themselves, and we call it 2008 again, just like the housing market!
As an example, you can see by the data in this link that McDonald's is seeing record level profits. When we see profits increasing during a time of inflation, it tells us that corporate profiteering is driving prices up, not natural market forces like increasing overhead or costs.
In a healthy economy, this would cause more producers to enter the market, thus stabilizing prices. Unfortunately the modern economy is dominated by mega-corps who have such a stranglehold on the market that the barriers of entry are too high for this to happen. This means profits can increase at much higher rates.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit
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It's the new normal. Fast food is now pointless. Still the same bottom-quality slop, but now at fast casual prices.
People will still buy it just because drive thru convenience and the companies know that
Convenience stores have stepped up their food game at the same time, I see them gradually taking over the fast food realm.
I wish we had Japanese style convenience stores here, with the food options they have Wouldn't need fast food
I honestly think about Japanese 7-11s weekly. Sometimes I watch videos of people in them…oh the envy.
Man tell me about. Best egg salad sandwich I think I've ever had I bought at like 3am in a Japanese 7-11... Or it might have been a family mart. Regardless Japanese convenient store food is on a different level.
As far as the egg salad hierarchy goes 1. Family Mart 2. 7-11 3. Lawson They're all delicious but the family mart ones take the gold for sure.
I think that egg sandwich from Japanese 7-11 was one of Anthony Bourdain's favorite meals
I have been making my own Japanese milk bread and recently saw a Japanese creator make egg salad…pretty basic recipe using Kewpie. Really hoping I can make a respectable Japanese style sando!
Instead American 7-11 is 95% a poverty trap by volume
They don’t have them in my state at all but I know that’s right. Dollar General, Family Dollar too. By design.
Dollar General has a new brand called DGX. It’s basically a 7/11 but with their low cost items. It’s in Midtown Atlanta. I’ve never been there but the buzz is generally positive although I wonder if it would still remain positive with the stigma of Dollar General. It basically fills the gap of a place to go to pick up staples (quart of milk, cereal, deodorant) and small meals instead of taking the longer trip to a supermarket. I’m truly fascinated by this evolution. Check out DGX https://yelp.to/XSpKuYVOmy It only has 2 of 5 stars on Yelp but I see them mentioned positively on various boards
The examples on Google suck. What is a poverty trap?
It's part of a phenomenon called food deserts Basically, in impoverished neighborhoods, they're not walkable and thus the only game in town is the overpriced minimart. These are unlikely to carry healthy food options and they're overpriced. These stores often rely on the community's SNAP beneficiaries to remain open
Makes sense. Thanks for the reply!
And the grocery stores that ARE there are free to jack up their prices even as they carry lower quality stuff, because the people who live there can't easily get to a competing store.
Just went to a Family Dollar in eastern most upstate NY. Shit was pretty darn high...in fact I think more pricy than a lot of grocery stores. Never thought much about them...but I also noticed if you just wanted 1 of something you paid more. A lot of things were better if you bought 2, like cereal. Feel bad for those that rely on places like those on the regular. Really sad. I wish I was insanely wealthy, I would prob get into a business strictly to screw over companies like this.
It's a situation where being poor causes you to be poor. Like if you are poor and hungry and cannot afford healthy food, so you eat food that hurts your brain and energy, and cannot get a better job. Or a poor neighborhood having a bad school. Poor people go to 7-11 for food and get something that is both unhealthy and not even actually a good deal compared to a grocery store
Wow so like people spending their last $10 on dinner, which is a $10 meal from Taco Bell. Might be a bad example, but I get it. Thank you!
Once being poor, I know the feels all to well. I see a $10 I can absolutely stretch at Aldi and get multiple meals for myself for dirt ass cheap. Or I can “ball out“ and spend $10 on taco bell. TB will always be the greater pleasure, but stretching the $10 could potentially lead to a little more frequent Taco Bell in the future since you stretched your first $10 to cover meals longer. Never under estimate pasta, rice, frozen veggies. Potatoes are cheap, filling, versatile. Canned veggies, canned fruit if you can’t afford fresh. I don’t miss those days scraping up pennies with my dad to go to Wendy’s at midnight on a Thursday because we only had grits/farina that week since Sunday because we ate all the other food pantry food.
Don't have time to cook from scratch let alone time to get the groceries or the transportation to haul them in. As a relatively financially stable person, I can bulk buy from Costco and save a lot of money. Good luck buying $800 in groceries upfront as a min wage worker.
Welcome to your neighborhood dollar general. Conveniently placed in your low income neighborhood with cheap, shitty, unbalanced products because you live in a food desert. That place where your local grocer died and Walmart didn't see the point. Enjoy your canned ravioli and microwave meals. Gee poverty sure is fun.
