Americans are choking on surging fast-food prices. "I can't justify the expense," one customer says
Americans are choking on surging fast-food prices. "I can't justify the expense," one customer says
The price of a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal has more than doubled since 2014, data show.
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.
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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.
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.
Anything where you can get a burger bun that doesn't taste like it full of sugar is worth it over anything else.
The bread quality in america is the lowest of the low.
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.
If you're in a hurry mostly.
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.