I have no clue how they don’t get it. The selling point of fast food was always the speed, convenience and a price. They’ve been degrading all 3 of those selling points and now it’s just not fucking worth it anymore.
But like it’s nothing new, I don’t belive I’m the only one, that for the last few years, every price hike just started picking less and less form the menu. And I’m not poor, far from it, I can definitely afford the price hikes, it’s just, once it’s 8x times more expensive than home cooking, the convenience no longer outweighs the shit ass quality. I hate paying as if I was at a fancy place and getting pure shit, might as well just go to a fancy place for fucks sake!
How much could a banana cost? $10?
Pretty soon that won’t be funny anymore.
I went to a BBQ joint here in Texas a week ago. Got 3/4 lb of brisket and some potato salad for the missus and me.
To my surprise… It costed the same thing as 2 menu items at McDonald’s. Like seriously?..
What’s the point of going to subway and McDonald’s if I can just get some BBQ at a restaurant.
(Didn’t name the restaurant since I’m concerned this will make them realize they can charge more)
Yes. And fancy burgers around here cost between $11-16. We’re talking super fancy burgers, mouth watering medium-rare locally grown beef, crazy sauces you’re never heard of, actual fucking grilled onions, etc etc. and beer, they serve beer.
Meanwhile the fast food burger joint is basically the same price, but you get overcooked pink slime.
Marketing only exists to screw you over
The more you see a product advertised, the less of their earnings are going towards making a better product
Which is honestly a great point to consider when the advertising parts of a company are the most well paid and all we keep hearing about is how to add more ads into our daily lives.
Fast food is losing the plot. If it isn’t cheap, then there is really no point.
Yep. No one is going to McDonalds for a delicious burger, just a cheap and fast one. Now that prices are above $10 if you want a meal, and the restaurants are understaffed so even the drive through takes > 15 minutes, there’s really no reason to eat there
drive through just have very low throughput in general, if it takes you 15 minutes to order from drive through, it would be likely to be faster to park your car and walk in for a take out
or some mcdonalds even let you mobile order and pick up on designated spots, they added that because it gets better throughput than drive through.
As someone who worked in an understaffed fast food restaurant for like 3 years… No, going inside doesn’t make your order faster. From my experience, orders get made in chronological order of when they were placed. You may be able to place your order quicker (if you’re lucky there’s enough staff to take an in-store order while there’s people in the drive through) but you will probably still wait about the same since the food can only be made so fast, and the few people have to splits their attention even more.
If it’s a normally staffed restaurant then you might have luck, but usually long wait times in the drive through aren’t because the drive through itself is slow… Excluding the random people who pull up with the good ol’, “can I get a uuuuuhhhhhhh…”
I mean, the primary benefit of fast food is that you can swing by and get a prepared meal on your lunch break. You can’t really do that at a sit down place unless you order in advance. They lost the ‘fast’ part too, since they don’t want to pay the amount of people it takes to run their stores though. Now the only benefit they have going for them is their hours, and they’re slipping there for the most part, since most places are still running on reduced hours because COVID gave them the excuse to never bring their old hours back.
“Why are our sales plummeting?”
Because you didn’t spend any part of that price hike on improving the quality of your food.
They almost doubled the price of their stuff. No fucking way I am paying that. I’ll pack my own sandwiches…
I already do. And I work construction so we live on fastish food. Wasn’t easy to transition but I now bring my own thermos with a pot of coffee in it and a small snack or lunch everyday. I’ve saved probably over a thousand bucks this year already. And spent exactly 0 minutes waiting in drive-thrus which I’ve realized now I really really hated doing that.
bring my own thermos with a pot of coffee in it and a small snack or lunch everyday. I’ve saved probably over a thousand bucks this year already
Since finally taking the time to actually budget out my spending, I’ve become big on packing sandwiches. I spend about $20 a week on sandwich things, which good luck getting 2 meals out of that same budget eating out
Saw an article recently, can’t remember where, that basically said that the sole reason fast food was doing so poorly was pricing. That McDonald’s was charging Texas Roadhouse prices, so people were choosing to skip McDonald’s and go to Texas Roadhouse.
I believe it. The whole appeal of fast food is that it’s fast and cheap.
As a european, fast food is just like a category of food, and more of an occasional treat for me. Normally, I just eat my own homemade food, which is even cheaper. So I guess I see it a little differently, and fast food is allowed to be not cheap if it’s “good”.
