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.
If you can eat at a nicer place for the same amount of money, why would you eat at McDonald’s?
I would rather spend that money on a local burger joint. Give me a single named joint with a generic paper bag with grease stains on the outside.
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.
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.
Convenience and familiarity, mostly. If you go to a McDonalds you know exactly what you’ll get and you’ll be able to get it pretty quick.
Name one burger joint that doesn’t have exactly what mcds has and more…this comment is laughable.
People eat at McDonald’s because of marketing.
I hate McDonalds, but on roadtrips they are usually a godsend. A lot of them still have a play place which lets my kids be monkeys for a bit, and the Happy Meals give them a shitty toy to occupy their time for the evening.
It sucls, I don’t eat there, but McD’s has its place.
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I’ve eaten a lot of burgers and fries in my life and can’t think of a single place that replicates a McDonalds burger and fry. Having the same menu item (as in a “double cheeseburger”) doesn’t mean anything as they all taste and look different from one another.
If you go to a McDonalds you know exactly what you’ll get
A poorly put together “meal” that very likely has been sitting under a heater for a length of time unless you went there when it was busy. And if it was busy, the chance for mistake is high and it’s going to be sloppily put together. What so you can save a few minutes? Most places do take-away… so you call them, place an order, pick it up. No sitting 10-20 minutes in drive-thru. And you got more food, better food, for the exact same price and you probably got it faster on take-out. And dining in… you wait a few minutes… how do you not have a few minutes?
And who actually cares about familiarity? That’s either saying, you go to that one place way to much and your food choices are predictable and boring. Or you’re highly susceptible to advertising. And really, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
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At least their username is accurate.
Obvious food quality and health issues aside, I know some are still boycotting McDonald’s for providing free meals to the IDF. They also exploit forced prison labor to drive profits.
Seriously. For the same price as McD’s I can go to In-n-Out. That’s just comparing fast food places. For the price they’re charging for a Quarter Pounder I may as well go to a sit-down restaurant.
Speed, for one. If I’m traveling across the country and I just want to eat and get back on the road, or even if I just need some breakfast before work, it’s a lot faster.
My go to for this stuff now is truck stops. They’ll usually have a fast food restaurant in them but also healthier options for snacks and meals
That nicer place is probably at home. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. But I think all fast food chains raised prices? At least here in Europe it’s not like McDonald’s is somehow standing out as more expensive. Worse, yes. But that was always the case
You’re failing to realize that the issue here is that it went from basically the cheapest food you could buy to more expensive than cooking at home is the issue here.
Millions of people grew up eating this crap cuz it was cheap. Now that it’s as expensive as other better options people are starting to realize it isn’t cheap anymore.
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Yeah I can get a better burger/fry combo from a local restaurant that uses high quality ingredients and cares about having my business. There’s no reason to pay the same for low quality junk from a fast food chain.
Addicted to the absurdly high amount of sugars and preservatives most likely.
Yeah I can get a better burger & fry lunch from a local place that uses better ingredients and actually values my business. There’s no reason for me to pay the same price for low quality junk and worse service from shitty fast food chains.
If you’re in a hurry mostly.
Not only have the prices become absurd, the quality control has gone to crap.
For years we’ve taken regular road trips and use to stop at fast food places every single time. In the past 3 years we’ve repeatedly been served triple salted food, awful sub sandwiches, “cheese” burgers missing the cheese and condiments, and cold burger patties so old and dry they couldn’t be choked down. When you factor in the amount of waste due to the lousy food, the actual prices are way higher than what’s shown on the menu.
The ridiculous prices and regular bad experiences pushed us to a tipping point and we now find a grocery store along the way for deli sandwiches. It usually only adds about 5 minutes to the trip. Not only are the prices about 30% less but the food is consistently edible which makes the real price probably 1/2 of fast food places.
This is something we wouldn’t have taken he time to do a few years ago, so for us there’s been a big upside to the absurd prices and lousy food. We’re permanently changed our habits and cut fast food out of our diet completely. We are now spending less and getting consistently better quality, healthier food.
Maybe we should send “thank you” notes to the various fast food corporate headquarters.
You can’t pay your employees poverty wages and expect them to care about quality.
