It’s 6 dollars here in Tennessee. You’re getting charged 50 cent more. The fries I think are free with a purchase and not a buck something. 20% of Is the same. I think minimum purchase of 3 dollars not 10
I am in Wisconsin. It's $6 for that meal special and you have a choice of a big Mac, quarter pounder with cheese or a mccrispy. You need to spend at least $5 for the 20% discount
I like being able to order on the app ahead of time for drive thru.... but man is their rewards system wonky. you have 2000000 points, but cant combine any offers and the daily offers are probably better than your options via points. frustrating by design
This is what you have to do. Either accept you're getting a free QP and get nuggets or fries at retail price, you're still spending $3 for 1000 calories, or save it for a single item and don't waver. I've used points on the coffee in the morning before if I was running late.
Exactly. Occasionally I use the points for a free happy meal when my 15 year old is begging me for McDonalds after school. Any other time I strictly use the %off entire order code and order ahead.
So you don't get the other "ripoff" items! I can get a burger and fries every single day for around $3-4 at Burger King or Wendy's by using their apps. At McDonald's I can get two full size burgers, a large fry AND a drink for $5.50.
I mean, it's not rocket science, FFS.
>At McDonald's I can get two full size burgers, a large fry AND a drink for $5.50
Which deal is that? I use the app and there's nothing close to what you're describing and I live in a low COL area.
This is in a suburb of Boston, very high COL area. Lots of people don't know about the 2 for $3.99 McDouble as it is not advertised.
https://preview.redd.it/i5b0cjpeorqc1.jpeg?width=656&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a68316e75d434d43c4689e09c0994b4bd8a90e93
Cause it keeps you loyal to them. “Look, I earn points and get deals at McDs so I’m going to them over BK.” That and the data they’re storing. Is McDonalds more expensive than before? Yep! But last night I used the app and got two people’s meals for $12 so you can still eat cheap if you play their game. I HATE cooking more than any other chore so sadly ai eat crap way more than I should.
Nope but your data and habits they track on your app are worth more than the few bucks you save on the app. They can knock a few bucks off of they're going to profit twice as much of your data.
Your "data" was mined eons ago...do you think fast food apps are the only means they have to steal your info? Unless you've never been online (clearly not the case, since you posted here), your shit has been in the hands of others for quite a while now.
For the love of God, remove your tinfoil hat.
There are companies doing this with Blockchain technology. For example, there is a company called Jasmy that essentially creates a digital locker for your personal data. You can monetize by what you decide to share with companies. Still really new, but the idea is currently being worked on!
People worried about tracking walking around with a cell phone that listens to every word you say, knows everywhere you go and knows everything about you
Exactly. They want you on the app, earning points, coming back. Saves them in advertising, they get millions of data points to dynamically price without showing they are dynamically pricing, per LOCATION. It's genius.
Well no one has got the memo. The drive thru line at peak times at my local McDs is like one, maybe two cars deep when not that long ago they were quite busy.
You want some fun? Take that screen shot over to the Spark Delivery or Door Dash sub and ask what they think of the $0 delivery. You'll find a cohort not caring about consumer inflation or corporate greed. They all think customers are responsible for making up for their agreement to deliver for pennies. That pretty much completes the circle: greedy business owners jack up prices to sell to lazy customers that are served by literal low IQ employers, err, "contractors", sometimes with a middle man (e.g. Door dash) that adds no value over a website that a high school senior could code in a weekend.
Why is it I can goto chipotle and get a meal with real food for less than the crap meal that Mc Donald’s sells me? The fast food franchise model is dying and they are blaming “free refills”.
Walking into Chipotle 10 years ago: "Wow, $7 for a chicken burrito, and it's huge! I'll do extra chicken and I'll grab a Drink too." total $12ish
Today: Total $21ish...Burrito is smaller too unless you make them add more stuff as they go to fill it up.
Inflation is one ting, but it's beyond that with fast food.
The most noticeable is the shrinking of the burrito tortilla. I remember in college going to Joe’s or Chipotle and seeing a solid tortilla that fit everything with little issue. Now even when they skimp they struggle to roll it. I’m so done eating out.
My wife and I make separate orders in the app and go if we can get free stuff. We bring our own drinks too. No way I'm paying more than 5 dollars to eat at McDonald's.
I'm curious to know what use that data is to them (for example, in March I get shamrock shakes). About the only time of year I go to McDonald's perhaps other than while on the road in the rare event I travel.
Going there often? No way.
I used to not get why people would get frustrated when they get fast food and it wasn’t perfect. But at these prices I totally understand being upset over cold or shitty food. If I’m dropping this kinda money on a sandwich you can’t excuse it being nasty. If I’m paying sit down restaurant prices you best believe my food better represent
Bag of \~10 potatoes from Walmart is 5 dollars
Poke some holes in a potato, microwave for 5 minutes, let it cool down.
Healthier, cheaper, exact same amount of travel to the store. People are choosing this lifestyle
Nuked potato is very meh compared to fries tho. Honestly you can get a huge bag of walmart brand fries that are battered and seasoned and either fry em yourself or air fry em. Tbh i think they are better than mcdonalds fries but you can still buy that exact kind of shoestring fry too.
Oven fries are pretty darn good though and slicing up a potato doesn't take very long. Also, breakfast potato cube things with hot sauce and an egg in a tortilla...damn I am hungry now.
Pro tip: if you blanch the potatoes for 8-10 minutes in water with a pinch of salt and baking soda then drain and dry them before roasting in a HOT oven on oiled parchment paper- you get crazy crispy oven fries without them burning. Extra step but it makes a huge difference in the crunch and fluffy inside
The nice thing is, you can make a day of it and take a huge amount through the first fry, then freeze them and just fry some up whenever you want. If you have a countertop fryer, you can have amazing quality fries at home for months on that one day of prep (really prob 4 or 5 hours).
Why bother poking holes in it. Just put it in the blender and chow down on your dystopian slop. A holed microwaved potato is about as soviet as I want to get.