Hell yeah, gimme that cancer patty and those artery clogging fries, baby! But make the obesity water size “for kids”.
“Fast and cheap” as in cheaper than buying precooked food somewhere else. Of course stuff you make at home will be cheaper.
The thing is that at least in my corner of Europe, fast food costs about the same as a filling meal in a sit down restaurant that doesn’t deep fry or microwave everything.
There is an exception but they only have 3 locations in one single town. They’ve barely raised their prices in the last decade, they’re actually pretty fast, and there’s nearly always a bunch of people queued up.
For many Americans it’s just lunch. If McD’s costs $5 they’re buying. If it costs $15 they’re packing.
found this, they all outpace the inflation rate so it’s just greed as always.
It’s sad that Taco Bell thinks it is gourmet Mexican Food now. Any local taco shop with Mexicans working in the kitchens will give you huge burritos for cheap. Without adding tofu to the ground beef.
I very rarely eat out but if I am going to end up blowing on 30 on two meals I may as well blow 45 on a local spot with a seat and a hefty tip to the waiter.
and a hefty tip to the waiter.
And I detest tipping culture, though I of course don’t fault the wait staff. I’d rather go to a local joint that pays its people appropriately…which are hard to find, admittedly.
This is exactly what subway is doing.
“A regular deli charges $16 for a sub/hero/grinder/hoagie/pickafuckingnameforalongsandwitch so we’re charging $14! It’s less they’ll still come the econ 101 book says they will! I’ll take my multimillion dollar bonus now tyvm.”
Yeah, but a regular deli makes a decent fucking sandwich and isn’t using the cheapest institutional ingredients imaginable.
Except a regular deli actually puts meat on their subs instead of lightly rubbing the sub with a piece of turkey then filling it with lettuce.
Unless you get the promoted deals it’s starting to be like that everywhere. Near me if im getting two burgers and two fries, I spend less at five guys than I do at burger king. Why would I ever go to BK?
Even FG is unreasonable.
My wife and 6YO kid went to FG last week and spent $27 on a meal for two and they split the fries.
A few ounces of meat, 50 cents of soda, a couple potatoes and an arguably 2 nice quality rolls. That meal cost them $5. Even with inflated labor it should be more like $15.
Fucksake man, will you PLEASE think of the shareholders
Five guys has been expensive for a long time. The rest just caught up more recently.
I would kill for an in-and-out burger on the East Coast. You can get a burger, fries, and drink for less than an Five Guys cheeseburger.
Five Guys at least has better food than most fast food and the portions are so massive you basically have to share
Five guys is at the very bottom of my “list of things that are so needlessly expensive that now I actively hate”.
Cause they’re so fucking good, and they use better stuff than most.
The moment that changes… will be the day I either go no-beef, or start rioting.
Sometimes I go there just for an order of fries because they’re just that good. I can’t bring myself to pay $14 for a burger though.
They’ve barely raised their prices in the last decade, they’re actually pretty fast, and there’s nearly always a bunch of people queued up.
Depends on the location too. For my location everything on the menu is $2 more than it is in the nearby, similarly-sized city. And there’s a high quality Wendy’s right next door.
I’ll take good Wendy’s at half the price of Five Guys.
Of course everyone is doing tiered pricing. You either use their apps or pay double. I think half of it is to get the app on your phone, and the other half is simply to make you jump through hoops for lower pricing. They all want to charge obscene prices, and then if you object, give you an option other than not going there. “Just install our app” could just as easily be “pat your head while standing on one leg and rubbing your stomach, and we’ll give you 40% off.”
I’m sorry, but fuck Wendy’s. Yes, capitalism is in decline around us all, but fuck Wendy’s for deciding they’re gonna be the first in fast food to push that envelope to full-blown-shit mode. And their burgers are just eh.
(Hey, pssst… so, quoting etiquette typically means you’re not using the quoting carrot on something not in the the comment you are replying to without noting it in the comment somehow. I was staring very confused at my replies inbox for, like, 4-5 read throughs of your reply, because its an opinion I could have typed, and couldn’t remember at all lol. 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️)
The recent Disney lawsuit reminded me of this. In order to get those deals, McDonald’s makes you use their app, and part of signing up for the app is agreeing to their ToS which has an arbitration clause
Selling your rights to Disney so you can get a cheaper burger is a uniquely American flavor of dystopia
Yeah but there’s no way a judge will follow that reasoning. The response to the arbitration argument was that the argument was “unconscionable” and “no reasonable person” would think signing up for Disney Plus means they can’t file a wrongful death suit for a restaurant that has nothing to do with Disney Plus.