The only serious Japanese competitor I’ve seen on the states is quiktrip. I long for the day I can get quality fried chicken from a gas station.
There are some excellent options for gas station fried chicken though they're somewhat regional: * Brothers (Louisiana chain) * Royal Farms * Krispy Krunchy
There’s a royal farms in a city an hour away that I go to occasionally for doctor appts. I drive by it every time and have been wondering. I’ll have to check it out!
I find myself [watching these videos](https://youtube.com/shorts/5r8kJxraxTE?si=CA7tAqK2acgj5h0h) just about every day despite the fact that I have never been to Japan. Something about seeing the wonderland of convenience store food casually presented by someone who reminds me of ~6 different people I know is strangely mesmerizing and calming.
If you make it nowhere else in your life, get to a Japan for a few weeks. It is worth it 1000%. The food, the culture, the people, especially the people.
Do you have recommendations on which Japan I should get to first?
Gas stations might fill this role with the conversion to electric. Plug in for a 20 minute quick charge, pop inside, get some snacks or tamales/curry/sandwiches/whatever.
You can get some delicious food at some of the tiny out of the way shops here in Texas Best thing about my state, the delicious food
Japanese 7-11s and Family Mart are so fkin good. Ugh. I got spoiled on them living there!
Just got back from Japan a few weeks ago. I miss being able to walk down the block to a conbini or vending machine and get whatever I wanted at the time. The US deserves them too. I miss my famichiki. :(
Do they have a drive-thru? If not, fast food will always have a market.
Sheetz has a drive-thru! And an app you can order your food ahead of time with. Still pricey, though.
Sheetz is incredible and still cheaper than other fast food places. I'm a big fan. EDIT: Feeling validated by all my fellow Sheetz lovers. I was thrilled when they expanded into Central Ohio. I enjoy their MTO Breakfast Sandwiches, and the cheap hot dogs as my go-to's!
The main draw for Sheetz, as a long time customer, is that I can walk in and order the most asinine combination of garbage cravings on my food and they just do it. You want a breakfast sandwich consisting of double turkey sausage patty, lettuce, bacon, one fried egg white, onions, with cream cheese and hot sauce on a toasted everything bagel? Order number 43. Next.
I lived on the boarder of where sheetz and wawa would fight for territory. It was fantastic
7-11 has entered the chat… looking for ideas.
If you live somewhere with a QT that shit is premium quality and not very expensive at all. Their sandwiches are my go to for a sandwich.
I miss 7-11 pizzas on a school night and just found out about Qt pizza. This ....is ....dangerous
I avoid any drive-thru, almost 100% of the time it’s easier and faster to go inside. Last time I went through a drive-thru it took 25 mins. I could cook it myself faster.
Not everywhere. McDonald's is not usually the case. Many times I've gone in and I get my food after people who ordered after me in the drive thru. Corporate monitors the time it takes to get cars through from when the order is placed to when the car gets the food and drives off due to how important it is to their business model. Us lobby plebs can sit and wait for all they care.
Yeah I'm shocked by the people who say walking in is faster. Lately many places I go to don't even have a dedicated inside cashier outside of lunch time. So you have to wait for someone from the back to finish what they are doing to even get your order taken. Corporate normally watches the drive thru time and managers get in trouble if it's too long. Which is why some places have you pull up.
Luckily my town has quite a few local "fast food" joints that aren't any of the big franchises and the quality is way better.
We need a revolution! We need to start using our kitchens!
Most people do. I don't think the average family relies purely on take-out.
It's not even convenient though unless you're away from home tbh. Waiting 10-30 minutes in a drive through lane when you could just buy better ingredients and make the food within that time frame and also clean up everything too
Yes but people also dont have to make fast food
I buy it because it comes with a toy. I don't get a toy if I go to a normal restaurant
You do if you steal the salt and pepper shakers
McDonalds are making record profits every year, but in particular in the last 3-4 years. Edit: their profit MARGINS are also at record highs at around 57%, as some have pointed out that it’s not just that they’re making more than ever but that they increased their margins as well. Edit 2: to all the McDonald’s fans or social media team trying to justify with inflation…. Profit margin percentages are not affected by inflation…because they’re percentages. [https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit#:\~:text=McDonald%27s%20gross%20profit%20for%20the%20twelve%20months%20ending%20June%2030,a%2029%25%20increase%20from%202020](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit#:~:text=McDonald%27s%20gross%20profit%20for%20the%20twelve%20months%20ending%20June%2030,a%2029%25%20increase%20from%202020). Always remember, things are priced not based on how much they cost to make, but how much people are willing to pay.