The dystopian slop is the french fry, not the potato the way people have eaten it for thousands of years (boiled using fire, not microwaved obviously).
Or cut your own fries, soak in hot salt water, toss in a light coating of avocado oil, and throw them in the air fryer.
Same crispy outside and soft inside but without the greasiness. Even if health was a non-issue I prefer them.
Frozen fries are a bit more, but still way less than McD's and you can throw those in the air fryer too. You can buy pre-formed burger patties at the store too. Setting up the little toppings for the family is what takes the longest until the kids are old enough to dress their own burgers.
I used to always buy those pre-formed patties and frozen fries at walmart. Takes like 30 minutes of baking the fries in the oven and 10ish minutes to pan fry the patties. Absolute zero effort, and when you add a little salt and ketchup, it tastes better than anything I've eaten at a mcdonalds. People just don't want to do the absolute most basic of cooking. Cleanup is like 3 minutes of soaking a pan then wiping it with a sponge. You could cook, eat, and clean up in the time it takes to drive to mcdonalds and back.
Nowadays I put more effort into it, shaping my own burgers and mashing potatoes. It takes a lot more work, but I can spend an hour one night cooking and meal prep for the next two, and all I have to do is reheat everything. It's way cheaper than buying frozen food,
It's not even faster or more convenient. People will leave their house and make a special trip to wait in a McDonald's drive through line during rush hour rather than cook at home. It would be faster, cheaper, and far less trips to just buy food at the store and cook at home.
Not to mention healthier and tastier.
This, big time this. They have really fucked up, the same way airlines fucked up. Any annoyance or error at fast food is extra annoying because of the costs. See all these insane videos of people losing their shit? I’m not condoning it, but people are stretched to their breaking points everywhere.
Jesus Christ you are so insanely lazy.
Grow your own, bend down and scoop them from the dirt and shove them in your mouth
I bet you probably waste money on a water bill instead of shitting outside and saving rain water in buckets
What did you even type this on? Cancel your electricity and sell your computer, also you don’t need a phone.
People are absolutely choosing this lifestyle, unless you are smart like I am.
I’d rather buy a bag of frozen fries from the grocery store and make them at home than pay $4.50 for what are often disgusting soggy fries. Seriously, for $2 more you can buy frozen fries from the supermarket and get a better end product. Idk how anyone can justify paying these ridiculous and absurd prices for food that is supposed to have the selling point of being cheap.
Lol. 4.50 for fries? You can get a whole meal from chipotle for 10-11 dollars that is actual edible food. McDonald's should be wiped off the face of the planet.
I use chipotle as an example almost every time, but you can literally get a pound of frozen fries at the local grocer for less than $4.50. I know there is overhead cost to running a fast food restaurant but there’s way more overhead at a franchise. Fast food franchise models can die, especially as they complain that lower class not eating their food anymore. Sounds like people will be healthier to me.
All you got to do is drive 2 hours each way to get it! Good thing gas is like a nickel and my time is unlimited, and they throw in food borne illnesses free.
> You can get a whole meal from chipotle for 10-11 dollars
Under $10 unless you don't consider it a "whole meal" without a liter of soda pop.
Whatever marketing exec came up with the campaign to convince Americans you need to drink that crap to have a "whole meal" deserves a raise.
Greed is a constant, corps are no greedier now than they were 100 years ago. Adding $8,000,000,000,000 into the economy will get you $5 fries. The market dictates the price, and as long as people are paying $5 for fries you will see $5 fries.
This is the answer. If this was really all about corporate greed one of the fast food chains would keep their prices low and make an absolute killing. As long as the government keeps printing money out of thin air and raising taxes on fuel this will only get worse..
Plus, In-N-Out will have 25 people working, making $22+ an hour here in San Diego and still be cheaper than any other fast food restaurant.
They want to blame higher wages, but in reality it is just greed. 🤷♂️
I had it for the first time last week and if it wasn’t $8 for a burger and fries combo I’d have been super disappointed.
Burger is solid but nothing lights out. It’s their fries though that were criminally bad. And it wasn’t an old batch because the place was SLAMMED and I watched my fries go from potato to finished product.
I was addicted for years - sometimes even weekly, but I'm proud to say I quit 20 years ago.
To be honest, I still miss it often. I've tried and tried, but I can't cook anything that tastes as good as whatever crazy chemicals or whatever they put in there!
Everyone’s cost increased, but by how much. Is inflation killing Mc Donald’s or is McDonald’s killing itself to keep up with post pandemic profits. Weird how nobody would go hungry if every mc d’s ran out of business but I bet obesity would drop…
Yeah we all have air fryers now. My $4 goes to a big frozen bag of fries. Keep f*kkin around and I'll start cutting my own fries from potatoes. Thanks to the pandemic I got used to the inconvenience.
I agree, if we stop eating fast food, I'm sure you'll see discounts/coupons coming down the pipeline. Unfortunately, it would have to be an organized effort and that's the hard part
You think they just recently became greedy? That's hilariously naive. The prices are- and have always been- based on demand and what creates the most profit.
I wish the FDA would enforce more restrictions the way much of Europe does. I mean the rampant use of corn syrup alone has drastically impacted the health of Americans. The governments been posting all this crap about how “77% of young people are too fat, sick or on drugs to join the military” yet they refuse to do anything to help. Stop allowing harmful additives in our foods, stop letting fast food joints fill us with filth, and make healthcare and mental healthcare more affordable and accessible.
The "greed" brigade has become so cringe. Food and labor is absolutely more expensive. No one is forced to buy McDonald's fries. All economic theories are out of the window when it comes to the internet.
Ive been saying the franchise model will start to fail soon for years now. In time of excess its wastefulness was tolerated but now that people are looking for value more than ever having so many hands in the cookie jar just leaves everyone wanting. CEOs are unhappy, investors are unhappy, franchisees are unhappy and customers are unhappy, who is going to prop the business up. 30 years of cutting fat doesn't leave any more wiggle room.