It has to hurt for the people who spend their hard earned money on a night off from cooking by ordering out at McDonald’s, but it’s a lesson we all learn the hard way.
it’s very hard to give a shit when you’re making a meal that costs $15 in 30 seconds when you make maybe $9/hr. the math is so plainly unfair and it’s right in front of you all day
Yeah. When you entire shift could just barely afford a days worth of calories and nothing more I think you would basically check out.
All the fasst food places here pay like 15$ minimum, mcdonalds. Bk, Wendy’s, all the big names.
It’s still shit money but it’s not THAT low.
If you’re selling a product that you can’t produce by paying employees a lousy wage, you have to pay what’s needed to produce a salable product. This is the way business works everywhere and is true for both skilled and unskilled labor.
These companies have radically increased their prices while allowing the products produced to go to shit, and their customers are doing what customers always do when faced with crappy products and high prices. We’re going elsewhere.
I usually go to the salad bar of my grocery store and pickup a salad with no protein or dressing, then go to the dressing isle and buy a bottle of the dressing of my choice, finally go to the deli and pickup a cooked chicken. At home I shred the chicken and store it in a container and every day after I just stop buy the salad bar and pickup a hefty salad for $5, add a bit of my shredded chicken and dressing with gusto.
Best lunch ever.
After trying a few grocery store deli sandwiches, I will avoid fast food sandwich shops unless there’s simply nothing else available. The deli is there to get you in the store to spend money. They don’t have as much of a financial incentive to skimp on the ingredients. It wasn’t uncommon for me to get a sandwich so stuffed I couldn’t close it
This is a really good idea!
Death of fast food is a treat we can all look forward to. Keep raising those prices geniuses!
I’m seeing more local places popping up. I’m happy with that. $15 for a big Mac meal or $15 for the Chicken tikka masala? I’ll take the big Mac, said no one.
Full dinner for my family of 4 at McD’s us $65.
Full dinner at my locally owned restaurant that offers takeout plus lunch the next day from leftovers - $70.
Eat local. Better food, superior quality, and it keeps money in the neighborhood.
Full dinner for my family of 4 at McD’s us $65.
That is fucking bananas in pajamas bananas.
That is bottom tier food for even fast food. $65??!?
It costs $65 for two dinners from my local Indian restaurant and those dinners can serve two. Our serve two for 2 days.
wtf
Same here, but the reason this doesn’t work is because a bic Mac meal doesn’t cost $15. It’s more like $10 or even lower with deals. If you are on a budget and have no time to cook, I can see how the cheaper option can still sway the decision. For me, it’s lower than that and will settle for Wendy’s 4 for 5. At $5 bucks, it’s absolutely worth it every now and then when I just want something cheap and quick.
Dave’s combo $9.69 I assume that is a small combo. Local burger place $14.30 that’s with a fountain drink 20oz and a small fry (sweet potato or normal ones). Their small fry will feed two adults, like five guys, they add extra fries.
Local place uses local beef, veggies, and bacon. Wendy’s I get mystery meats. I’m hoping it’s fresh but we know none of it is.
If you get an equal product at Wendy’s it would be around $14.69. You will get the large shit fries and a liter of cola. I’ll take the local place. For the record I picked the cheapest meal Wendy’s had bc most families would look for a “deal”. There is the cheaper menu which has jr burgers but my local place has sliders for more $4.45 compared to the $2.49 jr burger. However I can get a good medium rare slider with normal toppings for the $4.45. I will still take that. More food for cheaper.
Large big Mac is $12.21 so I was off by $2.79
Used to be that people went to fast food because it was good, fast, and cheap.
These guys running the show have managed to reverse all three of those points. Now fast food is shit, slow, and expensive. It’s honestly amazing that people put up with it as long as they did.
The size of the patties are ridiculous.
They’re smaller than the pickles now.
good
highly debatable…
Overdramatic headlines to try to make this more exotic and mysterious than the reality - YOU GREEDY FUCKS HAVE INTENTIONALLY TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF EVERYONE SINCE THE PANDEMIC STARTED. It was never acceptable and you finally pushed fast enough to even upset the wealthy and those who spend outside their means.
You are all broken humans. You chase endless growth without purpose, you are a disease.