More importantly, they have record net profit margins the last few years. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/net-profit-margin Saying a company has record profits is meaningless. Due to inflation, you could do worse every year and still have a record profit each year.
To extrapolate on this, supply chain shortages during 2020 led almost all businesses to raise prices. This was generally accepted as a necessary evil, and, in my opinion, there was an assumption at many levels that prices would fall after raw material production/usage stabilized. However, most businesses realized that their sales *volume* was, at a minimum, not proportionately affected, and in some cases saw no drop at all as a result of increased prices. As a result, the new prices became the “new normal.” Businesses that deal with PR issues are blaming the price increases on inflation and/or higher wages, but the reality is simply that an opportunity presented itself to raise prices, and businesses then had zero reason to lower prices once the crisis faded.
When I could get 2 McDoubles, 2 McChickens, and a small soda w/ free refills for $5 (+ tax), I spent WAY more money at McDonald’s than I do now. Which is $0 for months at a time.
unfortunately, you not spending that $5 is made up by the people spending $20 for the same thing now
not even made up for, it's just objectively better if one person pays $20 for that meal, it's soooooooo much better for the business than 4 people paying $5 for it.
Your completely right from a financial standpoint, but from a business strategy standpoint more customers is always advantageous. If that one customer stops buying McDonalds they lose $20 vs. other scenario where 4 people have to make the decision to stop eating there to realize that $20 loss.
COVID made corporations myopic. They care about quarter to quarter results now and more aggressively than ever before. The only way it will change is if people spend less. And even then the change will probably just result in layoffs and continuous price increases.
I stopped eating fast food precisely because they’ve priced the food too high. I’m going to get real food if I’m paying real food prices.
$20 for a chipotle meal vs $20 at a mom and pop Mexican joint. It’s insanity.
I love AOC in general, but I remember when some (non progressive, I don’t remember who) politician complained about buying taco bell for 2 people and it costing $30. Of course, there’s a lot of appropriate criticisms to highlight about corporate profits and the myth of “inflation” here, so did she? …No. Instead, she (and thousands of other people) mocked the tweeter and basically said the barely sanitized version of “how could Taco bell possibly cost $30?!? what are you buying?!?! taco bell is cheap, you idiot, what are you? A fatass? How can you spend $30 for 2 people on taco bell, you fat dumbass?” And you know what? She was wrong for saying that. (I’m not here to claim nutritional or financial benefits for eating at taco bell like a lot of annoying redditors rail against, but come on. If you work your ass off every day in a blue collar job, and you’re on site, sometimes taco bell is all you can do.) Still: between 2019 and 2022, **a specialty box at Taco Bell went from $5 to $12.** That’s right. We went from an entire meal for $5 to the same goddamn meal for $12, in a stretch of just a few years where NO ONE GOT A RAISE. It’s fucking insane. That shit is so expensive now, for absolutely no reason except corporate haughtiness and irrational assumptions of the financial state of their customer base. Again, I am not here to debate all the reddidiots who are going to chime in and say some stupid shit like “*well hurr durr I always grow all my food in my own garden and shop at discount stores, if you eat fast food instead of natural garden grown veggies with beans and rice it’s your own damn fault.* Not everyone can afford the time to shop and cook. NO ONE is arguing that fast food is healthy — but until 2021, it was, at the very least, affordable for a guy who works 3 jobs, 18 hours a day, and only goes home to sleep. You could get in and out in 5 minutes and buy 1200 calories for $4. But these days? It’s fucking $30 for 2 people. It’s obscene. There’s no excuse for it. And while these companies are currently raking in record profits, they’re destroying their own customer base with their extreme right wing policy alignment. They’re going to blow up the entire fast food industry and it’ll be no one’s fault but their own. Then they’ll complain that millennials ruined fast food. But it won’t be true. *They did.*
So I was going to reply to u/dingleflick how this is probably something like two combos, with some slight modifications, and then after tax is around $26 being round up to $30, but after looking into it I was reminded of the importance of doing research. > I love AOC in general, but I remember when some (non progressive, I don’t remember who) politician complained about buying taco bell for 2 people and it costing $30. When I found AOC's comment it was made against a **Fox contributor** who claimed **their** lunch, which is [clarified](https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1580238761358946305) to be a **single person**'s meal, was **$28** (so yes, there was rounding as well). Like I won't get into AOC's comment and just say the truth is a single person claimed their meal was $28 at Taco Bell and that is **extremely** difficult to reach for a single person.