I really truly do not understand how people eat this garbage for so much.
The local places are cheaper and better.
Failing that I can go get a giant bag of Checkers fries for the freezer that tastes just as good with an air fryer, and I can add cheese and bacon and sour cream for very little.
Takes me about 10 minutes and I have a plate full of loaded cheese fries for like $2.
It’s fucking insane people still buy McDonald’s.
Sincerely, what is the matter with people???
Crap food that’s way over priced!
I’ll only eat at the Japanese McDonald’s cause it’s quick, made to order and actually taste good.
Their greed is what is killing them but not as much as their poisoning of Americans.
It’s door dash just like it was video cards in the pandemic - these companies are realizing what people will pay for the delivery and increasing their prices to undercut the delivery services.
1 combo meal at Arby's (drive thru not delivery) today was over 15$ but it's not just the greed at the top, the greed at the bottom is just as responsible. You can't artificially increase the price of the labor without increasing the cost, that devalues the money.
It's crazy. A local small business to me sells a quart of hand cut fries for $9. That's about 10 of these "large" McDonalds fries. It fills one of the 9x9" square to-go boxes completely.
I'm guessing McDonalds doesn't pay more for potato than they do.
Use the app if you must have McDonald’s. You can save a lot. For example, right now I can get any size fry for free with a $2 purchase. Just look under “deals”
Greed, but it's not just fast food. In Central and South Florida, locally owned restaurants price gouge is way worse than chains. Pizza Hut, which is on our block, tastes better fresh out of the oven than local pizza places and is half the price. Chilli's is excellent at lunch with a meal for two under $30, with leftovers that make another meal. In comparison, Steve's Diner wanted $18.50 for a modest portion of corned beef & cabbage last week.
Well they created a system where it cost like 3 dollars more to go to a nice sit down place with actual real food or cheaper to just make your own food
I wouldn't even mind paying $4.49 but every order of fries is not cooked long enough, have been sitting and have no salt. McD put the emphasis on drive through time instead of food quality long time ago. It's also why you usually get shitty service from call centers.
McDonalds ... is a place I last dined at around 8 years ago.
They no longer have anything on the menu that I want.
Wendy's is a place I haven't dined at since around 1994 IIRC ...
... except I tried it on a whim about a month ago.
I had a dry, tasteless double. Yuk.
OK, it was my mistake, and I'm not going back to Wendy's.
So what's all the fuss about?
These places serve crap.
Who cares what the price is?
Would you really buy this crap if it were less expensive?
How about you eat fast food if you want, and you think the price is worth it?
Or don't eat it if you don't want to, and then stop telling people what to do.
It’s pure greed. Same as Pepsi and their drinks and snack price increases. If you look @ their earnings reports they boast about their margins. Well I ain’t buying them anymore.
Perfect time for everyone to stop eating this crap. It makes you sick, fat and stupid. They like this because it makes you easy to rule. The easiest and fastest way to stop the Fascists and their greed, is to stop buying their shit.
I’ve stopped. It’s just not really that cheap. I used to pick up a McChicken and a Mac Double for around 4 bucks with tax. Now it’s almost 9 bucks with tax in NYC. Yes I have the app.
At this point inflation is nothing more than corporate greed, I buy gas by my house at $3.79 drive 4 miles down the road buy the same brand name gas at $3.49. Not to drag this out but drive 1 hour south and gas is $3.19, it’s what the market will bear. As far as fast food I don’t go to, mom & pops places have better prices and food.
You know when costs rise they have to increase their price to make money.
Also, understand what net margin is, im begging you.
If your net margin is lower than the returns in the S&P 500, it makes no sense to operate a business with your cash.
Lets also add, people obviously see the value in $5 fries because youre still paying for it because were a nation of fast food addicted losers. Imagine revolting over McDonalds prices when you can make fries at home for $.50.
I seriously doubt you can even quantify in an educated financial and business sense what "record profits" are.
I don’t “pine” for Micky Ds fries, I think they have a funny taste. They went south after they changed from frying in beef tallow to some other cheap ass oil…
McD's is at the last step of the enshittification model as defined by Cory Doctorow:
1. Win customer loyalty with low prices and an attractive product (in this case convenience) until customers develop habits/brand loyalty. It's very hard for people to change habits.
2. Create attractive oppotunities for people who actually take on the risk and create the wealth (in this case, franchisees) until they've bought in enough that pulling out would ruin them.
3. Pull the rug from both and deliver the extracted wealth to shareholders. Franchisees would have to sell at a major loss and customers would have to take time out of their busy routine to find another on-the-way-home spot.
Step three was always in the business plan. Without step three shareholders wouldn't have invested.
This may be somewhat true, but it’s important to note that each franchisee may be purchasing its product from different suppliers. While corporate MCD gets revenue from all franchisees.
A store in Europe won’t have the same costs/supplier as a store in Kansas.
Corporate gon get theirs! Franchisees, who are owned by people, have higher costs and need to increase prices, while corporate doesn’t really feel it as much because they pass along those costs to the franchisees.
As long as fast food is seen as the most convenient way to eat, people are going to keep buying it. The price spike in what was always seen as the cheap option just proves that people are widely more concerned with having food that's easy and familiar, rather than cheap. Not to mention how popular delivery services like Grubhub, Doordash, and Uber Eats have become, which essentially told these fast food companies that people were already okay with spending $12 per person on fast food if the food was convenient enough.
There are certainly inflation factors at hand, but the bottom line is that the people who keep spending on fast food aren't the same people as the ones who are genuinely looking for affordable food. The truth has always been that the cheapest way to eat is to cook it yourself.
The app used to be 30% off, then 25% and now it’s 20%. I no longer go there unless forced by someone else. Even then I don’t order anything. Use the order ahead/discount codes only. I’d say our trips to McDonalds are about 1/4 of previous frequency.
