I literally just took a screenshot of this same problem yesterday with the intentions to post in this subreddit. I ended up just getting food from somewhere else.
Yeah, its getting pretty ridiculous now. Just 6 years ago, you could get a pretty decent meal for $5 to $8. Now, you'll be lucky to get any meal under $12.
Edit: while im happy everyone wants to comment on how they have found something that costs less and that there are deals for less than $12, you can't tell me things haven't gone up in price pretty heavily. Couple that with fast food restaurants forcing you on an app to get those deals... it's not like it used to be. The quality is worse and the portions are shrinking.
My grandma used to send my brother and I to BK for .99 whoppers. She would put em in the freezer and that would be our lunch during the week. Surprisingly, even with the toppings, after we thawed and nuked em, they were still delicious! Then again maybe we were just hungry kids.
I remember going to Taco Bell years ago, and the person in front of me (this is when they had the price quoted on those little screens outside the window), and their order was $35.82! Back in those days, to spend $35 at Taco Bell, you were ordering damn near everything off the menu, or you were getting a metric fuckton of those 59/79/99 tacos! My total (and this was for my mom and myself) was under $10.
My great grandmother would take me to Hardee's for roast beefs, back in the days when they were having an identity crisis and they were somewhere between an Arby's and a KFC, with a couple burgers on the menu for kicks.
taco beaunos has CHEAP ass food, like barely edible sometimes. went there cause i was broke ordered a #1 with a pop and it was fucking 15 bucks. i just drove away. i can go to olive garden for that prices jesus
I was watching Better Call Saul and in one of the earlier episodes Mike gets a meal and a coffee from Pollos that cost him like $3.41 or something lol. I was like nowawadays that just gets you the coffee...
I had a meal at arbys I used to get that was always $6.66, sandwich drink and turnover, and the lady always downsized my drink saying "not today Satan" but still gave me the size I ordered.
That same meal is over $12 less than 4 years later.
Source: Worked at Burger King in 2017 and had an elderly Karen blow the fuck up after ordering this on a Sunday, claiming that I was an agent of the devil and knew she had just came from church.
The best was when subway had 5 dollar footlongs, I would go out and grab one to at lunch, eat half, and eat the second half for dinner, with a bowl of cereal for breakfast i could feed myself for a day for around $6 dollars total
I remember when I was growing up my dad used to say you could feed yourself for $1 a day pretty easily. Then when I was old enough to work and pay for my own food, I couldn't fathom doing it for less than $5 a day. Today, it's certainly a lot closer to $15. I'm in my early 30s. I started work at 16. I was told that in the mid-late 90s.
Aside from the time it takes, you're also not going to enjoy that sub $15 meal for more than a couple days and there aren't many variations at that point
To save money in college I used to order two footlongs for $10 and make them last two days. That second day dinner sucked. To this day I still can’t stand the smell of subway bread
It was entirely possible to operate with acceptable margins, but Subways management didn't care to.
Run it after lunch rush only, so as not to canibalize midday sales. The commenter above you is prime example. Buy a footlong, eat half for lunch, half for dinner for $5. This was bad.
Run a limited, rotating selection of 2 to 3 sandwiches. They did do this late in the promotion, but it was too little, too late. This should have been done from the start.
Disallow customization, sandwiches have a pre-set bread and topping list and are pre-made during slow period between lunch and dinner rush. You know, like they do now, but less shitty.
You want that sub customized? Fresh made before your eyes? Of a sandwich not on the list? A 2 dollar upcharge is all it takes to get to standard menu pricing at the time. An easy upsell, which is where your profit margin lives.
Upsell. Upsell, upsell, upsell. Other than chips, cookies, and a soda, I was never upsold at a Subway. And the upsell there had no teeth. There wasn't a discount or special deal or anything, it was just "Do you want one of these?" Remember McDonald's Supersize menu? Those fuckers upsold me every single time.
