The $20 burger was once very recently referred to as the $10 burger. Outrageous pricing reguardless
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.
Burger parts cost ~$2 at the grocery store.
Don’t spend $25 for a burger.
I agree with you on that
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.
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.
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.
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 for a lunch, 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 I get a big helping of Brisket, it comes 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.
It’s not working for me. I won’t be returning.
Winning any sort of “best local food” award almost always means the price jumps immediately.
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
I go to Burger King on whopper Wednesday and get a burger, drink and some fries for <$10 CAD. On other days, this same meal is around $14.
Where the hell are you buying burgers?
This smacks of elitists who turn their nose up over joints like Burger King and only go to a fancy restaurant for a fucking hamburger. Then complain about how expensive it is.
Very “hello fellow working class” kinda vibes to this.
Places that actually have good burgers
This smacks of elitists who turn their nose up over joints like Burger King and only go to a fancy restaurant for a fucking hamburger.
Your sentence reads you get a burger drink and fries for more than $10 cad.
You are correct, I’ve flipped the sign so it matches what I intended.
Yup. I grab the $5 specials, little bit of everything, nugs, burger, fries and drink. Most places offer some variation and it’s small enough to not destroy your guts to finish the day after lunch.
Idk about CA, but the burgers at BK, McD, Popeye’s fucking stink in India. Stale bread, a smudge of mustard, browning lettuce, limp patties etc. Granted, it costs ~150-200 INR (2.5 USD).
But there are muuuch better places that have juicy ingredients AND serve with fries on the side. Those cost around 300 bucks (3-3.5 USD)
Anyone buying burgers at BK just seems pound foolish out here.
Burger King is very inconsistent. Some locations are good, some are kinda bad. General rule, if it’s got some kind of play area for the kids, the burger’s are going to suck. The kids make their parents take them there, so they don’t have to care about making a decent burger. But if it’s a location on a city street and there’s a high volume, they tend to be better. But when you have a decent one nearby, it’s a decent burger.
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.
Economics of scale.
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.
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.
Subsidies :)
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.
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…
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 (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.
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.
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
That’s awesome! Should be more, but a good start. Better than revising child labor laws.
Minimum wage should absolutely be a livable wage. Go direct your comments to the billionaire class stealing all the wealth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They pray a lot too. Ever see the hidden Bible stuff?
Man, they sure are religious for a food chain named after a sexual act.
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.