News headlines gonna be like “millenials are bankrupting an American institution, the fast food industry”
They need to make up their mind whether they want us on this or the avocado toast
Avocado toast is probably cheaper at this point
Actually I still can get avocados for a dollar a piece and you only use half for some toast plus a single slice of bread and an egg and a some hot sauce…
I think avocado toast literally is the cheaper option.
But it’s really just older people seeing constant access to specialty foods that were rarer and thinking if we are burning the planet down to have produce whenever we want it then it must be better than it was back when you couldn’t.
Tbf I think the avocado toast outrage was over people paying inflated prices at a restaurant for something so easy and cheap to make at home, not the dish itself or any of its ingredients ever being a luxury.
Mmm, I may need to have that for dinner tonight!
In 2024, pointing out that costs have been down for a couple years now and increased pricing is just greed makes you a dirty communist, even to liberals.
They can fly their little pride flag but it turns out there’s only one class they’ll REALLY go to bat for and its the owner class.
I was running between work and meeting friends for drinks last week. Lost track of time and it got past 10pm. On the way home, saw a Burger King drive-in. Haven’t had fast food in years (we eat at home a lot). What the hell.
Two discoveries:
- A small Whopper meal was over $15!
- My stomach didn’t appreciate it all night and most of the next day.
For that kind of money, you can do much better. Lesson learned.
I’ve got a couple of sealed packs of peanuts in the glove box.
Almonds also work really well for an emergency snack.
I also keep a few packs of Poptarts in case my kids lose their minds.
Jerry Seinfeld has joined the chat.
tHe MaRkEt WiLl ReGuLaTe ItSelF! Okay sure, for the most profit without regard for the consumer. Corporations need a heavy hand.
The ridiculous part of this is that fast food is already subsidized by cheap corn, soy and dairy so their customers are getting screwed at both ends. I’m guessing we’ll see record fast food profits soon if we haven’t already.
Don’t forget the beef subsidies, too!
Per a 2015 Berkeley study, witjouy the beef and dairy subsidies, a Big Mac would cost $13 and a pound of beef would cost $30. Obviously both would be more now since inflation has raised prices by about 1/3 across the board and food prices have definitely grown faster than the average.
Right, and beef is in turn subsidized by corn and soy subsidies as cheap feed - plus whatever industrial surplus feed they can find, like Skittles, which are subsided again via corn.
I wish we’d end corn subsidies… They put it in everything. Just move those subsidies to hemp so people can have real sugar. Hemp would be there much better crop to subsidize since it does everything.
Ah, but you see - the proles might find a way to get high using hemp and that would hurt productivity. Better to drown them in corn syrup and obese corn fed factory farmed animals, then we can sell them diabetes medications and end of life care too.
Also obesity and other such diseases kill people at around the point they’re reaching retirement age, meaning that the typical prole can create wealth for others during the full or almost full period of wealth creation and then likely die just before or just after retiring, saving on post-retirement and old-age costs.
For the owner class in Capitalism, the perfect life expectation for proles is the one that exactly matches the retirement age.
Ironically The War of Independence, The French and Indian War, and The War of 1812 were all fought, in part, over hemp production or taxes.
Not only does it do everything, it captures carbon better than any other plant. It’s so effective at it, that one harvest of one acre of hemp removes almost 10 times the carbon that one acre of trees would capture. Thing is that hemp does that in 3 months allowing 4 harvests per year, while trees take 150 years on average to grow. It also stores 85% of that carbon in the roots of the plant, the “waste” part as far as we are concerned, so we could produce biofuel, paper, clothing, food, and housing from the stuff without harming the effectiveness of the carbon capture. All we would need to do is collect the roots, compress them into a density that will not float, and dump them into the Marianas Trench. That way that carbon will be trapped down there for a few hundred million years.
The corn subsidies are here for a purpose. To ensure that we maintain a surplus so that we can avoid mass food shortages if a natural disaster such as the dust bowl of the 1930s wipes out several years of harvests. Hemp can’t be used as a food source.
So during a famine, we’ll have to live on what, canned corn for the duration? I think I’d rather eat the hemp.
I’m no farmer, so I could be way off, but I feel like there are much better crops we could keep in surplus in case of famine.