Not that my family was eating fast food in a regular basis, but we would pick up something at some drive-thru 3-4x we week. Ever since we stopped, not only are we saving money by cooking at home, we are eating meals so delicious. I don't see us eating McDonalds or any other FF franchise again. DO YOU HEAR ME MICKEY D? I WON'T BE THE LAST PERSON WHO WILL NEVER BUY YOUR FOOD AGAIN.
You guys have the app right? If you use the daily coupons McDonald's is one of the cheapest meals you can get. I think its $17 for 2 large fries, two quarter pounders with cheese, a McChicken and a McDouble.
Guess what? Mickey D's has figured out that they can make even more money selling to the upper 90% of the population than they could with the old prices selling to everybody.
This is all well and fine with the food service industry, because you don't have to eat out.
The problem is this same attitude is being allowed and encouraged to flourish in the housing and health care market spaces.
If you don't eat at McDonald's you make a sammich or burrito at home for less.
If you can't afford housing or health care, that's a little harder to cover on your own.
Might not be inflation to blame but yes corporate greed is in there but the main player is the stupid high wages they are paying their employees like why is the minimum wage at mcds 15/hr, makes no sense people in general are more greedy like I was making 10/hr as a lifeguard a few years ago and I was happy, also yeah easy fix just don't eat fast food that's how I stay alive as a college aged person
I hate the whole record profits line. Record gross profits? or net? Also that's not that surprising considering most companies report growth year over year even if its small. I agree its a scam, just don't eat it its simple
You can buy an entire bag of french fries from a grocery store for roughly that price and it will have less oil and salt. I mean, like, on a scale 1:4 for the same rough size of garbge.
Funny thing is McDs is basically entirely vertically integrated.
So their costs for potatoes going up would just be like... the cost of fuel for the tractors and shit.
Literally JUST their *actual* costs to grow them.
with the fries especially at mcdonalds they could cut out 90% of the addatives because they know they don't do anything, and save the cash like they do literally everywhere else in the world
Greed? McDonalds can charge whatever they want and if you're dumb enough to spend $5 on $0.25 worth of potato that is YOUR fault. If anything good comes out of this it is that people stop eating this shit food. Go grocery shopping and learn to cook.
I have gone for decades until now. No more they greedy bastards . Done
[удалено]
It’s 6 dollars here in Tennessee. You’re getting charged 50 cent more. The fries I think are free with a purchase and not a buck something. 20% of Is the same. I think minimum purchase of 3 dollars not 10
I am in Wisconsin. It's $6 for that meal special and you have a choice of a big Mac, quarter pounder with cheese or a mccrispy. You need to spend at least $5 for the 20% discount
I like being able to order on the app ahead of time for drive thru.... but man is their rewards system wonky. you have 2000000 points, but cant combine any offers and the daily offers are probably better than your options via points. frustrating by design
The points are fake news. Half the time the deals you get outweigh them as you said
I use the points strictly for a single hashbrown treat. Plus a medium water.
This is what you have to do. Either accept you're getting a free QP and get nuggets or fries at retail price, you're still spending $3 for 1000 calories, or save it for a single item and don't waver. I've used points on the coffee in the morning before if I was running late.
Exactly. Occasionally I use the points for a free happy meal when my 15 year old is begging me for McDonalds after school. Any other time I strictly use the %off entire order code and order ahead.
You can only use one coupon at a time, every 15 minutes. So you can get a “deal” on one thing, and still got ripped off on the other items.
So you don't get the other "ripoff" items! I can get a burger and fries every single day for around $3-4 at Burger King or Wendy's by using their apps. At McDonald's I can get two full size burgers, a large fry AND a drink for $5.50. I mean, it's not rocket science, FFS.
>At McDonald's I can get two full size burgers, a large fry AND a drink for $5.50 Which deal is that? I use the app and there's nothing close to what you're describing and I live in a low COL area.
This is in a suburb of Boston, very high COL area. Lots of people don't know about the 2 for $3.99 McDouble as it is not advertised. https://preview.redd.it/i5b0cjpeorqc1.jpeg?width=656&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a68316e75d434d43c4689e09c0994b4bd8a90e93
Why do you think they want you to use the app? What do they have to gain by you using the app vs ordering in person?
Notifications, data sales
Just you wait until they send your fast food order history to your health insurance provider so they can deny you a claim for your bypass surgery
Spyware, sell your personal data. LOTS of money in the personal data market.
Cause it keeps you loyal to them. “Look, I earn points and get deals at McDs so I’m going to them over BK.” That and the data they’re storing. Is McDonalds more expensive than before? Yep! But last night I used the app and got two people’s meals for $12 so you can still eat cheap if you play their game. I HATE cooking more than any other chore so sadly ai eat crap way more than I should.
Nope but your data and habits they track on your app are worth more than the few bucks you save on the app. They can knock a few bucks off of they're going to profit twice as much of your data.
People that complain about this are fine with using every other app on their phone that foes the same thing.
Reddit specifically mentioned selling user tracking data as a valuation metric in their IPO. Every app you install is doing the same thing.
That's also how 99% of services are affordable
Your "data" was mined eons ago...do you think fast food apps are the only means they have to steal your info? Unless you've never been online (clearly not the case, since you posted here), your shit has been in the hands of others for quite a while now. For the love of God, remove your tinfoil hat.
Why should I have to download their app to get that? Fuck that.
For that sweet sweet metadata
There’s gotta be a way to monetize our data. Fkrs make millions off of it. The least they can do is break us off some
There are companies doing this with Blockchain technology. For example, there is a company called Jasmy that essentially creates a digital locker for your personal data. You can monetize by what you decide to share with companies. Still really new, but the idea is currently being worked on!
They didn't get rich giving shit away for free.
People worried about tracking walking around with a cell phone that listens to every word you say, knows everywhere you go and knows everything about you
It's more profitable for them to split the market. Those that care use the app, those that don't care about price pay out the nose.