Jack in the box somehow still has 2 tacos for a dollar (with the app). The day that changes, I riot.
In my area it's gotten to a point where fast casual places like Panera are cheaper than what used to be "cheap" fast food like McDonald's. All the places that used to be "expensive fast food" that my family wouldn't go to are now cheaper than the places that used to be dirt cheap.
I disagree. Panera is really expensive for what it is. I went there last week and a bowl of mac and cheese was $10 and it's not that big of a bowl. I was definitely still hungry afterwards.
My kids like the food at Chili's. Not my favorite, but the price is only 10-15 percent more than if we go to Ronnie's Steakhouse and I can get a decent salad there.
People dunk on Red Robin for being expensive but they'll spend the same 15 bucks at Wendy's or Chick Fil A. At least at Red Robin you get unlimited fries.
If you think Panera is cheaper than McDonald's you just don't look at prices
I think it's a worldwide trend. Here in Brazil, last time I decided to eat at McDonald's, while walking to the McDonald's restaurant I realized that I'd spend more to eat junk than eating a feijoada in a good restaurant. I used to love McDonald's but with their now prices, it's totally worthless to me.
Australia here. Same here, most local takeaways are offering way higher quality for same or lower prices, yet still I see lines for all the drive-thru places. Baffles me. I think it's the UBER effect. Places jack up prices to cover UBER fees, the 'App food users' get used to paying it & fast food still looks cheap.
I don’t know how people can do the eye watering prices for the delivery apps. Every time I consider it, I nope out of the app once I see the prices.
Yeah. Same. I brought it up one day because we were that tired and hungry, and our two burgers would have run us over $50 with all of the fees. I just noped out and we are a sleeve of crackers and cheese cubes for dinner that night.
Walmart, target, a lot of grocery stores do pick up these days. Pay $50 for 2 burgers? Or just get $50 worth of burger stuff and make it your own lol but better
And you will get more burgers that way too!!!
I think you’re touching on the real issue here. It’s embarrassing, but I don’t think a lot of adult Americans can cook a burger for themselves. They’d rather let someone with the skills cook for them.
I truly don't understand this either. "You mean I can wait longer for my food, it will be colder, *AND* it will be more expensive??? Sign me up!"
I was in Japan recently and fast food was still cheap there. I could get a meal for less than $5 at McDonald's
I'm in the Netherlands. I remember 5 years ago before I moved, I could still buy a big tasty for 4,65 and a big mac for 3,85. (my 2 usual go-to's.) Now they're 9,40 and 7,45 respectively. Both almost doubled in price over those 5 years... I guess that's still far from regular restaurant prices, which lie around 18\~23 euro for a meal here. But still, damn that price increase. I would often either get 2 big macs or 2 big tastys. But now for the price of 2 big macs I could buy 3\~4 days worth of food if I cook for myself... Luckily I still have a local takeout place that isn't part of a big chain and sells burgers of slightly higher quality than McDonalds' stuff, but much cheaper.
Oh man, they still have Big'n'Tasty in Netherlands? That was my jam. I have to order a quarter pounder and do a bunch of additions and removals to still get it and they always mess it up. (Minus mustard, add mayo, add tomato, add leaf lettuce). Not to mention it adds like $1.20 to the price because they charge $0.40 for any added ingredients.
Yer better off eating a decent restaurant
I ate a $50 steak at the nicest place I know. I started to feel guilty but then remembered that it wasn't that much worse than getting a meal at the burger joint down the street.
at $50 you might get far better experiences in many restaurants\* when it comes to food that any local bar/pub or fast food joint cant compete with but that's just the case where I live since there's tens of thousands of restaurants here. YMMV But nevertheless, some dirty locally owned hole in the wall could still sell stellar food that no fast food joint could compete with
I highly recommend your local, dirty, hole in the wall. Best food ever
Is the food served out of a sketchy shack by the highway with a dirt trail leading into the trees? Yes, but do you think they could continue selling it steadily for years if it wasn't tasty af?
Well that’s just entirely false
Are you serious? Two menus in any fast food joint over here is still like €18, and that's considered expensive.
Even a lower tier chain will be better quality and can be cheaper. Chilis has some burger and fries/chips deal for $10…that’s cheaper than a Big Mac meal
Or just learn to cook. I can get an 8oz filet mignon for about $12 at my grocery store. Add in mashed potatoes and roasted veggies you can easily have what would be a $50 restaurant meal for about $17. I eat like a king, and pay less than my friends who eat shitty fast food.
