It’s only normalized if dipshits buy it.
Plus tip!
i basically stopped going out to eat like a few years ago. i used to go to restaurants basically daily when it was like 6€ for a full, filling lunch. that was the good stuff.
now it’s like 8€ for a tiny sandwich and if you go to a “proper restaurant”, you easily pay 16€ just for the main course, then add drinks, etc. it’s just not worth it.
meanwhile if i eat at home, it’s basically never over 10€/day for all the day’s food. just mix potato salad with tuna and call it dinner, that’s what i do :)
Went out on Saturday for brunch, me and my girl; we got two small sandwiches, some soup, and two drinks.
$52.
Like, I could make so many sandwiches for 50 bucks, lol
We used to grab a sandwich (fancy ones, mind you) and fresh made large smoothy for about 16€ for us 2. This was one of the most expensive places but I absolutely adored the view and it was a healthy treat.
Nowadays you pay €8 for a basic sandwich and if you want something fancy like a smoothie that’ll add another €7 a piece. Those fancy sandwiches we got now go for around €13 a piece.
We don’t go out to eat anymore obviously, groceries have also far surpassed those previous restaurant prices. I now pay more to eat at home compared to what we used to pay at the fanciest place near us.
Sometimes I forget people still go out to eat.
The $20 burger was once very recently referred to as the $10 burger. Outrageous pricing reguardless
Burger parts cost ~$2 at the grocery store.
Don’t spend $25 for a burger.
eh, i’d say, here in central europe, all the ingredients for a proper meal are to be had for probably 4€ (roughly $5) but still, restaurants add like a 300% markup to that or sth
This. I made us some chopped cheese sandwiches last night that were way cheaper than feeding everyone at a FF restaurant. And it was better tasting.
I agree with you on that
I make vegan burgers for like 6 bucks the price gouging is insane
Any recipe recommendations? For the life of me can’t find a vegan binder that holds it’s shape two bites in.
try chickpea flour or similar
This what i did
hmm tried flaxseeds?
freezer’s stocked with vegan meats, they’re ironically cheaper now than regular meat (on sale)
In the long-ago mists of the 00s, Hardee’s advertised a “Six Dollar Burger” that was actually only $3.95 because six dollars for a fast food burger was obviously silly.
And today I can’t stand going to Hardees becasue they are the most expensive of fast food places and all their food is GIANT SIZED" more than I can eat.
They shoukd bring back the Boss Burger from the 90s, I loved thst one, I ate them a lot.
After we were required to start working on office a couple years ago, I decided to explore the area for a while, trying new potential lunch places. I found this little out of the way craft burger place with something like “2023 best burger in the city award winner” painted on their fence.
I thought, “Sweet, this ought to be a pretty good burger”. I sat down, checked out the menu, ordered a burger that sounded good (something simple) along with some fries and a water. Didn’t look at the price while browsing the menu because… it’s a small burger place. Even if it won an award a few years ago, how much could it cost? By the time I even thought to consider it, I’d already ordered and the menu was gone, so I wouldn’t find out until the check came.
I figured 15 dollars for a nice craft burger wouldn’t be an unreasonable expectation. I could even see around 20, since we are in the burbs of a metro area, which tends to make things a bit more expensive, though this didn’t seem like an expensive joint… Turns out it was 28 dollars and change after tax. I about choked when I saw the total. And this was before beef prices went crazy the last year or so.
The burger was good. It was not 28 dollars good. I haven’t been back since. I’ve also heard similar stories from coworkers “Good, but not good enough for the price”. Whoever is keeping them in business is getting fleeced. There’s no way that that burger and fries cost them more than $5.00 in ingredients, tops. That’s a hefty ass margin.
It’s probably money laundering
Could just be commercial rent. Most people don’t really understand that commercial rents are obscenely predatory. A place doing money laundering isn’t going to go through the effort of producing a “Good, but not good enough for the price” burger.
Source: former restaurateur, current fintech AML involved
How long have you been waiting to use your combined knowledge of restaurants and finance in a comment? I imagine this opportunity doesn’t come around often.
