Fast-food pricing going up?

[VirtualLarry]

I do find this true, but I'm basically house-bound, and limited to doordash for fast-food access.

 

[IronWing]

Let's look at the receipt a little closer…




This isn't a Big Mac. In fact, it is probably the most expensive burger McDonalds has ever offered.



The customer also opted for the large combo.

 

[Charmonium]

Something like that has enough calories for 3 days and you're gonna get hungry much, much sooner than that.

But I have definitely noticed this. You walk into BK with a $20 and walk out with a few coins - maybe one or two singles

White Castle is still decent though. I love their 1921 slider and got 4 for about $15. If you haven't tried them, the patties are at least twice the thickness of regular sliders. Might be smaller in diameter but not by a lot. Haven't broken out the caliper to check. Four of those is basically 2 meals for me.

 

[Torn Mind]

Fast food was never "affordable" in the sense that you got a lot of food for the price. In the sense that the cost to obtain is low, that's how it is "affordable".

Americans are not good at calculating the actual amount of food obtained for a price. The Quarter Pounder outdid a "third-pounder" because the collective though the quarter pounder had more than the third-pounder.

These days, their promos where I'm at is basically $5-6 for two Big Macs or Quarter Pounders with mobile coupons. People pay the premium for sauce and white flour, not for the beef, which might be .25 or .2 pounds depending on which sandwich(Big Mac has less).

 

[jmagg]

Mc Doubles around here are 2 for 3.50 (probably more in other areas). You would be hard pressed to find a cheaper protein in fast food. I respect McDs for that. Have to see where that goes.

 

[balloonshark]

I can get an Impossible™ Whopper combo with med. fries and med. drink for $11.69. Last Friday I tried Chinese for the first time in years and was able to get tofu w/veggies for the same price. Not sure it was 100% plant based/vegan though since I don't fully trust the answers they gave me.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Look at it this way, that order didn't even pay for one hour's wage for one employee, let alone all of their benefits.

People wanna make big bucks, others gotta pay big bucks.

Or do what I do, and avoid those places all together.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Roughly $20 for a meal is about right nowadays once you get past tax and whatnot. It's cheaper if you stay on the loss leaders and skip the moneymakers... For fast food, get the burger, skip the fries and drink. Sit-down, skip apps and drinks, stick to stuff that reheats because it tends to be more food than stuff that's one-and-done or doesn't reheat for shit (dickhead burgers, fried foods, etc).

 

[Exterous]

It does seem harder to get value out of a fast food order. Wendys Snack bag is great and Taco Bells $5 box special combos (not the standard one) are pretty good. The big chains have moved a ton of deals and coupons to their individual apps (at least from what I see on Slickdeals). If you just drive up and order whatever you want it's probably gonna get pricy

 

[KMFJD]

I really do not each much fast food any more and the only one at home that i actually still like is Taco Bell of all places....McD's/BK/Wendy's/Arby's etc all are crap imo. It's all a 15 minute drive for me to grab so if i have to grab some food i'll order restaurant take out instead, my go to before covid/wfh was always a sausage/egg mcmuffin and a large coffee, for the same price i could get a bacon/eggs/fried potato with toast that was way more filling and tasted miles better....(the free workplace coffee was terrible though)

 

[lxskllr]

(franchise)Fast food used to be noticeable cheaper than than other quick options like a sub shop, but they're so close now, it feels like a waste getting chain food. At the sub shop near a job I was on, two subs, two orders of fries, and a single drink was $32. That's not much more than McDonalds if you don't use the dollar menu(is anything $1 anymore?)

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

^^^ DollarTwentyFive Tree says no.

 

[KMFJD]

I just had a look and a regular Big Mac combo here is 7.59 USD(440 Peso's) , you can get a plato del dia (usually some meat/rice/beans and a salad) for around 350 pesos

 

[Torn Mind]

1lb grass fed beef $6-8/lb
1 2L of diabetes water(soft drink), $3-4.
Buy toxic oil fries from McD mobile app become they have the process down - $1.19.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I noticed that in the past few years it has really ramped up. I remember being able to buy a fast food meal for under $10 way back in the day and now it's pushing $20. If you order for take-out it's over $30 by the time you factor delivery and tip. I've been cutting down a lot on fast food and take-out in general as it's one of the few places I can actually try to save. And it's not good for me anyway.

