9 ms·

American Eating Habits Are Changing Faster than Fast Food Can Keep Up

66 points by petethomas 8y ago

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
What opportunities in online apps does this create? Restaurant loyalty programs, daily special updates, custom food kit delivery...
- mc32 8y ago
  Opps for franchise cos which grant more local control over menu perhaps?
- xkfm 8y ago
  Most major chains already have apps, at least I Know McDonalds and Burger King both do. The McD's app does have online ordering too, and you can pick it up at the restaurant. Less chance of confusion when dealing with a screen or mobile device if you don't have a standardish order.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    But does this get you any savings? To lure people back to restaurants (which McD's is, barely) there has to be some novel marketing
    - drak0n1c 8y ago
      You can get many of their sandwiches for $1 using the mobile checkout coupon, including the Fish Filet and Big Mac. I've been using it pretty regularly recently.
  - Moru 8y ago
    But the end price often ends up higher than the fancy restaurant across the street.
    - drak0n1c 8y ago
      One of the main draws of the mobile apps are the discount coupons. At McDonalds you can get many of their sandwiches for $1 using the mobile checkout coupon, including the Fish Filet and Big Mac. I've been using it pretty regularly recently to get a single sandwich, no side, for lunch. Burger King has similar deals, but they are usually oriented around getting two adult meals for $6, etc.
- basch 8y ago
  to c/p an old comment of mine: Another interesting application of blockchains could be to the yelp/foursquare/tripadvisor/opentable/dining-rewards/loyality space. One protocol to handle menus, reviews, and reward points, instead of a separate incompatible reward app and shitty non mobile website for each damn restaurant. Another, and different component of trust in this ecosystem would be verification of authenticity vs spam.
  - kristjansson 8y ago
    I don't know that I've seen one of these blockchain ideas that doesn't boil down to "wouldn't it be great if <complicated industry> all used the same database/protocol/interface/ for <complicated process>" On one hand: of course, yes, that would be awesome! On the other, the coordination problem vastly overwhelms the technical problem i.e. getting a large group of competitive companies aligned around a single standard is impossible, insert link to xkcd 'competing standards' comic here, etc. I get that blockchain 'solves the trust problem' but the problem of distrust between those competitive actors is not related to former. OTOOH: if the hype around blockchain is what we need to get those gaggles of competitors aligned around something...
    - basch 8y ago
      im not saying its practical, im saying its ideal. the world standardized around http/smtp. I dont think a standardized restaurant-menu-trust-loyality-payment chain is impossible. Look how long it took email to take off (and then got replaced by facebook.) Its much more likely for a yelp/foursquare to gobble up the market, but I'd prefer a decentralized protocol for distributing menus... And to criticize your criticism, standard menu metadata + loyality + reviews is not a complicated process, its just not an angle thats really been attacked before. I dont know of a menu database that is intended to feed third party clients like yelp/foursquare/allmenus. All the menu hosts want to be the end user client. My idea is more about separating the database from the client, and sharing a database between a couple companies. For something like this to happen, all you would need is yelp and foursquare (tripadvisor, opentable, zagat, urbanspoon, zomato) to create a consortium and invite a couple other big players. Its not about the restaurants self organizing.
cptskippy 8y ago
Surprisingly there's no discussion of food quality as a factor. In the race to keep portions huge and prices low the quality of food served at most chain restaurants has declined to the point that it's unpalatable for many. But for whatever reason businesses refuse to acknowledge this fact.
- colmvp 8y ago
  Thing is if I'm eating at a fast-food restaurant, I'm not that bothered by food quality. In-n-Out doesn't have anywhere close to the same burger quality I could get at other joints, but it's cheap and relatively good for the cost. I can't even make the same claim with McDonald's or other major fast-food chains outside of maybe, Jolibee's which has very delicious fried chicken for a fast food chain.
- w0utert 8y ago
  This is something that always strikes me as very odd when visiting the US. The portions are just So.Frigging.Huge, to the point it becomes outright comical. If I order a 'small' pizza in the US, I get something way bigger than the 'normal' pizza I would get at home, which I already are barely able to finish. I'm almost never able to finish my plate, not just because I cannot eat more, but mostly because I simply don't want to eat more of the same: in most cases the food is bland, and I quickly have had enough of it. I'm not saying the food is 'bad', I also like to eat fast food now and then, just that it simply doesn't warrant eating more of it than absolutely necessary. Typical quantity over quality. At the same time, when I go out for dinner at home, the best restaurant experiences are always when I feel 'almost full' when my plate is completely empty, and still have some room left for dessert. Nothing needs to go to waste, and I don't need to take doggy-bags home so I can eat more of the same bland (and now re-heated, soggy) food the next day, as is common in the US (doggy bags are an extremely rare sight where I live). The 'dining out' experience could hardly be any more different comparing the US to the restaurants at home. To make things worse, prices are also way higher in the US, at least the more urban areas in the east and west. I remember one time staying in an AirBNB in the US, talking to the host who used to own a classic american diner. She had the exact same thoughts about food quality and portion sizes as we did, and told us she actually tried to do it different in her diner. Customers would by default get a small plate of food, but could order more for free if it wasn't enough. For some bizarre reason her customers hated it and kept complaining about the portion size. So she switched back, and almost no-one ever finished their food completely again. Very quaint obsession with quantity, if you ask me.