It is cursed knowledge I don’t use often. Besides, don’t assume anything you read on the internets is true. I could be a mutant lemur with a crack addiction just making up fantastical stories to amuse others and myself.
Yep, one reason why most restaurants run thin margins or fail
Winning any sort of “best local food” award almost always means the price jumps immediately.
Not sure how one can care about the price if they don’t bother to read the price off the menu. Eating out regularly is stupid expensive regardless of fast food or proper sit down.
BOM isn’t the end of their costs and the rest will vary widely. You’re not just paying for a burger, but the service (wages) around it, the space and amenities averaged out including utils and rent, some profit likely for someone now quite removed from the business, etc… and you probably paid less of a margin% than a mcturd sandwich.
Most places around here are in the $10-20 range, particularly causal places like a burger joint. I can even get a giant sushi bowl for like 15 near my office. Tacos, chicken, thai, indian…
There is even an awesome healthy food place called Brassica (highly recommend if there is one near you) that I can get a massive sandwich at for under $10 without meat, $12 with chicken, up to $14 with slow cooked brisket. And it is filled to the brim with awesome tasting yet still healthy stuff made in house (housemade wood fired pita bread, mixed greens with a lemon dressing, hummus/baba ganouche, pickled veggies, roasted veggies, garlic/pepper/herb sauces, feta, etc). And even if Inget a big helping of Brisket, it come in under half the price of that burger and fries. There is no excuse for ground beef, a slice of cheese, some condiments and raw veggies on bun to be more than double that price. These places are 4 minutes from each other.
Nothing really contradicts what I said… And as for the excuse? You paid for it. Was the restaurant empty? Sounds like it’s working.
I’m not fanning the $24 burger, but the cost of ingredients is only the starting point. Doesn’t just apply to burgers either… Look at apple products, beers, cars; it doesn’t have to be reasonable. Again… Sounds like it’s working.
Honestly I don’t give a fuck if it’s real meat. As a vegan it pisses me off when these motherfuckers try to charge more for not supporting animal abuse.
Why do we charge less to torture animals than to eat plants?!? It makes no sense.
Subsidies :)
Economics of scale.
It is much easier to increase output for crops than livestock. The reason meat is so cheap in the US is that the government uses taxes to subsidize it, and producers torture their animals to cut costs.
If you don’t have the market for it, scaling ends up with food waste.
And meat really isn’t cheap, relatively. At least good cuts. You could have a full vegan diet for less than the price of meat (per calorie), even before COVID.
Although, all that’s about to change since 1/3 of the planet’s fertilizer production was wiped out.
Nope, it’s taxpayer subsidies.
It’s both. Costs decrease with scaled up production, but only if there’s demand for it. Otherwise crops are just wasted.
Plus, it’s not like 100% of crops go to humans in the first place. Harvests get graded, with the first few levels being for human consumption, and the last being for animal or industrial use.
My salary minus rent and cost of living leaves me with about 5 eur/hour. Fast food that costs me 2+ hours? No thanks.
Yeah, fast food used to be fast and cheap, now it is neither. No reason to waste money there, so now 98% of my food comes from the grocery store. So. Much. Cheaper.
The local joints around me you can get a big burger, a big glass of beer, and a big side of fries for $15, maybe $20 tops. Whoever is buying just the burger for $25 is getting ripped off.
Just went to a place tonight where it was $26. $25 burger might not be the current mean, but it’s definitely not eye popping anymore at all.
I’m guessing in a big city, like NYC or LA.
I’m in nyc and 25 is not the norm for a regular burger
I’m about an hour out from the nearest city, in a suburban area. I’m closer to the boonies than anything like New York City or Chicago.
“1h from the nearest city”
“suburban area”
What? How? I has questions…
Have you been to large cities? I bet you can drive an hour from actual Chicago and still be in the suburbs of Chicago. For example. And not cross over farm lands either.
Just doing some casual google mapsing.