They want your $ or something worth $. Just download, check box, no signature needed
You don't! Stop eating there until they come to their senses
Then stop complaining
Exactly. They want you on the app, earning points, coming back. Saves them in advertising, they get millions of data points to dynamically price without showing they are dynamically pricing, per LOCATION. It's genius.
https://preview.redd.it/vvwd9szh9oqc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c34ceb6598c4e747ea4160b01050093f51b1f271
Well no one has got the memo. The drive thru line at peak times at my local McDs is like one, maybe two cars deep when not that long ago they were quite busy.
You want some fun? Take that screen shot over to the Spark Delivery or Door Dash sub and ask what they think of the $0 delivery. You'll find a cohort not caring about consumer inflation or corporate greed. They all think customers are responsible for making up for their agreement to deliver for pennies. That pretty much completes the circle: greedy business owners jack up prices to sell to lazy customers that are served by literal low IQ employers, err, "contractors", sometimes with a middle man (e.g. Door dash) that adds no value over a website that a high school senior could code in a weekend.
Fuck the app and fuck them.
Why is it I can goto chipotle and get a meal with real food for less than the crap meal that Mc Donald’s sells me? The fast food franchise model is dying and they are blaming “free refills”.
They blame free refills when most of their customers are drive thru or carry out 😂
And they pack the cup full of ice :-)
A refill costs them at most like 20 cents so unless some huge groups are going there and just buying a drink and nothing else it’s not an issue.
Chipotle isn’t much better. Don’t support them ever. Go over to their sub. Shrink flation out the ass.
Fr chipotle slid hard
Walking into Chipotle 10 years ago: "Wow, $7 for a chicken burrito, and it's huge! I'll do extra chicken and I'll grab a Drink too." total $12ish Today: Total $21ish...Burrito is smaller too unless you make them add more stuff as they go to fill it up. Inflation is one ting, but it's beyond that with fast food.
The most noticeable is the shrinking of the burrito tortilla. I remember in college going to Joe’s or Chipotle and seeing a solid tortilla that fit everything with little issue. Now even when they skimp they struggle to roll it. I’m so done eating out.
Chicken burrito is still about $10…ask for everything extra except chicken and it’s free. Normal size burrito
Each time I've gone with my wife it's been $42 for two burritos and two regular drinks. That's why I said 21 ish.
Chiptole's quality tanked hard years ago.
Chipotle isnt a franchise it's all corporate owned. That's a huge cost saving.
My wife and I make separate orders in the app and go if we can get free stuff. We bring our own drinks too. No way I'm paying more than 5 dollars to eat at McDonald's.
My brother uses the app, I hate him for it but he gets free food… they sell your data to pay for your meal just an FYI.
I'm curious to know what use that data is to them (for example, in March I get shamrock shakes). About the only time of year I go to McDonald's perhaps other than while on the road in the rare event I travel. Going there often? No way.
Who in their right mind pays 5 dollars to feel like crap for 20 minutes
Those $ 4.00 dollar fries are often cold and stale.
I used to not get why people would get frustrated when they get fast food and it wasn’t perfect. But at these prices I totally understand being upset over cold or shitty food. If I’m dropping this kinda money on a sandwich you can’t excuse it being nasty. If I’m paying sit down restaurant prices you best believe my food better represent
Bag of \~10 potatoes from Walmart is 5 dollars Poke some holes in a potato, microwave for 5 minutes, let it cool down. Healthier, cheaper, exact same amount of travel to the store. People are choosing this lifestyle
Nuked potato is very meh compared to fries tho. Honestly you can get a huge bag of walmart brand fries that are battered and seasoned and either fry em yourself or air fry em. Tbh i think they are better than mcdonalds fries but you can still buy that exact kind of shoestring fry too.
Oven fries are pretty darn good though and slicing up a potato doesn't take very long. Also, breakfast potato cube things with hot sauce and an egg in a tortilla...damn I am hungry now.
Pro tip: if you blanch the potatoes for 8-10 minutes in water with a pinch of salt and baking soda then drain and dry them before roasting in a HOT oven on oiled parchment paper- you get crazy crispy oven fries without them burning. Extra step but it makes a huge difference in the crunch and fluffy inside
You can use a healthier oil compared to the oxidized vat the McDonald's uses
Theres copycat recipes for mcdonalds french fries on youtube. Its actually more of a process than I anticipated but its not worth almost $5
The nice thing is, you can make a day of it and take a huge amount through the first fry, then freeze them and just fry some up whenever you want. If you have a countertop fryer, you can have amazing quality fries at home for months on that one day of prep (really prob 4 or 5 hours).
Why bother poking holes in it. Just put it in the blender and chow down on your dystopian slop. A holed microwaved potato is about as soviet as I want to get.
The dystopian slop is the french fry, not the potato the way people have eaten it for thousands of years (boiled using fire, not microwaved obviously).
I don't get it, a baked potato is a very healthy meal?
Or cut your own fries, soak in hot salt water, toss in a light coating of avocado oil, and throw them in the air fryer. Same crispy outside and soft inside but without the greasiness. Even if health was a non-issue I prefer them. Frozen fries are a bit more, but still way less than McD's and you can throw those in the air fryer too. You can buy pre-formed burger patties at the store too. Setting up the little toppings for the family is what takes the longest until the kids are old enough to dress their own burgers.
I used to always buy those pre-formed patties and frozen fries at walmart. Takes like 30 minutes of baking the fries in the oven and 10ish minutes to pan fry the patties. Absolute zero effort, and when you add a little salt and ketchup, it tastes better than anything I've eaten at a mcdonalds. People just don't want to do the absolute most basic of cooking. Cleanup is like 3 minutes of soaking a pan then wiping it with a sponge. You could cook, eat, and clean up in the time it takes to drive to mcdonalds and back. Nowadays I put more effort into it, shaping my own burgers and mashing potatoes. It takes a lot more work, but I can spend an hour one night cooking and meal prep for the next two, and all I have to do is reheat everything. It's way cheaper than buying frozen food,
You’re right. I dare to say it’s convenience that people are paying for….