CompelTechnic 8y ago
The graph showing restaurant cost inflation trumping grocery cost inflation over the last couple years is surprising to me. There's a big difference. Labor costs are a huge factor, I would guess.
- pjc50 8y ago
  And real estate costs.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    This is probably the answer, combined with the continuing cost of building new restaurants in expanding suburbs.
    - bunderbunder 8y ago
      I'm wondering if franchising has something to do with this. There are just so many fast food restaurants along the highways and dotted around the sprawl of big box stores that surround towns these days. And they seem to always be nearly empty. My (wild) guess is that some of this is that the motherships are permitting overbuilding. They get their franchising fees regardless, and don't necessarily have a whole lot of reason to care if their franchisees are bringing in enough business to turn a healthy profit.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        Isn’t this part of what put Krispy Kreme into bankruptcy?
- joobus 8y ago
  Exploding health insurance costs for all employees that qualify are also being passed on to customers.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    How many employees in the restaurant industry get health insurance? There are many millions of waiters, cooks, busboys, greeters, etc... that get paid minimum wage with no benefits.
pjc50 8y ago
The graph in the middle should be compared with a graph of economic growth: https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth-of-the-united-states-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth... "Peak restaurant" is in the peak boom years of 1999-2000 and 2007-8. What's interesting is that it hasn't recovered even though the economy nominally has. This lends credence to the "unequal recovery" theories, that although growth is up and unemployment appears to be down people don't actually have nearly as much spending money.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  That and the richer you are the less likely you are to eat fast food, which reinforces your point about unequal recovery further.
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    I could definitely see a "shrinking middle class" argument here— poor people are cooking at home and rich people are eating out at nice restaurants— fast food is set up to serve a demographic that's just not as prominent as it was 10-20 years ago.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      I would suggest the middle class have figured out that fast food is bad - bad for your health, doesn't taste good, and is more expensive than cooking at home. Thus they are cooking at home even if they could afford to eat out.
      - jimmaswell 8y ago
        Doesn't taste good? That's a matter of opinion. I love fast food. It's not necessarily more expensive than home cooking. A value menu cheeseburger at McDonald's is $1[1]. First result on google[2] says ground beef, 100% beef, per lb. is $3.75. The McDonald's cheeseburger's patty has a weight of 1.6oz or .1lbs, which of the aforementioned ground beef would cost $0.375. Tomato is estimated at $0.08 cents per slice, buns at $0.41 per bun, and lettuce at $0.02 for a leaf[4]. The slice of cheese is estimated at $0.29[5]. .375 + .08 + .41 + .02 + .29 = 1.175. So the homemade burger costs more not even accounting for the opportunity cost of the time to make it, the fact that you're probably not going to use all those ingredients and eventually throw some of them out, gas/electric for the stove, and possible butter/vegetable oil. Not that it isn't worth it to make homemade burgers - they're definitely better than McDonald's, especially if you get local grass fed beef, but I like the unique taste of fast food restaurants and the economies of scale work in their favor to make things cheap, sometimes cheaper than cooking it yourself. And on health, I don't see how the McDonald's burger is any worse for you than a homecooked one. McDonald's one probably has less grease. Maybe beef quality, but I'm not sure quality of beef has a direct impact on healthiness. 1: https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ 2: https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/AverageRetailFoodAndEnergyPrices_USandMidwest_Table.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/AverageRetailF... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McDonald%27s_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McDonald%27s_products 4: https://www.aol.com/2011/03/01/savings-experiment-the-great-burger-cook-off-eating-out-vs/ https://www.aol.com/2011/03/01/savings-experiment-the-great-... 5: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-exactly-how-much-youre-overpaying-for-that-slice-of-cheese-on-your-hamburger-2017-04-05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-exactly-how-much-you...
fastbeef 8y ago
I’m always amused when people refer to fast food places as “restaurants”.
- moate 8y ago
  I worked as a chef in restaurants for over a decade: Why do you feel this way? It's food. If you eat it, you will be fed. Someone cooked that food for you. The quality of the product doesn't make something a "restaurant" instead of a restaurant. Many times it's not the best dining experience, but they clearly have a function in the "getting people meals" ecosystem. TL;dr- slow clap for some top tier smug nonsense, but your point is extremely invalid and undermines the hard work millions of people are putting in every day at these establishments.