Chicago to Naperville, Plainfield, and Elgin, are all roughly an hour, and its all pretty much populated area the entire trip on each. Its basically an hour in any direction to reach the edge of the Chicago suburbs.
Its 2 hours north to Milwaukee and if you stayed along the lake route it would probably be populated suburb areas all the way too.
When traffic is bad, you can drive for an hour in LA and still be in the same neighborhood.
European here. That concept is really alien to me: if I drive 1h in some direction (assuming I’m not just stuck in traffic) I’m somewhere else, some other city, region, maybe even a different country.
Maybe the gaps between the towns/cities have closed, and it’s just buildings everywhere now, but they were separate at some point and that still shows in how streets, schools, etc are organized - like smaller hubs that expanded until they fused, but not like some tree where every year there’s more and more rings around the central core…
This is not a critisism on you, or Europe.
But if feels like people not from America, don’t quite get just how much land the US has (and frankly, Canada too). Especially in some things like “why don’t they all go protest their shitty leadership.” Because for some people its a 40 hour drive, or an expensive plane ticket.
Its also why we have no got “high speed rail”. Part of that is, we do have rail, but its still slow, becsuse its a lot of distance. And maintaining a high speed rail that long would be very difficult (I think we should still do it).
I live in a rural area, which is probably more comparable to your experience, it takes aroujd 45 min to an hour to get to one of several small-mid sized cities. But all are within the same state, and all another 60-90 min to the border at a minimum.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s not the size. If I take my car and drive from Lisbon all the way to Moscow, that’s about the same as going from NYC to LA in terms of distance.
I’ll grant that it might be related to “free land” though, as I think it’s mostly a matter of organization. But first there’s this “single use” zoning mentality in the US, which forces people to travel for everything by design - in Europe ground floors were traditionally businesses, and upper floors housing - mix is the norm, cars didn’t exist back in the day and people still had to get to things. Then there’s the way cities grow - most places in Europe you can’t just build swaths of single-family houses in the periphery of existing cities, either because it’s already reserved land (parks/ecological reserve/farming/other uses) and because the access would be awful (already crowded highways) - so instead usually it’s the existing town centers that already have good mass-transit connections (train, subway, …) that see an increase in density: old single-family houses give way to apartment buildings or mixed use buildings (commerce, offices). So it kinda grows in “nodes”, not as an ever expanding ring of single-family houses.
But this is simply a mater of policy - build a train line that connects a few several small towns in the outskirts, connect that up to some mass transit inside the city proper (subway ideally, if it exists) and boom, the density in those small towns that now have a good connection will skyrocket.
I can drive for 10 hours in one direction and not leave my U.S. state. I’m not even close to the border to another state either.
Tbf in Atlanta 1h from the city is IN the city.
I feel like sub-urban has lost meaning.
If closer to the boonies than a city, you’re no longer sub-urban. Though does rural count as country town, or just farm, or both?
Wikipedia defines it as:
an area within a metropolitan area which is predominantly residential and within commuting distance of a large city.
I’d say it’s a very fit definition of where I’m at. Most people commute to the metropolitan areas which are mostly manufacturing, and can reliably commute to the nearest city by car.l (though it can be an hour drive at some places). It’s mostly residential here, some woodland between communities but sometimes little woodland within them.
Exactly… and I’m definitely living in a higher than average cost of living area. What people seem to think is if you can find overpriced food (they don’t seem to particularly care for) then they have an excuse to seem madder about food (they don’t seem to particularly care for) prices.
I read this post after ordering my trusty $9.98 double burger with fries at In-N-Out. I pray for the survival of this franchise.
I mean, they’re well known for being a Christian company. It’s not particularly surprising.
In a perfect world, I’d go to the left-wing-donating equivalent, but until they show up or In-N-Out stops being an otherwise commendable company (charity work for addiction centers and trafficked children, much higher wages than competitors, (mostly) clean and well maintained establishments), they’re gonna get my $9.98 when I don’t have the time or energy to make dinner.