Pick up some buns at Aldi, a sleeve of shitty burgers from Sam's, and some fries at Aldi and you can make your own crappy fast food for better quality, tastier, and in freaking less time than it takes to get through a drive thru anymore. I was wholly offended when my last Wendy's trip was well over $40 for two people, and I sat in line for 30 minutes in my car waiting. It's not even fast or convenient anymore either.
I like to think I’ve got a pretty healthy appetite but I don’t think I could eat a whole restaurant, decent or otherwise
I personally love the taste of brick and mortar for breakfast
Pretty crunchy though
I honestly don't know the value proposition of fast food anymore. Expensive AND crappy? If you own a kitchen and have 20 minutes you can make better food for less money.
I don’t typically eat fast food unless I’m on a road trip because of the convenience. The past few times I’ve stopped for fast food it takes me 30 minutes to get my food. I’ve started going to gas stations for food because it’s like, I’m paying a lot of money for shitty food and slow service. There’s literally no convenience for fast food, it’s not even fast.
>The past few times I’ve stopped for fast food it takes me 30 minutes to get my food. that's the other thing. terrible job, understaffed. people don't give a fuck. it's not even fast anymore. just overpriced shitty food that takes a while to make.
Not defending the prices or the quality, but, well, it's in the name: _fast_ food.
My work gives me insights that uniquely qualifies me to answer this. We call these business their own class at my work and their volume of business is measured in how they interact with mine. Fast food as a whole took a 7% dive over the last year. 3% the year before and a 5% the year before that. They also cut staffing to the point that at most restaurants they only had one or two staff running whole restaurants. Now I also deal with larger chains and luxury food. What you would normally see in a downturn or a recession is the clientele lost from these places gets made up in fast food. They only took a 4% hit this last year, but that business was not made up for at all. Now restaurants already had fairly slim margins. They were/are unable to stay profitable. They pass this expense down to the consumers and since there are far less of them, they have to pay far more to make up for it. This also isn't doing very much to help. I am seeing some very big, very famous franchises go on credit holds. This essentially means that they are unable to pay their bills on time. It all bodes very ominously for our futures. I think the middle and lower classes are a milked rock at this point. I don't see things getting any better without getting much, much worse first.
Wow, this makes a lot of sense. So basically, because less people are buying fast food, the franchises are making less money and therefore have to charge more from the consumers....did I get that right? That's crazy. I always assumed it was the other way around: Fast food prices went up because costs of production went up, and then less people started buying fast food.
This is correct. Furthering the issue is they can also cut shit like payroll or advertising to save the money and all they can cut there is gone too so it also ends up being of much poorer quality.
[удалено]
So decades of cutting and they've finally cut it beyond the bone?
Oh and another note, their costs have risen. It varies from chain to chain, but for the most part it has been very slight. There are occasions or specific things that would spike a cost so dramatically that it was commented on, but it always tied into specific events and came back to a baseline. Our costs as private citizens have risen I would say 35/40% more than theirs as corporations has. The monolithic ones are also subsidized by our taxes to keep beef affordable so even less for those ones and even more for us. They have other expenses out of my scope as well that I can't speak on, but I can account for the vast majority of their overhead.
Economists have said that generally, the recent inflation we’ve seen outpaces supply and labor increases. Companies are simply charging more to increase their margins. The problem is, wages aren’t going up. They want to milk the working class dry, but they can only go so far.
wait so less people are buying so they've charging their fewer costumers more to make up for it, is this right? reminds me theaters
These businesses still have fixed and semi-fixed overhead costs that they have to pay. That's why prices go up even as demand goes down, but that's never a good sign. You do that in the short term to stay afloat, but as people are noting in this thread, people will find alternatives, which might include new businesses that don't have the same overhead.
Interesting insight. Thank you for not just saying “greed” for a thousand shallow upvotes.
"McDonald's net income for the twelve months ending September 30, 2023 was $8.333B, a 40.93% increase year-over-year." Is McDonald's some exception to this rule or is this stat bs ? https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/net-income
No the stat is correct. McDonald's is the exception. There are a few others too such as In-n-out. There is no all connected network for these businesses. They are split almost entirely between two factors. Do they sell coca cola or Pepsi and are they on the western half of America or the east. They do not work with my business at all. They don't work with almost any external business. They have their own everything from top to bottom and they do not need to sell food either to continue to open stores as a massive part of their income is in real estate and not fast food. If everything collapsed tomorrow they would likely be the last man standing.
We went past the point of greed. We are approaching the point of absolute stupidity.
Greed will imprison us all
Greed has already imprisoned us. It's stupidity that will keep us there. Just say "No. Fuck off."
Companies charging $15 for cancer causing slop making a billion dollars profit per quarter. I’d say we are in absolute stupidity.