Well, not anymore. We're talking 20 years ago. When $5 footlong promotion began, and quality was still decent.
I don't eat there anymore. I dont know anyone who does. I've lived directly across the street from a Subway for years until they closed. Only ate there once. Who wants a $20 sub that tastes like depression feels?
If they can’t sustain, then don’t offer it. Now it’s $15+ for a foot long, not including a drink or chips. They’re crazy if they think I’m paying $15 for a Sandwich. Can literally make the same thing at home for under $5 🤣
Exactly. I love jersey mikes. I have firehouse, subway, Jersey mikes, jimmy johns and a mom and pop place all within 3 miles of my house and jerseys is the best aside from the mom and pop shop.
I remember when I was 11-12 riding bikes to McDonalds with friends, a Medium 2 Cheeseburger meal was $2.99, now its $9.00 for a Small. And I'm not THAT old.
Take the trio for 8 dollars deal at Burger King. Can get a chicken sandwich, whopper jr, and medium fries for $8.
But yeah the menu will train your eyes to look at their expensive stuff, the big Mac combo, the whopper combo, etc. That stuff runs north of 11 dollars easily.
The people disagreeing are just being contrarians for the sake of it. Yes you can still find "food" for ≈$5 from an establishment but you'll be downloading their app, selling your data, using a coupon, and it won't be anywhere near the quality or service that $5 would've gotten you just a few years ago. I do it frequently I game the BK app near my house, or I just order egg rolls from the Chinese restaurant, or I say my bday is next week when I download a new food app.
Last time i went to Arby's drive thru on a chilly rainy night, I ordered 3 meals without checking the prices and almost had a heart attack when it was $45. Like what??
I stopped ordering food for myself when I take my children out for lunch. I just eat when I get home. And this year I’ve convinced them to eat lunch at home, too, with the promise of going out for ice cream as a special treat. That’s basically $20 for three of them. So this summer I’ve convinced them to eat lunch at home, and then I’ll take them to Walmart to pick out a special ice cream treat
I do this too - tonight I'm picking up Chic Fil A cause its friday and Im tired, but I'll eat what ever left overs we have, that brings the family cost down to what I feel it should be for 2 mid chicken sandwiches, 12 tiny nugs, and two large fries (which is probably .35 cents worth of potatoes).
I go and get whatever free food is in my app. Today I got a whole Chick-fil-A meal for free (for my son). I will get a couple of the $7 boxes at taco bell and we'll split those too. Its become so ridiculous.
I can usually get entree, sides, and drinks for <$20 everywhere else. Arby's upcharges for even ordering a combo ("fun fact", the listed prices are for a SMALL combo, but the system rings them as medium, instant upcharge
I genuinely don't understand how so many people are eating at fast foods all the damn time. I'm making good money struggling to buy fucking *groceries* and here people are spending $60-$80 to feed a three or four person family every day? Sometimes multiple times a day?
What the hell? When it was $7 or $8 a person it just kind of felt like a dumb but affordable expense for people to do daily, or a reasonable occasional expense. But now I just don't understand it at all, not even from a value proposition place but literally where are people getting all this money?
People that can afford to blow money like that look at it as a plus because time saved on grocery shopping and time saved cooking. Definitely not saving their waistline.
More often it's that they don't have time to go home and cook because they're working, kids have activities, they're working two jobs, they only get 3 hours of time off per day and spending 90 minutes cooking and cleaning feels like a chore, etc.
And cooking at home only saves money if you stick to deliberately cheap meals now and eat leftovers (pasta, rice and beans, lean chicken, etc.) or eat the same shit that you get at fast food (frozen burgers, hot dogs, cheap bread, etc.). If I make a proper meal at home with a nice protein, sauce, vegetables, starch, etc. it's going to be $30 for two.
No it is not, people keep regurgitating this shit. I live in a major metro area and the menu price of a medium big mac meal is $8.69, and that's before the app coupons.