  - growlist 8y ago
    I think that's a little harsh - at least here in the UK the word restaurant conjures up an idea of a more expensive establishment, likely with tablecloths and wine involved, and possibly French. It's not difficult to see the humour in the juxtaposition of that image with the reality of McDonald's. I've nothing against McDonald's btw, and eat there from time to time.
    - moate 8y ago
      Oh no, that was well from harsh. I'm fine calling that guy smug, because that's an extremely smug thought. Also, you do have an internalized bias against McDonald's and you just showed it. To you, a restaurant isn't "a place that serves food" but "a move expensive establishment..." That's not to say you're a bad person, just that you're shifting definitions from what something objectively is to what you think something should be. Here in the US, restaurant workers across the board are not paid enough and there are massive labor issues tied to the industry. Fast food workers especially are treated abhorrently because "that's not even a real restaurant" or "that's a job for a kid to get out of high school". I'll fully admit that my past influences my thoughts on the matter, but what I'm trying to do is say that this sort of behavior isn't cool, and remind people that these places are often franchises run by a guy employing people from your neighborhood. McDonald's food is objectively of a lower quality than that of other restaurants. It's still a restaurant, no matter how dismissive people want to be.
rcarrigan87 8y ago
Some may have missed it, but the article casually mentions student loan debt as a driver of this change. Personally, I typically only eat out once a week to save money (and it's healthier). If you peel back the curtain on a lot of ongoing changes in consumer preferences I think you'll find student loans are always a contributing factor to some degree - especially among younger generations. And yet we aren't doing anything about it. Tariffs, tax cuts, etc. but rarely is it mentioned what a weight student loans are around the US economy's neck...
- zeveb 8y ago
  Why are so many borrowing money to get a college degree in a field which won't pay off? For that matter, why are we paying for so many to get high school degrees which don't pay off? The driver of a semi truck, or the cashier at a fast food restaurant, doesn't need to spend four years reading Catcher in the Rye and studying algebra. That's not saying anything bad about those people or those jobs: they are no doubt good people and those jobs are important and valuable. What I am saying is that rather than automatically paying for everyone's college, we might instead ask what the point of education is, and whether everyone needs to spend four more years at school. As you might guess, I think the answer is 'no,' and I think that the way that high school changed from something optional for a few to something required of all is instructive. A better result, I think, would be to make government assistance equally applicable to vocational school, and to outright not offer government assistance (loans or scholarships) for certain degrees in fields with low employment prospects.
  - rcarrigan87 8y ago
    Wasn't at all suggesting we should make higher ed free. I made mention of the tax cuts because the Trump admin likes to talk about helping the economy but yet they've said/done nothing about student loans which are proving to be a massive impediment to economic growth. I don't like the idea of the gov't choosing which degrees/majors are worth funding. We've derisked student loans to a point where lenders don't care about your income prospects. If we allowed students loans to be discharged through bankruptcy you would start to see a big shift in how loans are made. The reality is the entire structure of higher ed right now is a sham.
nimbius 8y ago
A big factor for some items is just price. I work full time as an engine mechanic and the price of a burger has gotten absolutely ridiculous. Arbys and Burger King both think their gods gift to meat, but at the end of the day its just shredded iceburg lettuce and mayonnaise between two thoroughly crushed sugary buns. Its not worth $15. What ive started doing instead is shop-cooked fridays. I'll set up a crock pot of steel cut oats in the morning, and in the afternoon we grill in the back parking lot. everyone chips in a few bucks at the start of the week and its gone over well. Ive had guys from the body shop next door come over and offer to buy burgers instead of hit up the fast food chains along the strip. Its cheaper and easier than waiting for a crushed cold burger up the road.
- mr337 8y ago
  That sounds really awesome.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  We used to do something similar to this at our old job. The team would pitch in $5 bucks each and one member's wife (a SAH mom) would send him in with an awesome meal for us once a week.
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  What are you talking about? McDonald's has a cheeseburger on the value menu for less than $2. If you want something nicer, the single burger with fresh high quality beef at Wendy's is $5.
pascalxus 8y ago
Here in the Bay area, the price differential between grocery store and restaurants is even greater, due to rapidly rising labor costs and local inflation increasing more rapidly than national inflation. As usual, it all comes back to housing. Restaurants can't hire workers because workers can't afford to live there due to housing problems. As a result, when you go out, dinner for 2 people costs an arm and leg. We just don't go out anymore. But, even the Cafe is getting really expensive. Pearl Milk tea now costs 5.50$ minimum, even here in the east bay. 10 years ago, I remember getting those same bubbly drinks for 3$