Yeah, that’s why I go buy fast food from shake shack
That’s funny you mention them. Before going to In-N-Out the other day I was curious where the nearest Shake Shack was (I travel for work and they’re in a lot of airports but I otherwise haven’t seen many), the closest one was ~25 minutes away vs 8 minutes for In-N-Out. I also don’t really like Shake Shack’s actual food as much, but their shakes are of course phenomenal (if not pricey).
They pray a lot too. Ever see the hidden Bible stuff?
I’m a fairly hostile atheist, but I can respect how they’ve handled this. They wanted to support their position, but didn’t want it to be in everyone’s face, so they did it discreetly, out of respect for their non-religious customers.
That’s the kind of reasonable compromise required of the 1st Amendment, so when I see that, I have to respect it, even if I don’t agree with it. They have their right to their religious beliefs, as I do to reject them. I’m not going skip their excellent and reasonably priced food over a few religious verses.
If they start financially supporting preachers who promote the execution of gays, and convince African countries to make it the law or some other such bullshit, like Chikfila or Hobby Lobby does, then I’ll reassess.
Man, they sure are religious for a food chain named after a sexual act.
If it wasn’t for the price, In-n-Out wouldn’t be worth the hype. But for the price they are peerless, so worth the hype.
I think their consistency has gone down. If you get a top tier In-N-Out burger, where the cheese has just started to melt and the bun was toasted just right, they’re pretty damn good burgers, would still be worth it if it cost an extra $2-3. The mid to low tier In-N-Out burgers are about worth their current price.
Where is that normal, though?
The last time I went to 5 Guys, I got a double bacon burger, small fries, and a small drink, and it came to $24 and change. I will never go back, despite the fact they have the best fries. Their burgers are only slightly better than average.
I can go to Chilis or Outback, and get a real burger and fries, and even with a drink and tip, it’s about $16. Still too expensive for daily lunch, but it’s a lot better.
I’ve been hearing that 5 Guys is struggling, and I’ve seen them closing around me. They seem to be starting a death spiral.
I had the same experience, haven’t gone there in years because why would I pay more than double for the same quality of food as their competitors?
I’m at 18.26 for a double bacon cheese, small Cajun and regular drink.
That’s a lot of food as well. Like a meal and a later snack to finish it off.
Coupons are great, last time I went I got 2x little cheese and fries for like 10 bucks.
It’s still more than twice the price it should be.
In Ca they have to pay the people flipping the burger $20 plus an hour so with that prices go up. Also price of beer is outrageous
Minimum wage should absolutely be a livable wage. Go direct your comments to the billionaire class stealing all the wealth.
I agree, not sure why everybody assumed I didn’t think people didn’t deserve a living wage. I do. But at the same time be prepared to pay more for things because we all know that corporations will pass along the better wages to the consumer. God forbid the ceo make less and not making record profit
Even if you didn’t intend for that comment to come across that way, just know that the reasoning of “prices are going up because of minimum wage” is the go-to talking point of the “conservatives”. Magically the wealth disparity, negligible marginal tax rate on billionaires, or record profits never seem to be mentioned.
Way to demean people busting their ass for your lazy ass who can’t cook for themselves. You realize these people work in stressful situations and aren’t just “flipping the burger” right? They deserve a living wage.
I never said they didn’t deserve a higher wage but people complain about price of things. If you want living wages for all you need to be prepared to pay for it
Why can’t the family of FiveGuys (all brothers) take less profit, pay their people a reasonable wage, and keep their prices reasonable for their customers?
Why have we accepted that customers have to pay more, and workers have to receive less, just so a few people can become even more obscenely rich than they already are?
If you are buying a second yacht or plane, while your workers are working multiple jobs and are on public assistance, you need to have your entire estate confiscated.
They should take less profit but that’s the broken system we’re in
If they won’t do it on they’re own, we’ll have to force them.
That’s awesome! Should be more, but a good start. Better than revising child labor laws.
I think In and out starts at $23/ hr so it’s a start
And yet it’s still weirdly expensive at home. I remember when a pound of ground beef was a couple bucks, tops. Now I’ve seen it as high as $9, albeit the lean kind.
