Kevin Roberts remembers when he could get a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a drink from Five Guys for $10. But that was years ago. When the Virginia high school teacher recently visited the fast-food chain, the food alone without a beverage cost double that amount.
Roberts, 38, now only gets fast food “as a rare treat,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. “Nothing has made me cook at home more than fast-food prices.”
Roberts is hardly alone. Many consumers are expressing frustration at the surge in fast-food prices, which are starting to scare off budget-conscious customers.
A January poll by consulting firm Revenue Management Solutions found that about 25% of people who make under $50,000 were cutting back on fast food, pointing to cost as a concern.
Unfortunately, so many local burger joints have a “flagship” burger featuring a Sysco patty, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion for $17, sides extra.
I know a Sysco burger when I see one. Normal burgers aren’t chode cylinders; Sysco burgers have goddamn right angles. They taste like they’re about 40% gristle. It’s basically just the “technically beef” parts of dollar store dog food pressed into the vague shape of a burger patty. The paper that separates the frozen turd patties is better, both in terms of flavor and nutrition. Fuck Sysco burgers. If Sysco reads this and doesn’t like what I have to say, they can go fuck themselves until their asshole is as fucked up as a Sysco burger eater’s asshole 93 minutes after their shitty lunch.
Sysco has variety in their products. I just checked and they apparently have 128 different beef patty SKUs: https://shop.sysco.com/app/catalog?q=beef+patty&BUSINESS_CENTER_ID=syy_cust_tax_meatseafood&ITEM_GROUP_ID=syy_cust_tax_meat
Though I’m sure a lot of them are just variations on leanness and package size. Point is, unless you’re going to a specialty place, any restaurant is going to be buying Sysco patties (or at best, Sysco ground beef packs and hand-formed into patties) but the nicer restaurants are going to be using the better choices, and the shitty places are going to be using the cheapest ground beef formed into a cylinder and frozen.
I am honored to have inspired content like this!
I feel very lucky to have no idea what you’re talking about, and that scares me
Sysco supplies a lot of restaurants with food, all kinds of places. But they have also optimized and helped with Enshitification by having restaurants mold their menu on the offerings of Sysco.
What ends up happening is every Mexican, Burger, and pretty much everything else that buys from Sysco tastes exactly the same. Mexican food is especially obvious.
I’m not sure this is an enshitification thing. That should have a degree of hostility with users. This is plain ol’ low-quality product (made easy)
I chose to label it that way since all these places that had to make their own food are just making the same, tasteless meals.
I go to a mom and pop Mexican place and it’s the same shitty salsa, chips, and menu options. Same with burgers and so many others. I just need to learn to cook better quick meals.
That just means it’s shitty and common (due to its ease) though. Please don’t let enshitification lose its meaning like the word “literally” did - we’ve got a good thing going there.
Bowling alley food. It’s food, but really it’s just there so they can claim they serve food.
Spoilers:
Sysco provides a lot of restaurant ingredients/premade food. Your chili from fancy restaurant might just be the same damn thing from Wendy’s, the dollar store, and the niche “homemade” food cart.
They might decorate it a bit differently once they open the bag.
This isn’t a good or bad thing. It’s how you can order fries in Maine and California, and they still taste the same. But also why some restaurants, side dishes taste the damn same.