66 points by petethomas 8y ago

What opportunities in online apps does this create? Restaurant loyalty programs, daily special updates, custom food kit delivery...

mc32 8y ago
Opps for franchise cos which grant more local control over menu perhaps?
xkfm 8y ago
Most major chains already have apps, at least I Know McDonalds and Burger King both do. The McD's app does have online ordering too, and you can pick it up at the restaurant. Less chance of confusion when dealing with a screen or mobile device if you don't have a standardish order.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  But does this get you any savings? To lure people back to restaurants (which McD's is, barely) there has to be some novel marketing
  - drak0n1c 8y ago
    You can get many of their sandwiches for $1 using the mobile checkout coupon, including the Fish Filet and Big Mac. I've been using it pretty regularly recently.
- Moru 8y ago
  But the end price often ends up higher than the fancy restaurant across the street.
  - drak0n1c 8y ago
    One of the main draws of the mobile apps are the discount coupons. At McDonalds you can get many of their sandwiches for $1 using the mobile checkout coupon, including the Fish Filet and Big Mac. I've been using it pretty regularly recently to get a single sandwich, no side, for lunch. Burger King has similar deals, but they are usually oriented around getting two adult meals for $6, etc.
basch 8y ago
to c/p an old comment of mine: Another interesting application of blockchains could be to the yelp/foursquare/tripadvisor/opentable/dining-rewards/loyality space. One protocol to handle menus, reviews, and reward points, instead of a separate incompatible reward app and shitty non mobile website for each damn restaurant. Another, and different component of trust in this ecosystem would be verification of authenticity vs spam.
- kristjansson 8y ago
  I don't know that I've seen one of these blockchain ideas that doesn't boil down to "wouldn't it be great if <complicated industry> all used the same database/protocol/interface/ for <complicated process>" On one hand: of course, yes, that would be awesome! On the other, the coordination problem vastly overwhelms the technical problem i.e. getting a large group of competitive companies aligned around a single standard is impossible, insert link to xkcd 'competing standards' comic here, etc. I get that blockchain 'solves the trust problem' but the problem of distrust between those competitive actors is not related to former. OTOOH: if the hype around blockchain is what we need to get those gaggles of competitors aligned around something...
  - basch 8y ago
    im not saying its practical, im saying its ideal. the world standardized around http/smtp. I dont think a standardized restaurant-menu-trust-loyality-payment chain is impossible. Look how long it took email to take off (and then got replaced by facebook.) Its much more likely for a yelp/foursquare to gobble up the market, but I'd prefer a decentralized protocol for distributing menus... And to criticize your criticism, standard menu metadata + loyality + reviews is not a complicated process, its just not an angle thats really been attacked before. I dont know of a menu database that is intended to feed third party clients like yelp/foursquare/allmenus. All the menu hosts want to be the end user client. My idea is more about separating the database from the client, and sharing a database between a couple companies. For something like this to happen, all you would need is yelp and foursquare (tripadvisor, opentable, zagat, urbanspoon, zomato) to create a consortium and invite a couple other big players. Its not about the restaurants self organizing.