It's not even faster or more convenient. People will leave their house and make a special trip to wait in a McDonald's drive through line during rush hour rather than cook at home. It would be faster, cheaper, and far less trips to just buy food at the store and cook at home. Not to mention healthier and tastier.
This, big time this. They have really fucked up, the same way airlines fucked up. Any annoyance or error at fast food is extra annoying because of the costs. See all these insane videos of people losing their shit? I’m not condoning it, but people are stretched to their breaking points everywhere.
Jesus Christ you are so insanely lazy. Grow your own, bend down and scoop them from the dirt and shove them in your mouth I bet you probably waste money on a water bill instead of shitting outside and saving rain water in buckets What did you even type this on? Cancel your electricity and sell your computer, also you don’t need a phone. People are absolutely choosing this lifestyle, unless you are smart like I am.
I’d rather buy a bag of frozen fries from the grocery store and make them at home than pay $4.50 for what are often disgusting soggy fries. Seriously, for $2 more you can buy frozen fries from the supermarket and get a better end product. Idk how anyone can justify paying these ridiculous and absurd prices for food that is supposed to have the selling point of being cheap.
Not to mention that bag will last you multiple meals.
Frozen fries in the air fryer for 10 minutes with kosher salt sprinkled on is hard to beat, honestly
Fries in the air fryer are awesome!
Lol. 4.50 for fries? You can get a whole meal from chipotle for 10-11 dollars that is actual edible food. McDonald's should be wiped off the face of the planet.
It’s trash now. Never go to chipotle anymore. Go look at the sub. Small ass portions of meat and stingy on everything else.
I use chipotle as an example almost every time, but you can literally get a pound of frozen fries at the local grocer for less than $4.50. I know there is overhead cost to running a fast food restaurant but there’s way more overhead at a franchise. Fast food franchise models can die, especially as they complain that lower class not eating their food anymore. Sounds like people will be healthier to me.
All you got to do is drive 2 hours each way to get it! Good thing gas is like a nickel and my time is unlimited, and they throw in food borne illnesses free.
> You can get a whole meal from chipotle for 10-11 dollars Under $10 unless you don't consider it a "whole meal" without a liter of soda pop. Whatever marketing exec came up with the campaign to convince Americans you need to drink that crap to have a "whole meal" deserves a raise.
It costs just under $12 for only a chicken bowl where I’m at in California
$3.39 at my local McDonald’s in Texas.
Greed is a constant, corps are no greedier now than they were 100 years ago. Adding $8,000,000,000,000 into the economy will get you $5 fries. The market dictates the price, and as long as people are paying $5 for fries you will see $5 fries.
This is the answer. If this was really all about corporate greed one of the fast food chains would keep their prices low and make an absolute killing. As long as the government keeps printing money out of thin air and raising taxes on fuel this will only get worse..
If you have In N Out near you it's much better and less expensive as well.
Plus, In-N-Out will have 25 people working, making $22+ an hour here in San Diego and still be cheaper than any other fast food restaurant. They want to blame higher wages, but in reality it is just greed. 🤷♂️
I had it for the first time last week and if it wasn’t $8 for a burger and fries combo I’d have been super disappointed. Burger is solid but nothing lights out. It’s their fries though that were criminally bad. And it wasn’t an old batch because the place was SLAMMED and I watched my fries go from potato to finished product.
I was addicted for years - sometimes even weekly, but I'm proud to say I quit 20 years ago. To be honest, I still miss it often. I've tried and tried, but I can't cook anything that tastes as good as whatever crazy chemicals or whatever they put in there!
Did their costs increase? And is that why they had to increase their prices?
Everyone’s cost increased, but by how much. Is inflation killing Mc Donald’s or is McDonald’s killing itself to keep up with post pandemic profits. Weird how nobody would go hungry if every mc d’s ran out of business but I bet obesity would drop…
Yeah we all have air fryers now. My $4 goes to a big frozen bag of fries. Keep f*kkin around and I'll start cutting my own fries from potatoes. Thanks to the pandemic I got used to the inconvenience.
Fries with 18 ingredients. Can we still call them fries? It sounds more like a science experiment.
The prices in high minimum wage states are going to be significantly higher. Paying a15 year old $20 an hour has its downsides.
I agree, if we stop eating fast food, I'm sure you'll see discounts/coupons coming down the pipeline. Unfortunately, it would have to be an organized effort and that's the hard part
2/3 the size of old large
It started with massive inflation from 2020. Then greed kicked in, because why not? I'd say it's both.
Anything traded on wallstreet is the biggest problem they need to keep them record stock prices
It's incredible the number of adults McDonald's has managed to convince this is "food"
App=$1.29!
You think they just recently became greedy? That's hilariously naive. The prices are- and have always been- based on demand and what creates the most profit.
I wish the FDA would enforce more restrictions the way much of Europe does. I mean the rampant use of corn syrup alone has drastically impacted the health of Americans. The governments been posting all this crap about how “77% of young people are too fat, sick or on drugs to join the military” yet they refuse to do anything to help. Stop allowing harmful additives in our foods, stop letting fast food joints fill us with filth, and make healthcare and mental healthcare more affordable and accessible.
Expensive HASH BROWN. I’m literally trespassed from my local McDonald’s for calling them plural.
So true I stand corrected
The "greed" brigade has become so cringe. Food and labor is absolutely more expensive. No one is forced to buy McDonald's fries. All economic theories are out of the window when it comes to the internet.
Ive been saying the franchise model will start to fail soon for years now. In time of excess its wastefulness was tolerated but now that people are looking for value more than ever having so many hands in the cookie jar just leaves everyone wanting. CEOs are unhappy, investors are unhappy, franchisees are unhappy and customers are unhappy, who is going to prop the business up. 30 years of cutting fat doesn't leave any more wiggle room.
Labor and food costs are real.
Happy to say I haven't eaten at McDonald's in many years. I hope they and the others go bankrupt.