Also the lawyer who made the arbitration argument just got his client so much bad PR that i’m sure Disney Plus will take a hit over it.
I was with you until
Disney Plus will take a hit over it.
The average consumer is just so damn apathetic that nothing will happen
There are a couple floating around out there, CNN/investopedia/Eat This Not That. The most scathing one I saw was from CNN, oddly enough: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/09/business/consumer-spending-travel-value-nightcap
They thought they could charge the same money as real sandwich places. Lol.
That’s the same price as a succulent Chinese meal.
I see that you know your judo well.
Why is it that fast food thinks it can charge for sit-down restaurant prices nowadays?
Greed is, by definition, when self interest becomes irrational.
It’s not greed, it’s just ““international factors”” that are causing them to put prices up. Russia invaded Ukraine so they have to charge extra for a sandwich of course!
Okay perhaps you’re joking, but this is something that people across the world are not aware of or don’t want to acknowledge. Ukraine is a major agricultural exporter, and a lot of their produce go to farmers across the world. The supply of many Ukrainian produce, especially grain, had been restricted which increased global food price and has not gone down to pre-war level. Fewer supply but more demand leads to higher price. Including in the link I gave, it mentioned that if the war is sustained for long, it could further worsen food crisis in many developing countries. There is a reason why Africa sent delegates to try to mediate on the conflict. But they won’t tell you that it is because they rely on stable global food price to feed their people, and much of chicken feeds used by African farmers are imported from Ukraine! People don’t see the full picture at how integrally interconnected we all are.
When a country sneeze, we all catch cold.
While that’s definitely a factor in global food trends, I don’t see that impacting the US price of food as drastically as companies thinking they can get away with raising prices.
My reasoning is the web of tarrifs and subsidies that the US uses to stabilize domestic markets, prop up farmers, and generally ensure the US is the key grain player. Shortly after the war started the US and Canada also saw a better than average harvest of the grains that Ukraine typically exports.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU02120301 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU3112113112111 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIUFDSL
The domestic prices paid for wheat and flour both started to fall shortly after the Ukraine invasion, while food prices maintained a rocketing trajectory without much if any changes, with only a slight decrease in the rate of increase about a year after.
While protectionist US food policies are chock full of horrible problems, in this case they should have insulated people from radical changes in the availability and price of wheat.
That consumer prices have risen despite falling costs paid to producers is a big indicator that the cost increases are due to something else in the US.None of this applies to countries that are dependent on grain imports who have to rely on the global markets instead of adjusting export profitability to stabilize things.
Bread costs are a tiny % of prepared food. You are mostly paying for rent and labor of the employees.
Who, thanks to COVID, realized they were all getting fucked and did a silent rebellion and now make about half of what a professional office worker makes. Those dastardly socialists! 😠😠😠
That is not the definition of greed, what are you taking about? I agree that irrational greed is driving it though
That and the ingredients are awful! Why would anyone go to subway when you could go to Jersey Mike’s or the numerous other sandwich shops.
Where I live, the nearest … Basically any sub shop other than Subway is almost an hour away. Also, Subway is one of only two places closer than that that takes online orders; the other is a Chinese place that does take online orders but only accepts cash.
I’m not defending Subway, just suggesting an answer to why anyone would go.
Subway makes a better meatball sub than anyone. In my opinion.
It’s the only thing they do right. Imo.
You have very clearly never been to a Primo’s
I’ve never even heard of a Primo’s.
Niche tiny sandwich chain on the east coast of the US but they make a meatball sub with provolone and shredded Parmesan on it that is just decadent.
I will never forgive Jersey Mike’s.
A few years back they stole some much more valuable fast food places from me, and replaced it with Great Value Subway. I was pretty upset, because I could just go to get Subway down the road, since there are like 2 billion Subways, and then Mr. Mike rolls up and is like “Let’s make 2 billion more Subways.” I don’t really want one Subway, so in what world would I ever want two? Give me an A&W or a Long John Silvers or something. Or maybe an A&W/Long John Silvers.