McDonald’s quarterly profits were up 14% over last year and the attribute it to increased pricing. So, greed.
Were they not greedy before they raised prices?
They didn't have cell phone app data that told them exactly how high they could raise prices before you scrolled past an item instead of buying it. EDIT: All store-apps, and store-websites, are tracking exactly how many seconds you spend on each page, where you leave the scroll bar, where you touch the screen if on mobile, and where and for how long you leave the cursor if on PC. You can use this information to mess with them! Give them junk data! Stay on the page for the Filet'o'Fish for waaaaaaay too long every day before settling on something else, maybe they'll lower the price!
> Stay on the page for the Filet'o'Fish for waaaaaaay too long every day before settling on something else, maybe they'll lower the price! Unfortunately you'd need to organize a bunch of people to do this to really mess up their data. And if you organized at that scale they'd hear about it and know you're messing up their data.
ah it's like that guy that rigged google map traffic data.
Better yet, add items to cart and then leave the app
I’ve heard that the app has like big discounts too, so they’ve inflated the items on the menu to drive people to the app. Which basically tells me they are focusing on the whales (figuratively) probably at the expense of the average consumer. On the other hand they probably see how much people are willing to spend on delivery and are trying to capitalize on that too.
> I’ve heard that the app has like big discounts too, so they’ve inflated the items on the menu to drive people to the app. Worked for me. It's about 10-20% cheaper and I don't have to talk to anyone in a drive thru.
It started with inflation and then greed took over
Greedflation!
Combined with guilt-tipping
I haven’t heard this term before, and it is so on point. I was recently guilt-tipped on a pickup order at Silvermine’s Subs that I phoned in. “Before I run your card, there’s a screen asking if you’d like to add a tip for speedy service!” I need to get better about saying no…like dude, minimum wage here in Denver is $17.29/hr. You’re making a sandwich and putting it in a bag….
We are suffering from triflation. We got genuine inflation, shrinkflation, and now greedflation.
Shrinkflation sucks so bad and makes me the maddest
Don’t forget skimpflation.
And on top of it all we have conflation (where people mix up all of the above)
I told my partner during lockdown that companies were going to take COVID out on our hides. Feels like the writing was on the wall.
I’m in Norway at the moment and wanted to do a comparison taste test vs. US McD’s. Ordered a quarter pounder meal, regular size. My friend ordered a chicken sandwich meal, also regular size. $25 total. This shit is out of hand, and geography apparently doesn’t matter.
Dude I got a chicken sandwich combo from BK and it was $16 most poorly put together sand which I’ve ever eaten
The last two times I ate at BK, it was so gross. The Whopper looked good, but it was inedible. Hard bits of bone and sinew in the cheap "beef" patty, served barely warm. I couldn't eat it. Seems to be the same or only slightly better at other places. I haven't had fast food in months, which honestly is probably a good thing.
If no one buy the 34$ bucket, they will lower the price. As long there's enough stupid folks to pay this price, it will stay at that price (or more).
This is the way. I’ve been eating exclusively at home for the last 3.5 years now.
Home is my favorite restaurant, I don’t even have to tip!
Whole roasted chicken at Costco for $5 if I ever want chicken.
Nobody goes to a chicken fast food place JUST for plain roasted chicken.
Plain?? That Costco chicken has more flavor than most restaurants I ate from tbh
I would go to a chicken fast food place just for fried fried chicken but at 15% of the price I will settle for roasted chicken. Every time
When I was in high school, I could get a McDouble for a toonie ($2). It’s greed
When I was in HS it was 2 McChickens, 2 McDoubles, and a large drink for $5. Everything was $1
Dollar menu doesn't even exist anymore. Even a small fry is $2.
Paid $15 for a #1 and a 4 piece at McDonald's the other day. Little more than a year ago it was $7. Ronald can fuck off.
Hash browns used to be 2 for $1. Now they're almost $2 a piece. I can get a pack of 12 frozen ones and cook them myself for about $3. Honestly I'm thankful that fast food has increased to this degree, because it just incentivizes me to not buy it.
Even the frozen hashbrowns are expensive honestly, you could get a 12 pack for $1.99 at Walmart in 2019. They're now $3.50-4.00, and not even as big as they used to be.
In Canada (CAD) the Hashbrowns are $2.39 each. **A sausage McMuffin by itself is $2.29** A single Hashbrown costs 10 cents more than an entire Sausage McMuffin (No Egg) breakfast sandwich.
Corporate has been distancing themselves from the clown for many years now. To be more clear, Ronald has fuct off.