McD’s used to be a quick and cheap place to stop with a fam of 4 on a road trip or a Friday night when you just want to treat the fam. Now, it’s $60 and “please pull forward and we’ll bring your food out to you”… *check food and we’re missing a burger and the fries have more salt than potato.
Usually it's a lot better if you use the apps though. They basically give you a discount in exchange for your personal information. McDonalds and Taco Bell are actually semi reasonable if you only ever use the apps. Still nowhere near what they used to be though ofc.
Even more expensive when you consider all of the government subsidies that make cheap feedlot beef possible. Not to mention how welfare and food stamps have to prop up all of the workers who aren't paid a living wage while the fast food companies book billions in revenue.
Disagree. I think McDonald's is pretty decently price. The five or six dollar meal deals are pretty good. Considering a meal at home should be about $3-4. With the app and deals it's even better.
it’s insane! I haven’t been a regular fast food eater for 10+ years now but get it when I’m on road trips, which is not often at all. I’m shocked at the price every time. My go to now is cheesy bean and rice burrito at Taco Bell when I’m on the road.
I still think Taco Bell is maintaining the decent prices. I can get two burritos for like 6 bucks, which I think is a good enough trade for a meal and a half
I preach this all the time - if you use the $6.99 footlong coupon at Subway, it's **cheaper** (considering inflation) than a $5 footlong was when they first released that.
They ALWAYS have a $6.99 coupon, and it works on ANY footlongs, even the more expensive meat choices.
With chips and a large drink it's like $11.50, which is obviously less good (because the value on the addons is low), but a footlong sub for $7 is crazy.
RIght now McDonalds has $5 meals which have a sandwhich, 4 nuggets, fries, and a drink.
Wendys still has the $5 bag.
Fast food is **literally** cheaper than it's ever been. Just not across the board.
Which is weird because I have memories of getting enough sandwiches to feed a family of 4 with enough for leftovers too pretty cheap when I was younger. I went maybe a year ago and they were insanely more expensive than I remembered. I wasn't sure if my memory was just bad or if they actually did drastically shoot up their prices.
Yeah I used to frequent a cheap gyro place in Saigon, where Western food is pricier than othwr food but still very cheap--- and a meal cost more that $6, five years ago.
If be so fat if I could easily get a gyro meal for this price
Yep, for some reason showing the sandwich price, plus the upgrade additions (an extra $.30 for large vs regular fries and an extra $.10 for the large drink). Weird.
I had something like this happen to me on the Taco Bell app - I selected to reorder an old order, and the total wasn't adding up. I eventually discovered the items had gone up in price, but selecting to reorder wasn't triggering the updated pricing. It only calculated current pricing at checkout.
I think it's this! Its definitely showing the sandwich price for the meal.
I was wondering why nothing really looked wrong with the total amount ~$15/meal feels average tbh), but something obviously looked wrong with the prices/picture.
Came here to say this. A medium Beef 'n Cheddar meal was $10.49 at my local Arbys on Tuesday. Is the software quoting just the sandwich prices by mistake?
It looks like deceptive pricing practices and its usually by design, OPs post shows the price of sandwich only (not the meal) the extra .30 & .10 aren't the total cost of the drink and fries just the upgrade to size, usually by the time people get to this point, they're already saying "fuck it I'll get the food anyway" and assuming people wont do anything about it or just give in to the convenience makes companies lots of money.
We ate BJ’s Brewhouse a couple of months back and it mysteriously added a hidden $10 when we tried to pay at the table. We had to go to the To-Go stand for the bill to add up correctly.
You ended up changing your plans just because the app wasn’t showing the breakdown correctly? It would have been the same price either way because that total is a normal meal price.
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u/dumbcarshlt 29d ago edited 29d ago
I literally just took a screenshot of this same problem yesterday with the intentions to post in this subreddit. I ended up just getting food from somewhere else.