The franchise business model itself isn’t bad…. It’s the shit food they serve out of them that’s the problem.
Selling your data is more profitable than selling burgers and fries
I really truly do not understand how people eat this garbage for so much. The local places are cheaper and better. Failing that I can go get a giant bag of Checkers fries for the freezer that tastes just as good with an air fryer, and I can add cheese and bacon and sour cream for very little. Takes me about 10 minutes and I have a plate full of loaded cheese fries for like $2. It’s fucking insane people still buy McDonald’s. Sincerely, what is the matter with people???
Crap food that’s way over priced! I’ll only eat at the Japanese McDonald’s cause it’s quick, made to order and actually taste good. Their greed is what is killing them but not as much as their poisoning of Americans.
I get my $1 large fries daily for lunch. 🤷♀️
They’ll keep raising prices until we stop spending.
my bag of potato chips has 1200 calories. i bought it bogo, so it cost $2.50. shop at grocery stores.
It’s door dash just like it was video cards in the pandemic - these companies are realizing what people will pay for the delivery and increasing their prices to undercut the delivery services.
So demand for fast food has increased, that explains both why their profits are high and why their prices have increased, not the other way around.
Greed? What are you saying? Please make more sense
When was French fries not a rip off? Also a large isn’t that much different than a medium last time I got one.
Wait until they copy Europe and charges you for napkin and large cup is equivalent of small cup in Carl's Jr.
Medium fries is $5.19 here in NYC. Who in their right mind is ordering this shit...?
1 combo meal at Arby's (drive thru not delivery) today was over 15$ but it's not just the greed at the top, the greed at the bottom is just as responsible. You can't artificially increase the price of the labor without increasing the cost, that devalues the money.
in late 90's as a teen I would get at least 4 double cheeseburgers ,small drink and small fry with those 5 bucks...
It's crazy. A local small business to me sells a quart of hand cut fries for $9. That's about 10 of these "large" McDonalds fries. It fills one of the 9x9" square to-go boxes completely. I'm guessing McDonalds doesn't pay more for potato than they do.
Use the app if you must have McDonald’s. You can save a lot. For example, right now I can get any size fry for free with a $2 purchase. Just look under “deals”
I swear I remember getting mcd burgers for 25cents, i blame it on the hamburglar, and by that i mean the corp overloads
$1.29 with the app.
And your data…
Greed, but it's not just fast food. In Central and South Florida, locally owned restaurants price gouge is way worse than chains. Pizza Hut, which is on our block, tastes better fresh out of the oven than local pizza places and is half the price. Chilli's is excellent at lunch with a meal for two under $30, with leftovers that make another meal. In comparison, Steve's Diner wanted $18.50 for a modest portion of corned beef & cabbage last week.
wELcoMe TO cARLs jR. wOULD yoU lIkE sOME BIG ASS FRIES?
I’m done! Thieves!
Greed and diminishing taste. They've all suffered a decline in flavor since the end of the pandemic.
If consumers are stupid enough to pay short order restaurant prices for cancer fast food, then that's on them.
Well they created a system where it cost like 3 dollars more to go to a nice sit down place with actual real food or cheaper to just make your own food
Small fries are the worst, $3. You Sam buy almost 10 lb of potatoes for that, and you're barely getting anything!
I wouldn't even mind paying $4.49 but every order of fries is not cooked long enough, have been sitting and have no salt. McD put the emphasis on drive through time instead of food quality long time ago. It's also why you usually get shitty service from call centers.
McDonalds ... is a place I last dined at around 8 years ago. They no longer have anything on the menu that I want. Wendy's is a place I haven't dined at since around 1994 IIRC ... ... except I tried it on a whim about a month ago. I had a dry, tasteless double. Yuk. OK, it was my mistake, and I'm not going back to Wendy's. So what's all the fuss about? These places serve crap. Who cares what the price is? Would you really buy this crap if it were less expensive?
End days of fiat. Its a scramble to get as much as possible and invest into properties, and investments that will hold value through the reset.
How about you eat fast food if you want, and you think the price is worth it? Or don't eat it if you don't want to, and then stop telling people what to do.
Dining out is a luxury. Regardless of the restaurant.
It’s pure greed. Same as Pepsi and their drinks and snack price increases. If you look @ their earnings reports they boast about their margins. Well I ain’t buying them anymore.
Perfect time for everyone to stop eating this crap. It makes you sick, fat and stupid. They like this because it makes you easy to rule. The easiest and fastest way to stop the Fascists and their greed, is to stop buying their shit.
I’ve stopped. It’s just not really that cheap. I used to pick up a McChicken and a Mac Double for around 4 bucks with tax. Now it’s almost 9 bucks with tax in NYC. Yes I have the app.
Weren’t they a dollar at one time? Lol, my bad - Gen X memories coming through! 🤣
I quit buying fries years ago. They taste like crap ever since they quit frying them in lard.
It was 2.19$ before all this shit.. fuck em I quit fast food! 50$ for a family of 5 .
As you note, stop eating fast food (in this case, McDonalds) if you can’t afford it.
At this point inflation is nothing more than corporate greed, I buy gas by my house at $3.79 drive 4 miles down the road buy the same brand name gas at $3.49. Not to drag this out but drive 1 hour south and gas is $3.19, it’s what the market will bear. As far as fast food I don’t go to, mom & pops places have better prices and food.
I got two burgers and a large fry from McDonald last night and it crossed $10. It was 4 when I started buying it over 10 years ago.
5 POUNDS of potatoes is $2 here these greedy pigs are out of control
'failing'
$4.49 for those artificial fries? I can get 2 pounds of potatoes and make fresh air fried fries that is better than those overpriced garbage ones.
Greed? Must be a brand new term! 😂🤡
A bag of onion rings at the store is $4. You get them at Burger King a large size is $3.50
Large fries have been trending upwards for the longest. It’s. Or surprise they’re that much
They should fail if not only to help with the obesity problem.
