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Just to save the next person the trouble,
It was introduced in 2009. Inflation calculator says that $0.89 in 2009 is the equivalent of…$1.34 in today’s money.
Wow.
I’d be curious to see the whole price history but yeah. Can’t believe how bad a deal all the fast food places have become
Edit: regarding price history, another commenter said it raised to 2.99 after only a couple of years. So 2011 to 2026 inflation calc results in $4.48. A second user said beef in particular is ahead of general inflation, so this might not be too bad of an example after all
These days your average hole in the wall family owned restaurant has much better food for about the same price as fast food. The serving sizes are often much larger as well, so you could spread it over a couple days or share it.
100% Even sandwiches you can easily get one cheaper (and much higher quality) than subway now when subway used to be dirt cheap.
And, imagine this, minimum wage is exactly the same.
Holy shit. It’s still $7.25
What in the fuck?
You can buy about 50 rounds of 9mm for one hour of minimum wage.
Pretty diabolical, huh?
I feel like there is definitely something shady going on with the way we calculate “inflation” if a thing like buying a burrito is THAT far off.
Like, I know how inflation is calculated in theory. But what’s the use of it if we can’t use it for a god damn burrito and not be 4x-5x off.
Fast food is definitely worse than other things. But still. People buy that shit still. Maybe our weighted values are off just a bit.
The thing it is missing is the promotional price is not a great yardstick.
$5 footlongs were iconic because they were an incredible bargain, not idicative of the market rate of sandwiches.
It would be more fair with the Costco hotdog or grocery store rotisserie chicken, since those are always cheap. But even they are loss leaders.
Yeah, this. The 5-layer was introduced as a very low priced item even at the time.
Also, the $5 footlongs destroyed subway. Yeah, things are inflated now, but I remember the 5-layer quickly rose in price to like 2.99 after only a year or so.
I also remember dollar burgers being a thing and stopping and realizing how incredible they really were in human history that we got there at all (efficiency) and that they couldn’t and wouldn’t last.
Damn. Now that I think about it, the 2012ish “fight for $15” minimum wage for burger flippers and the corporate pushback political campaign and that rhetoric, the 2006/2017 metoo movement and the conservative political campaign and that rhetoric, and the 2011 occupy wall Street protests all sort of catalyzed into Trump. Jesus.
… It’s like… All of this, right now, is pushback and retaliation because society just wanted to be a little better.
And the 2020 tech workers rights improvements, where people were quitting together and actually pressuring employers, and now the corporate tech real estate pushback that we’re currently experiencing. Holy shit. All of the bullshit is just billionaires throwing around their weight and sinking their claws and teeth further in. Even the anti trans rights rhetoric now is PUSHBACK because that threatens to upend their house of cards of faith and hate by making people question stuff and realize it’s all billionaire bullshit. GOD. DAMNIT.
I dunno. There’s an amazing deli near here that sells sandwiches the same size as subway’s 8" footlongs. They still charge $5 and you get like a pound of meat on each one. Fuck, i was getting empanadas for lunch on my go out to lunch this week, i might go there instead.
A footlong is 12"? I’m confuse. Anyway, nice! Sounds like a great deal
And they have this gravy. That’s the thing is their gravy. They smoke and cure their own pastrami, maybe that gives an idea how good this shop is. I don’t know why they don’t lead with that their pastrami is amazing. I don’t know why I didn’t lead with that. Aaaaa I could be eating it right now
Except the burrito itself is a wad of shell with like an ounce of hamburger inside.
and sawdust! don’t forget sawdust.
i have a box we got from taco bell somehow. it’s labeled taco meat. i really don’t know how we got it. it has all the ingredients on it, i should take a picture.
It’s similar for a bucket of chicken. Used to be a good cheap family meal. Now they’re trying to collect on nostalgia or some shit.
used to be able to eat myself sick at taco bell for $10.
kinda glad those days are gone, actually… I don’t have great impulse control but $25 fast food is helping lol
Company got big, water head also.
What is the inflation rate for beef prices?
EDIT: Beef has basically doubled in price. So around $1.80.
You should be looking at the prices of cardboard and sand instead
Yeah, I feel like there’s probably a legal reason it’s called “beefy” and not “beef”.
It is USDA Grade D beef and various fillers, mostly fiber. Alpo brand dog food utilizes USDA Grade C beef, for reference. The USDA is an excellent example of regulatory capture, likely making Grade D beef even worse than you were already imagining.
Beefish*
B33f
50% beef, 50% fish?
think smaller. think more legs.
You really don’t wanna know.
“I can’t believe it’s not beef” brand beefy granules with genuine imitation beef flavour.
You can get the local pricing for their products on their website menu by changing the store location. I jumped around a few locations. My hometown, Chicago, Houston… I’m seeing it at 3.99, 4.49, 4.99, and then OP’s 5.39. How do they justify such a spread in pricing? 3.99 to 5.39 is a 35% increase in price. The town where I gre up and my current home are about 90 minutes apart and they are priced at 3.99 and 4.99, respectively, within the same state. So there is no way that distribution costs or minimum wage are causing this difference. Seems so arbitrary.
Now check the income and demographics data for folks served at those stores.
Those things are also narrow af. Totally not filling. Which is why it made sense for the dollar menu where you could get a few of them to fill you up.
I don’t know about the Taco bells in your area, but the beefy 5-layer burritos around here are actually pretty filling - the damn thing is almost 500 calories alone.
Of course, nobody’s buying it a la carte. It’s too expensive that way.
Yep play now is to get the boxes. You get the $5 box with this, a taco, a side, and a drink. Buying a la carte just makes absolutely no sense.
Most of the other big American fast food chains don’t offer nearly that much value.