Corn is used in cereals, tortillas, chips, as a sugar substitute, and as animal feed. The one thing you won’t be eating is canned corn because that’s not the kind of corn that we subsidize.
Corn is actually probably one of the most effective crops we could use in a surplus
It’s used in all of those things, but it’s not the only ingredient. On it’s own, corn can’t make a ton of unique products, you have to mix in other crops/ingredients and process it.
Hemp is a complete protein. Corn is not. Remember the gruel that Scrooge was eating? That’s hempseed. Hemp can be used for food, clothing, shelter, paper, biofuel, and a fuckton of other uses.
I’m not meaning to disparage the other uses of hemp.
I’m not an expert in the uses of hemp for food but we already have the cultural palate and infrastructure for cornmeal and cornflour products, not so much for hempseed right now. If we had that back in the depression, maybe we would have subsidized hemp instead. Maybe attitudes could change in the future and we could shift to subsidizing hemp in the future. I know of a couple big hemp farms that have popped up near me, it’s possible. But it’s not feasible right now.
That’s the exact same argument that my parents, and a ton of other Democrats, hit me with about Bernie in 2016. I love how any progress at all is never feasible right now.
pours glass of hemp milk you can eat hempseed
We won’t end corn subsidies because Iowa gets first pick in presidential elections.
This food is gross to begin with. I’m always shocked by how many people eat McDonald’s. Have some self-respect folks. Don’t eat that shit. You’re worth more than that.
It was fine when it was an occasional treat that parents would take their kids to. It was terrible when people began to rely on it for daily consumption.
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As an occasional thing, it’s perfectly fine.
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But it’s not even cheap, that’s the whole point of the article.
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Honestly!
And then some have clearly never lived in a food desert without a car.
This other person being like “cook at home” would be hard pressed to find anything at the shitty corner store/bodega/gas station/dollar store that many people rely on for groceries that’s healthier than canned tuna.
wendys $4 meal still exists and tastes better imo
The formerly $4 Wendys meal is $7 here.
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If you’re that broke you’d cook your own food. I think the term you’re looking for is lazy
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gross
depends on the country. mcd in japan is like gourmet big kahuna burger compared to usa
its actually way better than it was a decade or more ago. they actually imporved the food at one point. not that it makes is much better in any way except in comparison to itself. that being said there is a lot of fast food places and they were quick and consistant. I have cut down myself due to prices.
Explaining a dystopia to an american: imagine no burgers
🎵 Imagine there’s no burgers It’s easy if you try Imagine paying $8 For the apple pie 🎶
I’d rather be dead.
And itll be spun into blaming the cost on pay increases of the workers
Literally in the article…
Yeah they dont waste time
I’ve been seeing a metric fuck ton of articles pop up about California’s recent wage hike and blaming the price hikes on that.
about 25% of people who make under $50,000 were cutting back on fast food
Only 25%? Who hasn’t cut back, even if it’s subconsciously?
I know it’s just an anecdote, but my wife and I make a lot more than that and we’ve had to cut how often we get fast food because it’s become way too expensive.
Shit, half the time we just get sit-down service because the cost isn’t that much higher. Why would we get low quality fast food for $30 when we can go to a local sit-down restaurant and get higher quality food for $40, tip included?
to me restaurants are now for special occasions, I can cook well enough that restaurants just feel disappointing.
Without context of that poll, that doesn’t mean much. Someone who eat fast food or have it often might not have to cut back on eating it.
I may not be proud of it, but I haven’t cut back.
My lunch ritual is go through a drive thru and eat in my car while playing on my phone. Between apps and coupons, I can usually eat for $5-7, sometimes I order something at full price because it sounds particularly good that day.
I know there are so many other better options, but my neurodivergency doesn’t like it when I change up a ritual that’s been going on for so many years.
I probably am gonna get a lot of hate for this. Isn’t that a good thing? Afterall processed food is the leading cause of most diseases today, most notably cancer. It’s about time organic food is promoted heavily and incorporated in the policy making.
The reason for the hate is… You offer no alternative.
I’m coeliac, I don’t get to eat outside at fast food places. But people got to eat and they might need something quick on the go… What’s your alternative? What cheap healthy meal do you offer?