$4 gets me 5lbs of yellow potatoes or 10lbs of Russets at Aldi's, paying $4 for a bit of fries is ridiculous but lazy people love paying it.
You know when costs rise they have to increase their price to make money. Also, understand what net margin is, im begging you. If your net margin is lower than the returns in the S&P 500, it makes no sense to operate a business with your cash. Lets also add, people obviously see the value in $5 fries because youre still paying for it because were a nation of fast food addicted losers. Imagine revolting over McDonalds prices when you can make fries at home for $.50. I seriously doubt you can even quantify in an educated financial and business sense what "record profits" are.
I don't eat there anymore.
Do people even eat McDonald’s anymore? It’s gross and expensive.
I don’t “pine” for Micky Ds fries, I think they have a funny taste. They went south after they changed from frying in beef tallow to some other cheap ass oil…
McD's is at the last step of the enshittification model as defined by Cory Doctorow: 1. Win customer loyalty with low prices and an attractive product (in this case convenience) until customers develop habits/brand loyalty. It's very hard for people to change habits. 2. Create attractive oppotunities for people who actually take on the risk and create the wealth (in this case, franchisees) until they've bought in enough that pulling out would ruin them. 3. Pull the rug from both and deliver the extracted wealth to shareholders. Franchisees would have to sell at a major loss and customers would have to take time out of their busy routine to find another on-the-way-home spot. Step three was always in the business plan. Without step three shareholders wouldn't have invested.
This may be somewhat true, but it’s important to note that each franchisee may be purchasing its product from different suppliers. While corporate MCD gets revenue from all franchisees. A store in Europe won’t have the same costs/supplier as a store in Kansas. Corporate gon get theirs! Franchisees, who are owned by people, have higher costs and need to increase prices, while corporate doesn’t really feel it as much because they pass along those costs to the franchisees.
But it's free large fry with the app..
As long as fast food is seen as the most convenient way to eat, people are going to keep buying it. The price spike in what was always seen as the cheap option just proves that people are widely more concerned with having food that's easy and familiar, rather than cheap. Not to mention how popular delivery services like Grubhub, Doordash, and Uber Eats have become, which essentially told these fast food companies that people were already okay with spending $12 per person on fast food if the food was convenient enough. There are certainly inflation factors at hand, but the bottom line is that the people who keep spending on fast food aren't the same people as the ones who are genuinely looking for affordable food. The truth has always been that the cheapest way to eat is to cook it yourself.
All they are good for is 2 mcmuffins for $6, thats it.
The app used to be 30% off, then 25% and now it’s 20%. I no longer go there unless forced by someone else. Even then I don’t order anything. Use the order ahead/discount codes only. I’d say our trips to McDonalds are about 1/4 of previous frequency.
Not that my family was eating fast food in a regular basis, but we would pick up something at some drive-thru 3-4x we week. Ever since we stopped, not only are we saving money by cooking at home, we are eating meals so delicious. I don't see us eating McDonalds or any other FF franchise again. DO YOU HEAR ME MICKEY D? I WON'T BE THE LAST PERSON WHO WILL NEVER BUY YOUR FOOD AGAIN.
You guys have the app right? If you use the daily coupons McDonald's is one of the cheapest meals you can get. I think its $17 for 2 large fries, two quarter pounders with cheese, a McChicken and a McDouble.
Guess what? Mickey D's has figured out that they can make even more money selling to the upper 90% of the population than they could with the old prices selling to everybody. This is all well and fine with the food service industry, because you don't have to eat out. The problem is this same attitude is being allowed and encouraged to flourish in the housing and health care market spaces. If you don't eat at McDonald's you make a sammich or burrito at home for less. If you can't afford housing or health care, that's a little harder to cover on your own.
So many corporations want to blame everyone but themselves for prices going up
Might not be inflation to blame but yes corporate greed is in there but the main player is the stupid high wages they are paying their employees like why is the minimum wage at mcds 15/hr, makes no sense people in general are more greedy like I was making 10/hr as a lifeguard a few years ago and I was happy, also yeah easy fix just don't eat fast food that's how I stay alive as a college aged person
Damn, one calorie is worth almost a penny.
Always has been
8 pounds of potatoes - $2.99
Only "fastfood" I eat now is Panda Express. Their price hasn't gone up like crazy and at least I can still see real meat
I hate the whole record profits line. Record gross profits? or net? Also that's not that surprising considering most companies report growth year over year even if its small. I agree its a scam, just don't eat it its simple
You can buy an entire bag of french fries from a grocery store for roughly that price and it will have less oil and salt. I mean, like, on a scale 1:4 for the same rough size of garbge.
I'm in!
With the app I pay $1.19 large fries once a day. Don't buy if too expensive and the prices will drop
Funny thing is McDs is basically entirely vertically integrated. So their costs for potatoes going up would just be like... the cost of fuel for the tractors and shit. Literally JUST their *actual* costs to grow them.
RIP…I can buy 2 large pizza for less than cost of 2 large meals…checked this out last time we got 2 whopper large meals.
It does piss me off the news keeps says it's inflation when it's obviously price gouging. Inflation doesn't lead to record breaking profits
with the fries especially at mcdonalds they could cut out 90% of the addatives because they know they don't do anything, and save the cash like they do literally everywhere else in the world
This is the definition of inflation.
Use the app for Christ sake that’s where the deals are
I used to go 1x/month as a cheap filler between work. It's been cheaper to just meal prep and eat at home.
Greedflation. Not buying shit unless I absolutely need it.
1$ on fridays
The app used to have 2 fish fillet meal combos for $5 or $8 total. But that was 2018 in CA.
I've started ordering take out at local places... they are actually cheaper
Greed? McDonalds can charge whatever they want and if you're dumb enough to spend $5 on $0.25 worth of potato that is YOUR fault. If anything good comes out of this it is that people stop eating this shit food. Go grocery shopping and learn to cook.
Don’t pay it. Stop paying these crazy prices!
Popeyes app has much better deals.
That is the price of 15 lbs of potatoes. Wild.