 

[Captante]

If you put even the SLIGHTEST effort into getting a "deal" on that slop it's pretty easy if you don't mind the app .... for the paranoid among us (you know who you are!) BK and McDog's DO still offer paper coupons.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Fast food started getting expensive around 2011 when meat packers used the Texas drought that year to manufacture consent for increasing beef prices but it's so ridiculous now. Was in the mood for a bacon cheeseburger yesterday so went to Whataburger and it was $11.36 for a #5 combo (bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a coke) and wasn't worth the money at all, could have gone to one of the three awesome Mexican joints in my neighborhood for cheaper or grabbed some BBQ down the street for the same price. Whataburger only feels worth it when you have coupons and next time I want a burger I think I'll just make my own for half the price and twice the flavor. Only fast food that feels remotely worth it these days at menu price is Costco food court because it's meh fast food quality but at least it's cheap as hell so the price is commensurate with what you get.

 

[nakedfrog]

I do find this true, but I'm basically house-bound, and limited to doordash for fast-food access.

You could consider not having fast food delivered at all? Especially if you're cost-conscious?

 

[JeepinEd]

In CA, minimum wage for fast food workers will be at $20/hr in April. That'll get those burger prices up.

 

[Shmee]

That is pricey for one combo...though anyone else notice that the receipt date is from over a year ago?

 

[K1052]

This is up there with the Republican who ordered appetizers, salads, filet, and lobster tails delivered to his house and was "shocked" the tab was over $100.

A lot of this stuff when genuine is just that people with money pay little attention to what food costs. Other times it is simply engineered for political outrage.

 

[Torn Mind]

That is pricey for one combo...though anyone else notice that the receipt date is from over a year ago?

Where I am at, the Bacon Double Quarter Pounder is 10.59 dollars and change. DC metro county with 15.65 dollars min wage.

Post Falls, after googling, might have some Cali retirees. A median income of 74,000 is in that seemingly small town....

Population growth.

https://www.krem.com/article/money/economy/boomtown-inland-northwest/post-falls-adjusts-to-population-boom/293-a0cb0c2f-9c5f-48b9-8bc8-8173e1208acc

 

[nakedfrog]

Where I am at, the Bacon Double Quarter Pounder is 10.59 dollars and change. DC metro county with 15.65 dollars min wage.

Post Falls, after googling, might have some Cali retirees. A median income of 74,000 is in that seemingly small town....

This was specifically the "Smoky Double Quarter Pounder BLT with Cheese", a limited time offering.
Apparently it Cleveland it cost $8.79, or $12.79 for a combo.

I tried McDonald’s new Smoky BLT Quarter Pounder with Cheese so you don’t have to

The burger is available for a limited time only.

www.cleveland.com

 

[pmv]

Not the US, but have _definitely_ noticed fast-food becoming prohibitively expensive here, over the last couple of years. To the point where I no longer eat it (a good thing, really, though the only reason I ever ate the stuff was because it used to be cheap).

Haven't patronised any of the big name chains for a very long time, because the likes of McDonalds have always been very expensive. But I did use to sometimes resort to the cheap no-name chicken places that would do fried chicken and chips for £2. Those now have gone up to more like £4-5 so not worth the health-hit when they aren't even cheap any more. I suspect many will go out of business, as being cheap was their USP.

Makes me laugh though that so often any criticism of the likes of McDonalds (for being bad for your health) gets a reaction that you are just being snobbish because 'poor people' eat at McDonalds, when in fact they have always been quite expensive. Heard the same with respect to criticism of supermarkets like Tesco,, usually coming from faux-populists who are too wealthy to notice that Tesco is actually quite expensive and relatively up-market.

 

[purbeast0]

I used to get a Chicken Quesadilla combo, extra crunchy taco, and fiesta potatoes at Taco Bell and it was like $10.

Now it costs like $16.

Fuck that.

I don't go there anymore and haven't eaten there in months because of that. Sometimes I crave TB but I don't crave it enough to spend that. I can just go to Chipotle or Jersey Mikes right by and get a bowl or sub for like $11 and it's going to be better for me as well.

It's also crazy how much prices vary based on locations. When I get my sons McDonalds happy meals, I get 2 of them for like $8.50.

Then one time we went to a different location just because of where we were, and I mean it's like probably 1 mile away as the crow flies, and it was like $12.50 for the same 2 happy meals. I thought the cashier got my order wrong but when I looked at the receipt, the prices were just higher.