I don’t get to have stuff, I can’t even buy a sandwich from a shop if I wanted to. But I can see how people rely on it.
Celiac disease kinda runs in my family. I am gluten intolerant myself. I’m aware of the struggle. All I’m saying is we need a paradigm shift as far as food is concerned. If there are no alternatives, create one for yourself. It’s about time we take control of food and where it comes from. Not everything that’s convenient is healthy for the long run.
In isolation, maybe a good thing. Problem is that it’s a bit of a sign of a broader trend of crazy expensive dining out.
The stuff a fast food customer is likely to eat at home is likely even worse than the fast food. Also, groceries are also pretty expensive, though not quite as bonkers as restaurant pricing.
I see it as good too (took the kids (2) to burger king, I just took a burger + their menus, 44€ … WTF), but the downside is (where I live) ordinary food prices are also skyrocketing.
Bk is still my go to for lunch when I work in the office. 2 whopper jrs or 2 double cheeseburgers is like 6 bucks. The combo meals are definitely ridiculous though.
So, a rare treat, then ;-) ?
Or are you at the office five days a week?
What’s a whopper jr BTW, like the db cheeseburger in size? Seems very very cheap for sure 😅
couple times a week. there’s not a lot around me food options wise. Whopper jr. is just the same thing as a whopper but with the regular burger patty instead of the whopper one so it’s smaller.
I was thinking the same thing, the only good thing about it was the price. I can get a nice rump steak dinner and a pint at the pub for just a bit more than a trip to maccies these days.
I can get a full, wellmade calzone and drink for 8.15 at a nearby pizza place. I got two small cheeseburges and a small fry for 10.00 at McDonald’s. Ridiculous
A cheese pizza and a soda at Panucci’s is $10.77
Do not tip the delivery boy 🤌🤌
Owwww!
I don’t eat fast food often but on occasion I’ll get a craving. It’s been a few years but I had an urge to get McDonald’s. I got a mcchicken, double cheese burger, and medium fries. $13! W. T. F.
Damn now I want a calzone
I can get a full size large frozen pizza at Aldi for about that price too. I can also even get a large 5 topping pizza from dominos using coupons on their app for about 10 which isn’t bad, but grocery store is still cheaper.
Comparing takeaway to a supermarket is comparing apples to oranges.
You have to factor in convenience and why people are going there anyway.
Dominoes example is aight.
Dominos is the last stronghold of affordable fast food imo. I constantly get emails from them for free pizza. Easily only $15 plus delivery tip for a meal for two. Granted I only get it once a month at best.
I fucking hate dominoes and even I respect them for being a cheap food option that has stayed pretty cheap. Little Caesars too I guess. $5-$6 pizza is a life saver for some… LITERALLY
Bread is cheaper than beef.
IDK how much beef is in a McDonalds burger these days, but still.
In 2020 I always waited for the $1.99 ground beef specials because I wasn’t willing to pay $2.99/lb. Now everywhere is $6/lb. Hell even ground turkey, which used to be cheap, is the same price. Make it make sense.
I can hit up a Little Ceasers for a whole ass pizza for less than what McDonalds wants for a Big Mac and Fries.
Hell I can feed two people off that little ceasers pizza, and have left overs for lunch the next day.
ass pizza
Delectible!
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i haven’t gotten fast food regularly in years (only once this year, trip to taco bell, feelin a bit proud tbh), but i have been lucky enough to WFH for a lot of that. when you’re starving and want something you just want it, even if it’s overpriced garbage. i dread the day of having to work an office job again.
what really pisses me off is the psychological manipulation: these companies think they can just rewire our brains with their dogshit marketing. ohh $3 is actually fair for 1 hashbrown. there was never a ““dollar menu””. they don’t even list the damn prices on their website like a normal restaurant. it’s so fucking shady and dishonest, the whole damn thing, the gray prison architecture, taking away the soda fountains from customers (and making the kitchen people worry about drinks as well). it’s so so fucking sick. WE’RE the ones suffering, they’re the ones looking at graphs and DESIGNING our suffering. they don’t have to pinch pennies, they don’t have to pinch shit. fuck mcdonal i CANNOT wait to see them fall.