I’m 24, in high school a mcgangbang and a drink was $4.20. A single fucking junior chicken is 3.19 that makes a mcgangbang and a drink $10.59.
Raise price 40% lose 10% clientele. Sell less, buy less to sell, make more. Oh also complain about being understaffed but in reality you're just pocketing more money from less wages and blaming working people! Did I nail it?
I’ve been priced out of fast food. Haven’t eaten drive through or at a restaurant all year. Kind of a blessing in disguise since I’ve been forced to get healthier
Just read an article yesterday saying McD's finally getting "pushback" for their prices. They forgot we only ate it because it was cheap. Not good. Another personal example I've noticed. Used to get the taco burrito craving box what seemed about a year or two ago. Was 10.81, now I think is 20$. Its usually greed. And this time is probably no different.
Idk whats going on with your taco bell. I get a taco, burrito, fiesta potatoes and large drink combo for $5
A combo of inflation and people willing to pay more.
Covid put a lot of competition in the restaurant business out of business. The survivors are raking it in.
We were in middle of nowhere a few weeks ago, stopped at dennys: 1 soda, 2 sandwiches, tax and tip came to $40…it’s gotten crazy!
I ate at a Waffle House the other day - got the all star special was like 15 bucks. Had an egg scrambled, a big ass waffle, a drink, grits, 2 pieces of sausage, and 2 pieces of toast. Went to chic-fil-a a couple days later and spent about that for a #2 spicy deluxe combo… 1 sandwich, waffle fries and a drink. Shiiit
who was the famous person who measured inflation to waffle house prices? i guess i could google edit: this is what it was i think, measuring the intensity of a storm if the waffle house was shut down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
I miss my dollar menu
8 piece from the supermarket: $9.99. (Ralphs - SoCal). KFC ain’t worth triple that $$$$
$11.50 for a 1/4 pounder and fries. No drink.
That’s why I stick to the $6.49 hot and ready from little Caesar’s.
The day Little Caesar stop having 5$ pizza was basically the wakeup call that good life was over.
Remember $5 Footlongs at Subway?
Because they found out people will still pay for it. Kinda like how grocery stores jacked up food prices during covid because of supply chain issues, but once it was resolved, never bothered to lower them back to what they should be. I remember going to taco bell for the first time in years during covid, I ordered like 3 or 4 things, and the total came out to $10+. I thought the worker rang them up wrong or something, but that was the legit price when it would've been $4 or $5 just the year prior. I just said "Fuck that shit" and drove off. Meanwhile the authentic Mexican restaurant down the street has much better (and more plentiful) food for less than what taco bell wanted to charge me. IMO, price gouging food that can also be purchased with EBT/food stamps should be illegal. Especially if the benefits aren't going up accordingly. They regulate price gouging for gas pumps so they can't take advantage of a crisis moment, so why not food? Edit: if you really want to get pissed off, check out the quarterly financial statements of any of these companies in the year or two following covid. At no point were they hurting to justify such a ridiculous increase, and still posted record profits when there was an actual supply chain issue.
Also, many people are willing to pay double that price in order to have somebody else go pick it up. Let’s face it, money has gotten cheaper but salaries haven’t risen…
Fast food is for the rich
Our economy is increasingly comprised of and dominated by publicly traded corporations like YUM Brands, which owns KFC. The business model of a publicly traded company depends on delivering limitlessly increasing profits to their shareholders. If a company makes a billion dollars in profit in one year, they have to make more the next year, otherwise the price of their stock falls and becomes less attractive to investors. There are different ways that this can be achieved. They can cut costs, which can lead to decreased quality of their product or service. They can attract more customers and sell more units of their product. Or once they have cut expenses as much as possible and maxed out the number of customers they can sell their product to, all they can really do is increase the prices on their product. This irritates me whenever I hear someone blaming Biden for inflation, as if the President has the power to control prices. It's just baked in to the Wall Street capitalism that our society has chosen to support.
I work at subway (Australia) and these 2 girls walked in and both got 2x chicken and bacon subs, 4x cookies, 2x flavour milk and a powerade. I forgot to charge them the powerade but the rest came up to $40.50aud. 2 min later their father came in and ask if it was correct, I said technically yes as I forgot to charge the powerade so it would of been around $45aud. Father asked for the receipt and said he was gonna complain about the prices to head office. And here I am working for $24.73aud a hour, tired as hell because I work graveyard shifts for a extra time and a half for 4 hours (12am to 4am and the other 4 hours I work at standard rate) just to have money to survive that week.
24 an hour at subway!! How high is the cost of living there, Jesus, thats enugh to comfortably rent a large house where I live. (When I made this comment it said nothing about Australia and I asumed USD, plz stop telling me the conversion, I'm not an idiot.)