cptskippy 8y ago

Surprisingly there's no discussion of food quality as a factor. In the race to keep portions huge and prices low the quality of food served at most chain restaurants has declined to the point that it's unpalatable for many. But for whatever reason businesses refuse to acknowledge this fact.

colmvp 8y ago
Thing is if I'm eating at a fast-food restaurant, I'm not that bothered by food quality. In-n-Out doesn't have anywhere close to the same burger quality I could get at other joints, but it's cheap and relatively good for the cost. I can't even make the same claim with McDonald's or other major fast-food chains outside of maybe, Jolibee's which has very delicious fried chicken for a fast food chain.
w0utert 8y ago
This is something that always strikes me as very odd when visiting the US. The portions are just So.Frigging.Huge, to the point it becomes outright comical. If I order a 'small' pizza in the US, I get something way bigger than the 'normal' pizza I would get at home, which I already are barely able to finish. I'm almost never able to finish my plate, not just because I cannot eat more, but mostly because I simply don't want to eat more of the same: in most cases the food is bland, and I quickly have had enough of it. I'm not saying the food is 'bad', I also like to eat fast food now and then, just that it simply doesn't warrant eating more of it than absolutely necessary. Typical quantity over quality. At the same time, when I go out for dinner at home, the best restaurant experiences are always when I feel 'almost full' when my plate is completely empty, and still have some room left for dessert. Nothing needs to go to waste, and I don't need to take doggy-bags home so I can eat more of the same bland (and now re-heated, soggy) food the next day, as is common in the US (doggy bags are an extremely rare sight where I live). The 'dining out' experience could hardly be any more different comparing the US to the restaurants at home. To make things worse, prices are also way higher in the US, at least the more urban areas in the east and west. I remember one time staying in an AirBNB in the US, talking to the host who used to own a classic american diner. She had the exact same thoughts about food quality and portion sizes as we did, and told us she actually tried to do it different in her diner. Customers would by default get a small plate of food, but could order more for free if it wasn't enough. For some bizarre reason her customers hated it and kept complaining about the portion size. So she switched back, and almost no-one ever finished their food completely again. Very quaint obsession with quantity, if you ask me.

CompelTechnic 8y ago

The graph showing restaurant cost inflation trumping grocery cost inflation over the last couple years is surprising to me. There's a big difference. Labor costs are a huge factor, I would guess.

pjc50 8y ago
And real estate costs.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  This is probably the answer, combined with the continuing cost of building new restaurants in expanding suburbs.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    I'm wondering if franchising has something to do with this. There are just so many fast food restaurants along the highways and dotted around the sprawl of big box stores that surround towns these days. And they seem to always be nearly empty. My (wild) guess is that some of this is that the motherships are permitting overbuilding. They get their franchising fees regardless, and don't necessarily have a whole lot of reason to care if their franchisees are bringing in enough business to turn a healthy profit.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Isn’t this part of what put Krispy Kreme into bankruptcy?
joobus 8y ago
Exploding health insurance costs for all employees that qualify are also being passed on to customers.
- jandrese 8y ago
  How many employees in the restaurant industry get health insurance? There are many millions of waiters, cooks, busboys, greeters, etc... that get paid minimum wage with no benefits.

pjc50 8y ago

The graph in the middle should be compared with a graph of economic growth: https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth-of-the-united-states-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth... "Peak restaurant" is in the peak boom years of 1999-2000 and 2007-8. What's interesting is that it hasn't recovered even though the economy nominally has. This lends credence to the "unequal recovery" theories, that although growth is up and unemployment appears to be down people don't actually have nearly as much spending money.

village-idiot 8y ago
That and the richer you are the less likely you are to eat fast food, which reinforces your point about unequal recovery further.
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  I could definitely see a "shrinking middle class" argument here— poor people are cooking at home and rich people are eating out at nice restaurants— fast food is set up to serve a demographic that's just not as prominent as it was 10-20 years ago.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    I would suggest the middle class have figured out that fast food is bad - bad for your health, doesn't taste good, and is more expensive than cooking at home. Thus they are cooking at home even if they could afford to eat out.
    - jimmaswell 8y ago
      Doesn't taste good? That's a matter of opinion. I love fast food. It's not necessarily more expensive than home cooking. A value menu cheeseburger at McDonald's is $1[1]. First result on google[2] says ground beef, 100% beef, per lb. is $3.75. The McDonald's cheeseburger's patty has a weight of 1.6oz or .1lbs, which of the aforementioned ground beef would cost $0.375. Tomato is estimated at $0.08 cents per slice, buns at $0.41 per bun, and lettuce at $0.02 for a leaf[4]. The slice of cheese is estimated at $0.29[5]. .375 + .08 + .41 + .02 + .29 = 1.175. So the homemade burger costs more not even accounting for the opportunity cost of the time to make it, the fact that you're probably not going to use all those ingredients and eventually throw some of them out, gas/electric for the stove, and possible butter/vegetable oil. Not that it isn't worth it to make homemade burgers - they're definitely better than McDonald's, especially if you get local grass fed beef, but I like the unique taste of fast food restaurants and the economies of scale work in their favor to make things cheap, sometimes cheaper than cooking it yourself. And on health, I don't see how the McDonald's burger is any worse for you than a homecooked one. McDonald's one probably has less grease. Maybe beef quality, but I'm not sure quality of beef has a direct impact on healthiness. 1: https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ 2: https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/AverageRetailFoodAndEnergyPrices_USandMidwest_Table.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/AverageRetailF... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McDonald%27s_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McDonald%27s_products 4: https://www.aol.com/2011/03/01/savings-experiment-the-great-burger-cook-off-eating-out-vs/ https://www.aol.com/2011/03/01/savings-experiment-the-great-... 5: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-exactly-how-much-youre-overpaying-for-that-slice-of-cheese-on-your-hamburger-2017-04-05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-exactly-how-much-you...

fastbeef 8y ago

I’m always amused when people refer to fast food places as “restaurants”.

moate 8y ago
I worked as a chef in restaurants for over a decade: Why do you feel this way? It's food. If you eat it, you will be fed. Someone cooked that food for you. The quality of the product doesn't make something a "restaurant" instead of a restaurant. Many times it's not the best dining experience, but they clearly have a function in the "getting people meals" ecosystem. TL;dr- slow clap for some top tier smug nonsense, but your point is extremely invalid and undermines the hard work millions of people are putting in every day at these establishments.
- growlist 8y ago
  I think that's a little harsh - at least here in the UK the word restaurant conjures up an idea of a more expensive establishment, likely with tablecloths and wine involved, and possibly French. It's not difficult to see the humour in the juxtaposition of that image with the reality of McDonald's. I've nothing against McDonald's btw, and eat there from time to time.
  - moate 8y ago
    Oh no, that was well from harsh. I'm fine calling that guy smug, because that's an extremely smug thought. Also, you do have an internalized bias against McDonald's and you just showed it. To you, a restaurant isn't "a place that serves food" but "a move expensive establishment..." That's not to say you're a bad person, just that you're shifting definitions from what something objectively is to what you think something should be. Here in the US, restaurant workers across the board are not paid enough and there are massive labor issues tied to the industry. Fast food workers especially are treated abhorrently because "that's not even a real restaurant" or "that's a job for a kid to get out of high school". I'll fully admit that my past influences my thoughts on the matter, but what I'm trying to do is say that this sort of behavior isn't cool, and remind people that these places are often franchises run by a guy employing people from your neighborhood. McDonald's food is objectively of a lower quality than that of other restaurants. It's still a restaurant, no matter how dismissive people want to be.

rcarrigan87 8y ago

Some may have missed it, but the article casually mentions student loan debt as a driver of this change. Personally, I typically only eat out once a week to save money (and it's healthier). If you peel back the curtain on a lot of ongoing changes in consumer preferences I think you'll find student loans are always a contributing factor to some degree - especially among younger generations. And yet we aren't doing anything about it. Tariffs, tax cuts, etc. but rarely is it mentioned what a weight student loans are around the US economy's neck...

zeveb 8y ago
Why are so many borrowing money to get a college degree in a field which won't pay off? For that matter, why are we paying for so many to get high school degrees which don't pay off? The driver of a semi truck, or the cashier at a fast food restaurant, doesn't need to spend four years reading Catcher in the Rye and studying algebra. That's not saying anything bad about those people or those jobs: they are no doubt good people and those jobs are important and valuable. What I am saying is that rather than automatically paying for everyone's college, we might instead ask what the point of education is, and whether everyone needs to spend four more years at school. As you might guess, I think the answer is 'no,' and I think that the way that high school changed from something optional for a few to something required of all is instructive. A better result, I think, would be to make government assistance equally applicable to vocational school, and to outright not offer government assistance (loans or scholarships) for certain degrees in fields with low employment prospects.
- rcarrigan87 8y ago
  Wasn't at all suggesting we should make higher ed free. I made mention of the tax cuts because the Trump admin likes to talk about helping the economy but yet they've said/done nothing about student loans which are proving to be a massive impediment to economic growth. I don't like the idea of the gov't choosing which degrees/majors are worth funding. We've derisked student loans to a point where lenders don't care about your income prospects. If we allowed students loans to be discharged through bankruptcy you would start to see a big shift in how loans are made. The reality is the entire structure of higher ed right now is a sham.

nimbius 8y ago

A big factor for some items is just price. I work full time as an engine mechanic and the price of a burger has gotten absolutely ridiculous. Arbys and Burger King both think their gods gift to meat, but at the end of the day its just shredded iceburg lettuce and mayonnaise between two thoroughly crushed sugary buns. Its not worth $15. What ive started doing instead is shop-cooked fridays. I'll set up a crock pot of steel cut oats in the morning, and in the afternoon we grill in the back parking lot. everyone chips in a few bucks at the start of the week and its gone over well. Ive had guys from the body shop next door come over and offer to buy burgers instead of hit up the fast food chains along the strip. Its cheaper and easier than waiting for a crushed cold burger up the road.

mr337 8y ago
That sounds really awesome.
mywittyname 8y ago
We used to do something similar to this at our old job. The team would pitch in $5 bucks each and one member's wife (a SAH mom) would send him in with an awesome meal for us once a week.
jimmaswell 8y ago
What are you talking about? McDonald's has a cheeseburger on the value menu for less than $2. If you want something nicer, the single burger with fresh high quality beef at Wendy's is $5.

pascalxus 8y ago

Here in the Bay area, the price differential between grocery store and restaurants is even greater, due to rapidly rising labor costs and local inflation increasing more rapidly than national inflation. As usual, it all comes back to housing. Restaurants can't hire workers because workers can't afford to live there due to housing problems. As a result, when you go out, dinner for 2 people costs an arm and leg. We just don't go out anymore. But, even the Cafe is getting really expensive. Pearl Milk tea now costs 5.50$ minimum, even here in the east bay. 10 years ago, I remember getting those same bubbly drinks for 3$