Give me an A&W or a Long John Silvers or something
I don’t know if this is just a problem with my local A&W or not but they got super expensive. I was a town over for a thing, we said “oh lets just get A&W so we don’t have to spend the gas to go to [next town with more lunch options]” and the bill for 2 adults and 2 kids who never finish their shared kids meal was over $50
I quit them about 10 years ago when I asked for spinach on my sandwich and they gave me 3 small leaves of spinach for an upcharge. That and their instantly stale tasting bread made me done with the particular store and all Subway stores. Was a shame, because they were convenient to where I worked.
They took spinach off of their offerings when there was a listeria (or some such) scare with one of their suppliers. After a few months of going there I asked a ‘manager’ if they would ever get it back and they kind of just shrugged. I walked out a couple times after that and went down the strip-mall to another place a few times, hopefully to prove a point (moved offices so I’ve not really been back to Subway in years now).
IMO, no sandwich on Earth is worth $14. Especially not one from SooubWay.
I disagree, there’s a sub place near me with a 16" sandwich with like 5 meats, 3 cheeses, and lots of toppings that costs about $14. The heft is noticable, even when I’m hungry I can only eat about half.
There are some high quality places out there, Subway has always been the McDs of subs. I feel they started to go downhill when they stopped cutting the v notch in the bread to stuff it full and just went with boring halves.
I will say to those thinking $5 should remain the price - we were okay with $5 subs a decade or more ago, but now asking more is too much? Inflation is a thing. $5 purchasing power in 1990 is now $12 in 2024. The argument shouldn’t be about the price increase, as it should have crept up this whole time. But the quality should have at least remained the same, and the workers fairly paid. The price of the sub is the least of the problems.
But the price increase kinda is a symptom of the underlying issue. For reference, the reason that subway subs were $5 for a long time was that the company was trying an advertising campaign to grow the brand, which it did amazingly well (honestly, far too well). However, those were not sold at a sustainable price, but whenever the company tried to raise the price it was perceived very poorly by the market. So they kept the price low for a long time, and eventually had to raise it but due to inflation (and decreasing the sub size to compensate for the low price before that), but the price increase was pretty drastic to most of the customers who often stopped going there.
In other words, the company kept the price down artificially to keep their stock price high, and foisted a lot of the actual costs onto the franchisees, of which they had tons. Which is obviously not a sustainable business model, and it’s why less people go to subway anymore.
They also allowed overcrowding. You could basically put a Subway right next to another Subway if you wanted. 3-4 in a single neighborhood. Corporate does not care if the franchisees make any money.
I tried to actually go to one about 2 weeks ago. 5 workers, and they said - “oh he’ll help you” and pointed to another worker. While the 4 of them stood next to the till gossiping about home life, and the poor dude just kept making Sandwichs for the online orders coming in. Only said hi to me once, after the 5th sandwich, I just told them I’m out of time and I’ll go. They thanked me for coming in. They’re just awful top to bottom. Bad corporate culture
The “$5 footlong” campaign was a terrible idea, because it just makes consumers aware of how overpriced fast food is today.
That, and slapping a fixed price on a staple product the business sells. Even with normal two percent inflation eventually there’s going to be disappointment when the price has to be raised.
59, 79, 99!
No gimmicks!
No tricks!
You don’t pay till 1996!I miss that taco bell menu
It was McDonalds wasn’t it?
I’m not sure if McD’s did it (we didn’t have one in town when I was a kid) but taco bell lists it we a promo they launched in 1990.
https://www.tacobell.com/history
Talk about seeing my own mortality slip away before my very eyes. Ha!
“Guys this is really gonna bite us in the ass in thirty years”
Unironically yes. This is how long term marketing works.
Subway was founded in 1965.
The “$5 Footlong” was introduced in 2008.
The cost of a footlong tripled in 16 years.
You would think a business that has been in operation for 43 years at the time would understand that prices change over time, and creating a slogan that locks a single era’s price into people’s collective consciousness would be a bad idea long-term.
The best local sandwich shop in my town sells really good ones for $8-11. If Subway were still $5 they might be competitive. At $14 it sounds like the company no longer understands its product.
The best sandwich shop in my town is the deli at the grocery store. They are less concerned about skimping on ingredients because it’s more important to entice you in and get you spending money in the aisles.
For $8 or $9 they will stuff a footlong sub so full they can barely fold it over. And it’s generally fresher ingredients than you’d find in a Subway
Publix?
Harris Teeter where I live. We do have Publix locations around now though. I still need to check them out and see if they live up to the hype.
Nah don’t let Publix consume your town.
Trust me it’s not as good as wanting that monopoly.