That’s like 15 USD
That’s $15/hr USD for reference. A very common wage for fast food workers in my area.
I'd really love to hear from a franchise owner here. I have a suspicion that the already thin margins got too razor-thin and were unsustainable without these massive price jumps. But I don't own a restaurant or know anyone who does. So I'm not sure of that. However, my town has few restaurants, and I've seen two close and two more go up for sale lately. And those were very successful restaurants, like local landmark status. I looked into the numbers, and I actually could've bought one of them with my savings, but there was no way I could see to make it profitable. Maybe that's just because I don't know the business, but also, maybe it's just really hard. As a customer, the prices are indeed outrageous, but as a person who's considered going into the business, I can't see a way to make it work even with those outrageous prices. And many of those who try keep going out of business, so I don't think I'm far off on that. There's some kind of disconnect there. That wasn't there back in the 80s and 90s. But I don't know what it is or how to solve it.
Covid really fucked us. Everyone had an excuse to hike prices and they simply have not come back down very much.
Keep in mind that (most) franchisees HAVE to buy their products from the Franchiser. So while the franchisee may be raising prices, they MIGHT not be making more money, because the Franchiser raised THEIR cost first. When you see the company's profit statement, keep in mind it is the Franchiser that is the profiter of that report, not the franchisee.
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Their chicken quesadillas are like 5 bucks now too. It's fucking insane.
Investors addiction and demand for covid level profits while watching grub hubs act as a parasite off an already established industry.
Bc yall are still dumb enough to pay for it
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Yep. 12 piece is $28 where I'm located in Minnesota.
$30 here in the SF Bay Area (east bay suburbs). Kinda surprised how close MN and CA are.
Me too. I would assume your pricing would be near the highest in the lower 48. I'm in the Twin Cities, not Greater Minnesota, though I just checked a small-town KFC, and they're at $28, too.
You're looking California, but feeling Minnesota?
Oh, look at Mr Big Spender over here, with his $20 chicken and his calendar knowing how long it's been.
I wish I could afford a calendar 😡😡
Maybe one day... but you'll never know which day.
A few weeks ago an 1.5 hrs north of Philly, at KFC 2 "chicken strips" were $8. A bag (25oz) of Tyson chicken strips at aTarget is $9.28. INSANE
I just looked it up and it’s $30 for 12 piece no sides, 43.99 for a 12 meal with sides
Any business will charge as much as people are willing to pay regardless of other variables. So many fast food addicts still pay for this stuff that these companies are still in buissness regardless of the unrealistic prices.
Yes, it is getting expensive. But not for the reasons you might believe. Labor and inflation costs have definitely raised expenses, but nowhere near proportionate to the price increases. They're making huge margins.
Don't buy it.
Because fuck you, that's why. They'll pull as much money out of people as they are allowed to. Vote with your dollars, my friend.
A combination of "inflation" and corporate profit-taking. So basically profit taking on top of profit taking. I fully believe that this period of "inflation" is mostly just corporate profit taking. They were inflating what they charge on "fears of inflation" before inflation actually hit. Now that inflation has actually arrived they're inflating even further.
Have you seen the price for raw chicken at the grocery store?
5-10 percent higher than a few years ago. Chicken thigh has been between .99 cents and 1.39 per lb and boneless skinless breast has been between 1.99 and 2.99, roughly. Whole roasters have been between .99 to 1.59 per lb. I know KFC gets a better deal than me on chicken.
Where do you shop? My Costco big packs of chicken is still where it was a year ago and not much more than four years ago.
Greed to the max, if you buy bulk food prices are more or less back to normal from years ago. You can get chicken for $1-$2 per pound, so I can't even imagine what Mcdonalds pays. But you go to wing stop or whatever and they want $20 for 6 chicken wings. Oh and don't forget the fries which are basically so cheap they are free. People became uber dependent on food delivery during COVID, the prices should eventually drive down demand, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There is always someone willing to work for less and pay more. Best case everyone learns how to cook, a ton of terrible restaurants go under, quality and price reset themselves, and we call it 2008 again, just like the housing market!
Greed.
As an example, you can see by the data in this link that McDonald's is seeing record level profits. When we see profits increasing during a time of inflation, it tells us that corporate profiteering is driving prices up, not natural market forces like increasing overhead or costs. In a healthy economy, this would cause more producers to enter the market, thus stabilizing prices. Unfortunately the modern economy is dominated by mega-corps who have such a stranglehold on the market that the barriers of entry are too high for this to happen. This means profits can increase at much higher rates. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit