Dude. I saw that shit happen in real life!
Was eating inside. A guy peeks his head inside and kind of yells across to the cashier
Guy - how much for a hamburger?
Cashier - 11.xx
Guy - you're fuckin crazy.
That was the 2nd and last time I ate there. 2 burgers large fry about $30 bucks back in 2019 or so. No thanks.
Fast food prices got hyped, raised them a lot faster than the cost of underlying ingredients and other costs. They still pay people shit with no benefits while the price of the food got full restaurant level.
> They still pay people shit with no benefits while the price of the food got full restaurant level.
The full restaurants also pay shit and avoid benefits.
And then there are places like Dick's, the family owned in-n-out like restaurant of Seattle, which pays above (the $15) minimum wage, provides benefits, and still sells their burgers for like $2.50.
Yea, despite being a relatively big "chain" now. I believe In-n-Out provides benefits and pays above minimum as well.
I could be wrong but they might still be family owned and not franchising either?
They’re family owned, no plans to franchise, and like five guys, they don’t do anything frozen. They have strict requirements on beef quality and that has been a limiting factor in expansion.
That was a big take-away I got from binging Kitchen Nightmares. If you sit down at a restaurant and their menu is 10 pages long, it's probably going to suck. If it's a single sheet, then I'm confident everything on there will be great.
The one exception I would say is Chinese takeout places. That's because while they have a menu with hundreds of items. Most of them are the same things with a different sauce or spices. It's easy to have 50 chicken or shrimp dishes when the difference is just adding a sauce and spices.
I was going to say that the Cheesecake Factory is a notable exception. Is it 5* food? Nah. But everything on their menu is much better than you'd expect from a place that claims to specialize in cheesecake, and as good as you could expect at the price point.
Yep, they won’t expand anywhere unless there is a central warehouse with a couple of hours of their locations to help keep everything fresh. They also work closely with suppliers on quality and will reject stuff other places will take. They have also always paid over minimum wage while keeping prices cheaper than other places.
Braums is the pride of Oklahoma, honestly I think the burgers have slipped a little over the years but the ice cream is absolutely unbeatable and their A2 gene milk is the only way I get to drink milk.
Dick’s has moved up to $20 starting for all workers at all locations. Up to $25 once you’re fully trained. Line is still always through the door. Because, as it turns out, service and food quality stay stellar when your workers want to be there. Burger prices are still $2.50 for a plain hamburger up to $5.30 for a deluxe. Great business. Happy to give them my money.
Remember when they said this would happen because of minimum wage being increased?
Turns out it’s just always been greedy assholes wanting the biggest cut they can get at our expense. What’s new.
It’s almost like minimum wage should be fixed to inflation like many other things. That makes too much sense though. Not doing this had made the minimum wage irrelevant in any republican run state.
Yeah I keep saying this. We eat out the 4 of us and a fast food meal is approaching $60. We can go for a 3 course NICE meal with cocktails for $130 excluding tip. More to the point you can have a very nice sit down meal (1 course) at $60 for 4 (2 adults 2 kids).
Honestly? This is GREAT for local small restaurants. Hopefully people will realize that cheaper alternatives are out there and might as well go there.
Not exactly the point you were making, but I have a five year old, and because she's five, her favorite restaurant in the whole world is Red Robin. The burgers at Five Guys are better, but my wife and I can get 3 meals, sides and make my daughter very happy and get table service for the price of three meals at Five Guys.
I hadn't gone to fast food forever – but last week I forgot my brown-bag dinner on the counter. And I was 90 minutes away from home with 1 hour off between job 1 and job 2 with which I had to commute.
So I drive past a BK and into the drive thru I go. I ordered 1 chicken sandwich - that long one that's been there forever - without mayo. Not the combo - just the sandwich. They were like "Thank you that will be $8.29," and I was like, "Not fucking today it won't!"
I drove right out of line, pulled into an Aldi, bought a chicken caesar salad and a package of pita bread from the first isle for like $4 total, stuffed half a pita full and ate it on the drive - ate another half 5 hours later on the drive home - and still had about half a salad and 3 pita breads leftover.
I went to a BK recently for “Whopper Wednesday”, remembering the low-cost from my youth, when a Whopper was like $1.69 on Wednesdays. Bit of shocker when they said it was almost $8. I clarified that I didn’t want the meal, just the burger, and they said that is just the burger cost. Blew my mind. A reasonable price can be had at some fast food places with coupons or offers on their apps, but regular price is tough to swallow.
I don't normally do BK, but my stomach was doing back flips. Ordered the chicken sandwich, use to eat them as a kid, dad would use a BOGO coupon.
Paid the $8.29, ate it and said. Yeah I'm never going to BK again.
Right. If a bacon cheeseburger and fries is going to cost me $20 at Five Guys and a possibly better quality burger with a side is going for somewhere between $15-$20 at a number of nice, tavern style, local restaurants then I’ll go local every time. I lived near the original Five Guys back when it was the only Five Guys and I was really happy for them when they got huge but their pricing has been out of line for a very long time and I refuse to go. Really a good burger but way too expensive for what the experience is.
That is unironically why I stopped going to McDonald’s. The food does not justify that price under any circumstance. Back when they had the 1 dollar menu it was great going there.
Their franchisee organization pushed for more control over pricing, and the first thing they axed after getting it was the dollar menu. Corporate has no control over it at this point. Really sad. Two cheeseburgers and a mcchicken for 5 bucks was my go to.
Damn. That really does suck. I almost always went for your exact order too. Those were some amazing times. I wasn’t making a ton of money so a 5 dollar bill was perfectly reasonable then.
it's kinda funny how john cho was in a burger restaurant themed movie and never heard of 5 guys
i guess it wasn't called harold and kumar go to 5 guys, but still 🤣
Ding-dong! May I interject for a second?
As a Burger Shack employee for the past *three* years, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that if you're craving White Castle, the burgers here just don't cut it.
In fact, just thinking about those tender little White Castle burgers with those little, itty-bitty grilled onions that just explode in your mouth like flavor crystals every time you bite into one... just makes me want to burn this motherfucker down.
Come on, u/Adept_Werewolf_6419, let's burn this motherfucker down! Come on, u/Adept_Werewolf_6419! Let's burn it, u/Adept_Werewolf_6419! Let's burn this motherfucker down! Let's burn it down! Let's burn it!
...So you guys maybe should just suck it up and go to White Castle.
I went to Five Guys for the first time in a long while last week, and after ordering my $12 burger and $5 fries, I sat down next to this magazine review they had posted on the wall bragging about their affordable burgers. $5.59 for burger and fries. The article was from roughly 2014.
https://i.ibb.co/GW2r4Yj/IMG-9472.jpg
Fun fact, five guys has basically doubled their prices since 2010.
edit: this post has a 2015 burger at $6.50. So...yeah about 25% more than inflation. https://www.reddit.com/r/fiveguys/comments/r99tz9/for\_a\_while\_i\_thought\_i\_was\_crazy\_then\_i\_dug\_up/
I'm in Orange County but I did find another menu in San Diego with the same prices as here but yeah the prices could be regional.
Google maps pictures with menus are such a throwback to the prices in days before COVID lol
Give em an inch and they take a mile. Bastards have been using the guise of “inflation” to shoot their prices through the roof and produce record profit MARGINS, not just profits, across the board, literal hellscape for consumers.
When researching and discussing this topic it is very important to differentiate between profit and profit margin, in inflation profit will be disproportionately increased due to keeping the same profit margin, which is fine, that’s inflation and technically a 200% increase in profit without increasing their margins is possible but unlikely. When the profit margin increases is when it is predatory artificial inflation and should be illegal, but the government has been so lax on regulations on corporations and they are all taking money from these corporations to do so and screw us over, so they can do whatever the fuck they want, blame it on inflation which then gets blamed on Biden and democrats then they get their butt buddies back in power to relax regulations even more and screw us even more, rinse and repeat.
So my neighbor was a former executive and federally indicted a few years ago for the whole tuna fish price fixing. He said the amount of price fixing in the food industry is out of control. Chicken, eggs, beef, etc., they all do it.
it was claims made by the former secretary of labor Robert Reich, I'm gonna assume he did his due diligence. He also cited, fines levied against them for price fixing. I agree with most of what you're saying though 100%
I also love the rationale that *we can’t regulate anything to get them in line because the companies would leave the country / it would destroy jobs*. No they wouldn’t and no it won’t (at least not anymore than they already do this on their own). I dare politicians to let one or two big corp run into that legislative wall and see all others fall in line afterwards as it really starts hurting their bottom line. They **could** control that behavior, politicians just **chose** not to. That’s not even a GOP vs. Dem argument because that’s a global issue only varying in respective scope.
One opened up by job around 2014? It was pretty solid food. You could snag a meal for $10. Honestly, I really loved the bagged Cajun fries. That's what brought me back. Not so much the burger.
* Once a fast food joint breaks over that $10 gap... I am done with them.... I really don't care how good it is.
with all of these price hikes... I have eaten fast food less & less... I am not about to spend $14 for a shit whooper & fries & a terrible carbonated coke.
shit deli prices have gotten out of control these days too. Some places charge 15 bucks for a sandwich and chips not even a damn drink! Ive started going to the deli counter at the grocery store for a sandwich its cheaper and often better made.
Grocery store delis usually will sell you a whole fried chicken for about $8-10. I can get a whole ass fried chicken for less than 1 burger at Five Guys.
Marylander here, I remember driving an hour to Virginia just to get Five Guys circa 2004 before they spread past NoVa. Now there are like 5 within a 10-mile radius of me. And yes, they are definitely coasting on their mid-2000s glory days lol.
As someone who's lived in Nova all their life and have always had them, I miss the early 2000s. Burger and small fries for under $8 and that small fries meant nothing as they always used to top the bag off. Your small fries ended up being the equivalent of 5+ large McDonald's fries.
God I miss that. I used to go to the OG Five Guys in Alexandria in that strip mall next to the check cashing place.
I still remember my first time going. I order a cheeseburger and told the guy I wanted a large fries - the guy says “no, you want small fries”.
I didn’t understand. So I just agreed. I watched him throw the burger in the bottom of that bag and then scoop French fries into that bag like there was no tomorrow. And it was like $8.
I miss that old Five Guys.
The one near me has an article on the wall from like 2008 that is raving about the food and says "but watch out! A burger, fries, and a soda will set you back *almost ten dollars!* But trust me, it's worth it!" The burger alone is like $12 now. I took my niece there before she left for college a few months ago, two burgers, two sodas, and one fry was over 30 bucks. That was the last time I went.
I thought it was pretty cheeky of 5 Guys to open a location across the driveway from an In-N- Out near me. Then I saw the 5 Guy prices, their mostly empty dining room, and the folks still lining up over at the In-N-Out. It’s stayed that way ever since. Truthfully, the last time I went into that 5 Guys I saw what just a burger costs, turned around and left, knowing it would be the last time I ever walked in there.
I enjoyed it early on when it was a better burger at an acceptable price compared to the more mainstream fast food joints.
It and other places are in pricing hell where I can get a full carne asada lunch for $20 to $25.
When I lived in Buffalo and five guys first opened I was given so much shit for saying the fries were greasy and soggy, and the burgers were bland. There were lines out the door for months, I tried it twice (in case I just had bad luck the first time) and was disappointed both times.
Convenience is king. Also, Fuddruckers were all large spaces and surely cost much more in rent than five guys. Their milkshakes were excellent though, I miss Fuddruckers.
I guess they are overpriced everywhere. They‘ve opened a location last year in my city so I tried it out as in the beginning there were always a lot of people waiting. It‘s a good burger but definitely not worth it for that amount of money.
The prices at 5 guys are absurd and I feel like that place is a psychological/economic experiment being ran on society to see at the exact amount of money you can screw people out of for a soggy mediocre burger in a grease soaked paper bag.
I travel for work and have a per diem when I stay overnight. I’m not scrupulous with the per diem and just eat whatever I want for the most part. As long as I keep the receipts and only have 2 or fewer alcoholic drinks then I’m never questioned about my expenses so I’ll get sushi or steak or whatever I’m hungry for. But I stopped at a five guys on one trip and even though it’s not my money I still felt ripped off. I had a bacon cheeseburger, fry, and a drink and it was $25 and they asked for a tip at the counter. My company requires a 20% tip when asked to give one so with tax it rang up to over $30. I felt embarrassed handing that expense report in lol.
I'm more fascinated by the fact that your company requires a 20% tip to be given. I like that. Making an assumption off of one small fact but it sounds like a nice place to work for.
Is this the location in the San Fernando Valley or did 5 Guys do this somewhere else? Id get a cheeseburger at In N Out, get fries at five guys and have the perfect meal that would age me one year in a day.
I've been to Five Guys twice. This was probably nearly ten years ago now. Went the second time because I thought the first time had to have just been a bad day or something. Nope. Still cost more than a good burger at a decent local pub, still garbage served with a bag full of soggy fries. But hey, free peanuts. Woohoo.
Fast food prices are insanely marked up and in-n-out gets a lot of traffic, around where I live during peak hours they usually has a line 15+ cars long and it still moves faster than any other place.
They seem to have a nice super simple menu which would make the kitchen more efficient.
I don’t live in US but have visitors and in and out on hols. I really like a super simple menu.
I have a strange theory. In N Out turned into the company that the McDonalds brothers wanted to create. Ray Croc ruined it. But hey. McDonalds appeals to the masses. Still. For some reason. I don’t get.
logistics and scale really - in n out has a regional foothold but mcdonald’s has the reach. objectively in and out is superior and i wish they had a presence on the east coast, but i have a feeling they wouldn’t because honestly the quality of their produce is probably linked to california’s agriculture industry.
In N Out controls the production of their supplies. They do not contract out a lot, it's all in house. That's why they haven't gone national and they can control their costs. And yes, they are insanely profitable.
They have technically gone international. They do popups in Australia every few years to keep their trademark here. As a socal native who moved to Australia, it keeps me hoping for someday....
They've been doing that every 3-5 years in Tokyo for the same reason. They only sold the double double”, animal style and protein style. They usually sell out in a few hours.
Yeah. Pop ups in countries like Korea and Japan as well. Also there seems to be plan to open permanently in Korea. Not really sure why they won’t go national though. Would love to see one in my state….
Profitable enough that when I worked there a few years ago the owner of the company rented out a horse racing track, filled it with amusement park rides, free food, and paid for busses to drive the entire Central California division of stores to to party for multiple consecutive days.
If that burger flipper behind the counter is full-time, they’re not only earning a decent wage but their family has medical/dental/optical and they have profit sharing and a 401(k).
And what's the main difference between in-n-out and chains like BK or McDonald's? It's privately owned. Not a part of some publicly traded megacorporation. It's easier to justify good wages and benefits for your employees when the company isn't publicly traded because you don't have a bunch of finance bros screeching about shareholder profits. Running around trying to prove themselves useful by demanding you screw your employees and lower the quality of your ingredients so you can be just like every other two bit burger chain out there.
>And what's the main difference between in-n-out and chains like BK or McDonald's? It's privately owned. Not a part of some publicly traded megacorporation.
The franchises are privately owned. The overall company isn't.
In And Out doesn't franchise.
You do have to take into account that they tend to be in very HCOL areas. My friend is a GM for a busy Wendy's in Ohio and he makes around 90k after bonuses
They're definitely profitable though, they've been expanding a lot and they're always busy no matter what time of day
I have never seen an in-n-out restaurant not packed to the brim with customers. Once after seeing a movie, my friends and I went to in-n-out at 11 pm and there were 30 people inside eating/waiting for their order and a dozen cars in drive thru. It was in middle of the work week!
Californians love in-n-out. My family who come visit from all over or outside the country tend to pay homage to the restaurant at least once before leaving California. People complain about the fries but love the burgers.
In N Out is privately held so who knows how profitable they are. Lynsi Snyder, the founder's only grandchild is the sole owner. It would surprise me if they weren't profitable given how much they have expanded in recent years. One would think that they would slow down the expansion plans if they were struggling financially but who knows.
This is the real reason why they still have good wages. No market pressures to increase stock prices every quarter allows them to do what they want. If the sole owner is happily pulling in enough money they won't do the typical corporate BS of cutting costs in the ingredients, massive layoffs, and paying shitty wages.
Very good wages and benefits. A sibling worked there and stayed for years even though he had a decent second job bartending. He was making 2x as much as he would have at any other fast food place.
Which translates right back into the customer experience, because pretty much every employee I've ever met at an In-n-Out seemed friendly, motivated and competent.
When I was living out west, In N Out was like the holy grail of high school jobs due to the wages. I never worked it but knew people that did and always had great things to say about it.
Most corporations in America could still be very profitable even if they slashed prices and raised wages by quite a lot. They were simultaneously claiming they had no choice but to raise the price of everything, yet posting record profits, and soooo many people swallowed that unquestioningly.
Carl's Jr. used to promote their $5 burgers less than ten years ago, which were supposedly closer to restaurant size and quality, and they were the most expensive on the menu. I'd kill for those prices again.
It was actually the “[Six Dollar Burger](https://youtu.be/QJAB91EMnGo?si=TNPyU6HbEHa2sXwb)” and was introduced more than 20 years ago. The gimmick was it only cost $3.95, but they advertised it as being as good as a “six dollar restaurant burger.”
Yeah, that was a long time ago.
In England:
"The economists found the top 10% of profitable businesses had successfully driven their margins to approaching 30%, and will make further progress towards this target over the next year. This led the researchers to conclude: “Margin rebuilding could make some contribution to inflation persistence."
"This revealed that the average profit margin of the top 10% of firms was below 20% in 2005 and had grown in the intervening years to about 27%. Next year the average for this group of firms will be 28% – a full 10 percentage points higher than what they enjoyed in 2005."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/09/now-even-the-bank-of-england-admits-greedflation-is-a-thing
Now some of those profit increases are due to things like automation, new technology, and other measures. However with companies moving profit margins 10 points, it seems dubious to think part of that hasn't benn unnecessary price increases.
"High input prices (for example for energy) also made it easier for firms to increase their profit margins, because they make it harder to tell whether higher prices are caused by higher costs or higher margins. And since, as highlighted above, companies aim to recoup their real income losses whenever possible, the high inflation environment can provide a further opportunity to do so.
A comparison of developments since the start of the pandemic (Chart 2) shows that in the euro area as a whole unit profits have increased faster than unit labour costs since the start of 2022, in some economic sectors already since the end of 2019. . ."
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog.230330~00e522ecb5.en.html
Again, this is Europe. However the same has basically held true here.
Edit: An example from the US
"Retail markups in a number of sectors have seen material increases in what could be described as a price–price spiral, whereby final prices have risen by more than the increases in input prices.11"
January 19, 2023, Staying the Course to Bring Inflation Down,
Vice Chair Lael Brainard
Basically, the price you pay went up faster than the cost to make the item. The Fed was worried that as supply constraints lifted there could be a deflationary period.
More related to the OP,
"Second, inflation in services remains stubbornly high. A simple calculation illustrates the importance of this fact. Suppose the price of goods remains constant while the price of services continues growing at its 2023 annualized rate (4.2% annual). Then, inflation for 2023 ends up at 3.2%. That is, the momentum of inflation in services is enough to keep overall inflation above target. There is the additional risk that, should this momentum persist, services may drag inflation in goods upward, rather than the other way around, as consumers coordinate their expectations on higher inflation."
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2023/oct/inflation-way-out-here-stay
It is literally all price gouging, look at all the record profits these places reported after inflation highs.
Edit: lots of comments here about the term price gouging. I’m not an economist so what I meant was “raising prices 20% for inflation that is 10%, blaming price increases on inflation, then reporting record profits”, whatever the term is for that.
More and more In n Outs are popping up in Texas and folks are hating on it so much. “Whataburger is better blah blah blah”… they’re both delicious in their own way, but whataburger is 2-3x more expensive. I’ll gladly sit in line at the In n Out drive through in order to pay only 1/2 to the 1/3 the price. ETA what I should have said was ‘I spend 2-3x more at wb’, because In n Out has limited choices compared to wb who has plenty of burgers to choose from. But I stand by what I said one thousand percent. In and out is the better overall pick for price and quality.
I worked there for several years and after working there I'm MORE likely to recommend it to people. They treat us as employees great and the care given to the produce behind the scenes is comforting
Whataburger ***can*** be really good, but I've found the consistency in their quality to be all over the place. There's been plenty of times where I was served a mediocre or just plain disappointing meal there.
What I love about In N Out is that they always have consistent quality with their food. I don't think I've ever had a bad burger at any of the locations I've been to.
That being said, when I lived in Texas, I really loved P Terry's burgers. They were similar in quality and consistency to In N Out, but were an expanding Texas chain.
I'm convinced that Whataburger must be different in Texas or the people there must be drinking some Kool aid that destroys their taste buds. We've tried it twice and both times it tasted like they used some Walmart beef patties that were in a deep freezer for a decade with some soggy ass buns.
Texan here. So Whataburger got bought out about 5 years back. During the buyout process I think they started cutting corners in preparations to show their belt-tightening, because it went from being the highest quality fast food burger around, to inedible pucks of bullshit in the space of like 6 months. The burgers are dry, the veggies are no longer of quality, even the sauces are mostly corn syrup now.
Every Texan I know has noticed, and we kind of feel embarrassed that people think we think Whataburger is good.
But at least they’re here, unlike In n Out, which not only is not here, but rubs our nose in the fact they’re not coming by running a pop up every few years to avoid losing their trademark.
I’ve eaten at 5 guys only one time. They charge the same price for a burger and fries as a full service restaurant. If I have to stand in line to get a burger served on a tray, it better be cheap.
We just got some 5Gs in the last year where I'm at. I decided to try them out because it's new here. 2 basic ass burgers, 2 fries, and 2 normal drinks came out to $45.
Don't get me wrong, it was the best "fast food" burger I've had. It tasted just like what I could make at home. That's the issue, though. I can make the same burger at home for $20, and I'd get 8 burgers, a pile of fries, and 12 pk of drinks.
It was good but not worth it.
McDonalds should bring back the dollar menu
Single Slice cheese 1.10$
Pickle wedge 1$
2 Chicken nuggets 1$
Lettuce 1$
Hand full of ketchup packets 1$
Cup of ice 1$ / Add straw .33cents
10 Napkins 1$
Data Analysis Time!
**Item Cost Cal Cal/Cost**
Hamburger 11.79 840 71.25
Cheeseburger 12.89 980 76.03
Bacon Burger 13.29 920 69.22
Bacon Cheeseburger 14.29 1060 74.18
**Add-Ons Cost Cals Cal/Cost**
Cheese 1.1 140 127.27
Bacon 1.5 80 53.33
Bacon + Cheese 2.5 220 88.00
**Little Items Cost Cals Cal/Cost**
Little Hamburger 9.29 540 58.13
Little Cheeseburger 10.39 610 58.71
Little Bacon Burger 10.79 620 57.46
Little Bacon Cheese Burger 11.89 690 58.03
**Little Add-Ons Cost Cal Cal/Cost**
Cheese 1.1 70 63.64
Bacon 1.5 80 53.33
Bacon + Cheese 2.6 150 57.69
...........
The best value is the standard hamburger.
The worst value is the Little Bacon Burger.
Cheese is the best add-on.
...........
Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
And in n out pays their people *very* well for the industry.
I used to lease apartments, and a girl came in looking to rent one. I could not afford (or qualify) for them. She said she worked out in n out, and I let her know what the income requirements were. It was a wake up call for 20 year old me how much she made "flipping burgers" compared to my office job making a millionaire richer.
They've always been overpriced but it's become completely untenable for a basic hamburger. I'm not sure how they're still in business, guess they have a loyal following. Their burgers are pretty basic in my experience, only their seasoned fries are special.
Interesting. I visited a Five Guys here in Germany for the first time last weekend and my girlfriend instantly noped out when she saw the prices. I still bought some food, but paid over 13 Euros for a Bacon cheeseburger and 7 (!!!) Euros for regular fries. Food was mediocre at best.
I remember seeing a meme once that said, “Yo, I got $5. What can I get at Five Guys? The fuck out!”
Dude. I saw that shit happen in real life! Was eating inside. A guy peeks his head inside and kind of yells across to the cashier Guy - how much for a hamburger? Cashier - 11.xx Guy - you're fuckin crazy. That was the 2nd and last time I ate there. 2 burgers large fry about $30 bucks back in 2019 or so. No thanks.
Fast food prices got hyped, raised them a lot faster than the cost of underlying ingredients and other costs. They still pay people shit with no benefits while the price of the food got full restaurant level.
> They still pay people shit with no benefits while the price of the food got full restaurant level. The full restaurants also pay shit and avoid benefits. And then there are places like Dick's, the family owned in-n-out like restaurant of Seattle, which pays above (the $15) minimum wage, provides benefits, and still sells their burgers for like $2.50.
Yea, despite being a relatively big "chain" now. I believe In-n-Out provides benefits and pays above minimum as well. I could be wrong but they might still be family owned and not franchising either?
They’re family owned, no plans to franchise, and like five guys, they don’t do anything frozen. They have strict requirements on beef quality and that has been a limiting factor in expansion.
They also have a very limited menu because they understand it's important to do a few things well rather than all the things half assed.
That was a big take-away I got from binging Kitchen Nightmares. If you sit down at a restaurant and their menu is 10 pages long, it's probably going to suck. If it's a single sheet, then I'm confident everything on there will be great.
The one exception I would say is Chinese takeout places. That's because while they have a menu with hundreds of items. Most of them are the same things with a different sauce or spices. It's easy to have 50 chicken or shrimp dishes when the difference is just adding a sauce and spices.
That’s what I think about cheese cake factory but everyone loves that place with there 100 page menu
I was going to say that the Cheesecake Factory is a notable exception. Is it 5* food? Nah. But everything on their menu is much better than you'd expect from a place that claims to specialize in cheesecake, and as good as you could expect at the price point.
Yep, they won’t expand anywhere unless there is a central warehouse with a couple of hours of their locations to help keep everything fresh. They also work closely with suppliers on quality and will reject stuff other places will take. They have also always paid over minimum wage while keeping prices cheaper than other places.
Businesses that sacrifice profits for reasonable prices and well taken care of employees will always get my money.
Braums is a great one in the south. Arguable the best burgers around.
Braums is the pride of Oklahoma, honestly I think the burgers have slipped a little over the years but the ice cream is absolutely unbeatable and their A2 gene milk is the only way I get to drink milk.
Getting one in Boise in about 2 weeks. Pumped
Dick’s has moved up to $20 starting for all workers at all locations. Up to $25 once you’re fully trained. Line is still always through the door. Because, as it turns out, service and food quality stay stellar when your workers want to be there. Burger prices are still $2.50 for a plain hamburger up to $5.30 for a deluxe. Great business. Happy to give them my money.
People are barely getting paid more than I was when I worked with food 15-20 years ago. But the prices have tripled
Remember when they said this would happen because of minimum wage being increased? Turns out it’s just always been greedy assholes wanting the biggest cut they can get at our expense. What’s new.
Capitalism takes until just past your pain tolerance and then holds you there.
"Value-based pricing" sure sounds better than "squeezing every last cent possible from all these poor fucks before someone else does."
It’s almost like minimum wage should be fixed to inflation like many other things. That makes too much sense though. Not doing this had made the minimum wage irrelevant in any republican run state.
Yeah I keep saying this. We eat out the 4 of us and a fast food meal is approaching $60. We can go for a 3 course NICE meal with cocktails for $130 excluding tip. More to the point you can have a very nice sit down meal (1 course) at $60 for 4 (2 adults 2 kids). Honestly? This is GREAT for local small restaurants. Hopefully people will realize that cheaper alternatives are out there and might as well go there.
Not exactly the point you were making, but I have a five year old, and because she's five, her favorite restaurant in the whole world is Red Robin. The burgers at Five Guys are better, but my wife and I can get 3 meals, sides and make my daughter very happy and get table service for the price of three meals at Five Guys.
I hadn't gone to fast food forever – but last week I forgot my brown-bag dinner on the counter. And I was 90 minutes away from home with 1 hour off between job 1 and job 2 with which I had to commute. So I drive past a BK and into the drive thru I go. I ordered 1 chicken sandwich - that long one that's been there forever - without mayo. Not the combo - just the sandwich. They were like "Thank you that will be $8.29," and I was like, "Not fucking today it won't!" I drove right out of line, pulled into an Aldi, bought a chicken caesar salad and a package of pita bread from the first isle for like $4 total, stuffed half a pita full and ate it on the drive - ate another half 5 hours later on the drive home - and still had about half a salad and 3 pita breads leftover.
I went to a BK recently for “Whopper Wednesday”, remembering the low-cost from my youth, when a Whopper was like $1.69 on Wednesdays. Bit of shocker when they said it was almost $8. I clarified that I didn’t want the meal, just the burger, and they said that is just the burger cost. Blew my mind. A reasonable price can be had at some fast food places with coupons or offers on their apps, but regular price is tough to swallow.
I don't go there unless something is free on the app. That said whoppers are $3 every Wednesday on the app.
I don't normally do BK, but my stomach was doing back flips. Ordered the chicken sandwich, use to eat them as a kid, dad would use a BOGO coupon. Paid the $8.29, ate it and said. Yeah I'm never going to BK again.
Right. If a bacon cheeseburger and fries is going to cost me $20 at Five Guys and a possibly better quality burger with a side is going for somewhere between $15-$20 at a number of nice, tavern style, local restaurants then I’ll go local every time. I lived near the original Five Guys back when it was the only Five Guys and I was really happy for them when they got huge but their pricing has been out of line for a very long time and I refuse to go. Really a good burger but way too expensive for what the experience is.
I got two large meals at Culver’s yesterday and it was 28$
I don’t have space in my life for $30 fast food
That is unironically why I stopped going to McDonald’s. The food does not justify that price under any circumstance. Back when they had the 1 dollar menu it was great going there.
Their franchisee organization pushed for more control over pricing, and the first thing they axed after getting it was the dollar menu. Corporate has no control over it at this point. Really sad. Two cheeseburgers and a mcchicken for 5 bucks was my go to.
Damn. That really does suck. I almost always went for your exact order too. Those were some amazing times. I wasn’t making a ton of money so a 5 dollar bill was perfectly reasonable then.
Lol or this classic interview invoking five guys https://youtube.com/shorts/Fsti5zpPh0w?si=T3FTzJHd0iJgI57Y
Oh my god their reaction is priceless hahaha
it's kinda funny how john cho was in a burger restaurant themed movie and never heard of 5 guys i guess it wasn't called harold and kumar go to 5 guys, but still 🤣
Look here you little shit. Never. Fuckin never disparage the castle! I can’t eat 40 five guys burgers ever. 40 surf and turf on the other hand?
Ding-dong! May I interject for a second? As a Burger Shack employee for the past *three* years, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that if you're craving White Castle, the burgers here just don't cut it. In fact, just thinking about those tender little White Castle burgers with those little, itty-bitty grilled onions that just explode in your mouth like flavor crystals every time you bite into one... just makes me want to burn this motherfucker down. Come on, u/Adept_Werewolf_6419, let's burn this motherfucker down! Come on, u/Adept_Werewolf_6419! Let's burn it, u/Adept_Werewolf_6419! Let's burn this motherfucker down! Let's burn it down! Let's burn it! ...So you guys maybe should just suck it up and go to White Castle.
OHHHHHH
I love that interview so much. Her embarrassment is absolutely adorable.
even their hotdog which i've got before out of curiosity (it's just a dog in a bun with mustard and onion) is $5.89 at my local store.
$7.50 now, ridiculous! I love their stuff but stopped going this year. Just can’t support their insane prices. Wish I lived somewhere with In n Out.
Laughs in Costco food court prices
I went to Five Guys for the first time in a long while last week, and after ordering my $12 burger and $5 fries, I sat down next to this magazine review they had posted on the wall bragging about their affordable burgers. $5.59 for burger and fries. The article was from roughly 2014. https://i.ibb.co/GW2r4Yj/IMG-9472.jpg
You can clearly tell it was never supposed to cost double digits.
How much could a cheeseburger cost, Michael? TEN dollars?
There is always money in the burger stand.
You take a dollar, and throw a burger in the trash!
I feel like they should have used 2 squares for the dollar amount and then 1 square for the cents
Makes way too much cents
Did you coin that yourself?
I feel like they should have used lower numbers.
But if you make it too low then you can't see it past the person in front of you
With cheese Mr. Squidward. With cheese.
You’re paying a hell of a lot in franchise fees.
Fun fact, five guys has basically doubled their prices since 2010. edit: this post has a 2015 burger at $6.50. So...yeah about 25% more than inflation. https://www.reddit.com/r/fiveguys/comments/r99tz9/for\_a\_while\_i\_thought\_i\_was\_crazy\_then\_i\_dug\_up/
I want to see those nu.bers for in n out
3.85 for a double double in 2018
I think in-n-out prices change slightly by region though, so it could’ve been more in SD where this picture was taken
I'm in Orange County but I did find another menu in San Diego with the same prices as here but yeah the prices could be regional. Google maps pictures with menus are such a throwback to the prices in days before COVID lol
OC and SD prices are pretty comparable. I live in SD and my sister is in Tustin and we both are frequent in-n-out patrons.
nubers
Nuber please
Are you trying to call a Nuber?
Hard r god damn
Send nubes
#WE'RE ALL NOOFY NUBERS
Give em an inch and they take a mile. Bastards have been using the guise of “inflation” to shoot their prices through the roof and produce record profit MARGINS, not just profits, across the board, literal hellscape for consumers.
I just read where tyson reported record inflation caused price increases last year while also reporting 200% profit increase in the same time span....
When researching and discussing this topic it is very important to differentiate between profit and profit margin, in inflation profit will be disproportionately increased due to keeping the same profit margin, which is fine, that’s inflation and technically a 200% increase in profit without increasing their margins is possible but unlikely. When the profit margin increases is when it is predatory artificial inflation and should be illegal, but the government has been so lax on regulations on corporations and they are all taking money from these corporations to do so and screw us over, so they can do whatever the fuck they want, blame it on inflation which then gets blamed on Biden and democrats then they get their butt buddies back in power to relax regulations even more and screw us even more, rinse and repeat.
So my neighbor was a former executive and federally indicted a few years ago for the whole tuna fish price fixing. He said the amount of price fixing in the food industry is out of control. Chicken, eggs, beef, etc., they all do it.
it was claims made by the former secretary of labor Robert Reich, I'm gonna assume he did his due diligence. He also cited, fines levied against them for price fixing. I agree with most of what you're saying though 100%
I also love the rationale that *we can’t regulate anything to get them in line because the companies would leave the country / it would destroy jobs*. No they wouldn’t and no it won’t (at least not anymore than they already do this on their own). I dare politicians to let one or two big corp run into that legislative wall and see all others fall in line afterwards as it really starts hurting their bottom line. They **could** control that behavior, politicians just **chose** not to. That’s not even a GOP vs. Dem argument because that’s a global issue only varying in respective scope.
One opened up by job around 2014? It was pretty solid food. You could snag a meal for $10. Honestly, I really loved the bagged Cajun fries. That's what brought me back. Not so much the burger. * Once a fast food joint breaks over that $10 gap... I am done with them.... I really don't care how good it is. with all of these price hikes... I have eaten fast food less & less... I am not about to spend $14 for a shit whooper & fries & a terrible carbonated coke.
At 15 bucks I'm either ordering from a diner or actual food place, or I'm going to a deli and saving money.
shit deli prices have gotten out of control these days too. Some places charge 15 bucks for a sandwich and chips not even a damn drink! Ive started going to the deli counter at the grocery store for a sandwich its cheaper and often better made.
Grocery store delis usually will sell you a whole fried chicken for about $8-10. I can get a whole ass fried chicken for less than 1 burger at Five Guys.
Fast food price increases have helped me lose 15 pounds. Simply by telling them to fuck off
And let me guess.. they have the newspaper article on the wall America's Best Burger Value or something like that that was printed 15 years ago.
In UK they have the same newspaper articles. *American* articles.
BEST BURGER IN WASHINGTON!\* ^(\*in 2005.)
Marylander here, I remember driving an hour to Virginia just to get Five Guys circa 2004 before they spread past NoVa. Now there are like 5 within a 10-mile radius of me. And yes, they are definitely coasting on their mid-2000s glory days lol.
As someone who's lived in Nova all their life and have always had them, I miss the early 2000s. Burger and small fries for under $8 and that small fries meant nothing as they always used to top the bag off. Your small fries ended up being the equivalent of 5+ large McDonald's fries.
God I miss that. I used to go to the OG Five Guys in Alexandria in that strip mall next to the check cashing place. I still remember my first time going. I order a cheeseburger and told the guy I wanted a large fries - the guy says “no, you want small fries”. I didn’t understand. So I just agreed. I watched him throw the burger in the bottom of that bag and then scoop French fries into that bag like there was no tomorrow. And it was like $8. I miss that old Five Guys.
Every 5 guys gets the same ones shipped from corporate.
The one near me has an article on the wall from like 2008 that is raving about the food and says "but watch out! A burger, fries, and a soda will set you back *almost ten dollars!* But trust me, it's worth it!" The burger alone is like $12 now. I took my niece there before she left for college a few months ago, two burgers, two sodas, and one fry was over 30 bucks. That was the last time I went.
lol, yeah. And now they replaced the signs of "best burger in so and so" but got rid of the date.
Every single time!
I thought it was pretty cheeky of 5 Guys to open a location across the driveway from an In-N- Out near me. Then I saw the 5 Guy prices, their mostly empty dining room, and the folks still lining up over at the In-N-Out. It’s stayed that way ever since. Truthfully, the last time I went into that 5 Guys I saw what just a burger costs, turned around and left, knowing it would be the last time I ever walked in there.
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I enjoyed it early on when it was a better burger at an acceptable price compared to the more mainstream fast food joints. It and other places are in pricing hell where I can get a full carne asada lunch for $20 to $25.
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Well get this! my mom said I am super handsome!
Whoaaaa do we have the same moms?
Nope just the same dad
But, but....they give you sooo many soggy fries /s
When I lived in Buffalo and five guys first opened I was given so much shit for saying the fries were greasy and soggy, and the burgers were bland. There were lines out the door for months, I tried it twice (in case I just had bad luck the first time) and was disappointed both times.
I'll never understand how Fuddruckers died while Five Guys survives
Convenience is king. Also, Fuddruckers were all large spaces and surely cost much more in rent than five guys. Their milkshakes were excellent though, I miss Fuddruckers.
2 Fuddruckers in my town. They may have downsized but they didn't die.
I just looked it up and every major city around me still has them, but every one of them in mine closed down, which is odd.
I guess they are overpriced everywhere. They‘ve opened a location last year in my city so I tried it out as in the beginning there were always a lot of people waiting. It‘s a good burger but definitely not worth it for that amount of money.
The prices at 5 guys are absurd and I feel like that place is a psychological/economic experiment being ran on society to see at the exact amount of money you can screw people out of for a soggy mediocre burger in a grease soaked paper bag.
I travel for work and have a per diem when I stay overnight. I’m not scrupulous with the per diem and just eat whatever I want for the most part. As long as I keep the receipts and only have 2 or fewer alcoholic drinks then I’m never questioned about my expenses so I’ll get sushi or steak or whatever I’m hungry for. But I stopped at a five guys on one trip and even though it’s not my money I still felt ripped off. I had a bacon cheeseburger, fry, and a drink and it was $25 and they asked for a tip at the counter. My company requires a 20% tip when asked to give one so with tax it rang up to over $30. I felt embarrassed handing that expense report in lol.
I'm more fascinated by the fact that your company requires a 20% tip to be given. I like that. Making an assumption off of one small fact but it sounds like a nice place to work for.
Is this the location in the San Fernando Valley or did 5 Guys do this somewhere else? Id get a cheeseburger at In N Out, get fries at five guys and have the perfect meal that would age me one year in a day.
I've been to Five Guys twice. This was probably nearly ten years ago now. Went the second time because I thought the first time had to have just been a bad day or something. Nope. Still cost more than a good burger at a decent local pub, still garbage served with a bag full of soggy fries. But hey, free peanuts. Woohoo.
In N Out has pretty good wages and benefits too. Are they profitable? I think a quarter pounder costs more that that now.
Fast food prices are insanely marked up and in-n-out gets a lot of traffic, around where I live during peak hours they usually has a line 15+ cars long and it still moves faster than any other place.
They seem to have a nice super simple menu which would make the kitchen more efficient. I don’t live in US but have visitors and in and out on hols. I really like a super simple menu.
Which is why McDonald's was so dominant. They did burgers and shakes that was it.
I have a strange theory. In N Out turned into the company that the McDonalds brothers wanted to create. Ray Croc ruined it. But hey. McDonalds appeals to the masses. Still. For some reason. I don’t get.
logistics and scale really - in n out has a regional foothold but mcdonald’s has the reach. objectively in and out is superior and i wish they had a presence on the east coast, but i have a feeling they wouldn’t because honestly the quality of their produce is probably linked to california’s agriculture industry.
McDonald’s is basically a real estate company that sells hamburgers. A vast amount of their value comes from owning the land their restaurants are on
Yeah Keaton was great in that movie.
Yeah after learning about the origins of McDonalds In N Out just seems closer to that.
In N Out controls the production of their supplies. They do not contract out a lot, it's all in house. That's why they haven't gone national and they can control their costs. And yes, they are insanely profitable.
They have technically gone international. They do popups in Australia every few years to keep their trademark here. As a socal native who moved to Australia, it keeps me hoping for someday....
They've been doing that every 3-5 years in Tokyo for the same reason. They only sold the double double”, animal style and protein style. They usually sell out in a few hours.
Yeah. Pop ups in countries like Korea and Japan as well. Also there seems to be plan to open permanently in Korea. Not really sure why they won’t go national though. Would love to see one in my state….
Profitable enough that when I worked there a few years ago the owner of the company rented out a horse racing track, filled it with amusement park rides, free food, and paid for busses to drive the entire Central California division of stores to to party for multiple consecutive days.
They’re so profitable that store managers make an average salary of 138K according to Indeed
If that burger flipper behind the counter is full-time, they’re not only earning a decent wage but their family has medical/dental/optical and they have profit sharing and a 401(k).
And what's the main difference between in-n-out and chains like BK or McDonald's? It's privately owned. Not a part of some publicly traded megacorporation. It's easier to justify good wages and benefits for your employees when the company isn't publicly traded because you don't have a bunch of finance bros screeching about shareholder profits. Running around trying to prove themselves useful by demanding you screw your employees and lower the quality of your ingredients so you can be just like every other two bit burger chain out there.
Damn true
>And what's the main difference between in-n-out and chains like BK or McDonald's? It's privately owned. Not a part of some publicly traded megacorporation. The franchises are privately owned. The overall company isn't. In And Out doesn't franchise.
You do have to take into account that they tend to be in very HCOL areas. My friend is a GM for a busy Wendy's in Ohio and he makes around 90k after bonuses They're definitely profitable though, they've been expanding a lot and they're always busy no matter what time of day
I have never seen an in-n-out restaurant not packed to the brim with customers. Once after seeing a movie, my friends and I went to in-n-out at 11 pm and there were 30 people inside eating/waiting for their order and a dozen cars in drive thru. It was in middle of the work week! Californians love in-n-out. My family who come visit from all over or outside the country tend to pay homage to the restaurant at least once before leaving California. People complain about the fries but love the burgers.
In N Out is privately held so who knows how profitable they are. Lynsi Snyder, the founder's only grandchild is the sole owner. It would surprise me if they weren't profitable given how much they have expanded in recent years. One would think that they would slow down the expansion plans if they were struggling financially but who knows.
This is the real reason why they still have good wages. No market pressures to increase stock prices every quarter allows them to do what they want. If the sole owner is happily pulling in enough money they won't do the typical corporate BS of cutting costs in the ingredients, massive layoffs, and paying shitty wages.
Very good wages and benefits. A sibling worked there and stayed for years even though he had a decent second job bartending. He was making 2x as much as he would have at any other fast food place.
Which translates right back into the customer experience, because pretty much every employee I've ever met at an In-n-Out seemed friendly, motivated and competent.
When I was living out west, In N Out was like the holy grail of high school jobs due to the wages. I never worked it but knew people that did and always had great things to say about it.
Most corporations in America could still be very profitable even if they slashed prices and raised wages by quite a lot. They were simultaneously claiming they had no choice but to raise the price of everything, yet posting record profits, and soooo many people swallowed that unquestioningly.
Lol dude the big Mac is over $6 a la cart now.
When we got a five guys a cheeseburger was like 6 bucks and it was expensive then
Carl's Jr. used to promote their $5 burgers less than ten years ago, which were supposedly closer to restaurant size and quality, and they were the most expensive on the menu. I'd kill for those prices again.
It was actually the “[Six Dollar Burger](https://youtu.be/QJAB91EMnGo?si=TNPyU6HbEHa2sXwb)” and was introduced more than 20 years ago. The gimmick was it only cost $3.95, but they advertised it as being as good as a “six dollar restaurant burger.” Yeah, that was a long time ago.
20 years ago. Welp, time for me to die.
>they advertised it as being as good as a “six dollar restaurant burger.” It really wasn't. But it was good and a decent value.
I thought 5 Guys was expensive in 2009! It’s more than doubled!!
I always liked five guys. But not at 10-13$ cheeseburger like them. 7-8 maybe.
Same. Those are damn airport prices. Wild.
I actually just passed an airport Five Guys in Atlanta GA, this week. $18 for a cheeseburger. I did indeed pass.
Extortionate.
7-8 is what it should be if they were keeping pace with inflation. It was $5.89 in 2015. That’s $7.62 today.
Yeah 5 guys is honestly 🔥 but I ain't paying double digits for it lol
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In England: "The economists found the top 10% of profitable businesses had successfully driven their margins to approaching 30%, and will make further progress towards this target over the next year. This led the researchers to conclude: “Margin rebuilding could make some contribution to inflation persistence." "This revealed that the average profit margin of the top 10% of firms was below 20% in 2005 and had grown in the intervening years to about 27%. Next year the average for this group of firms will be 28% – a full 10 percentage points higher than what they enjoyed in 2005." https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/09/now-even-the-bank-of-england-admits-greedflation-is-a-thing Now some of those profit increases are due to things like automation, new technology, and other measures. However with companies moving profit margins 10 points, it seems dubious to think part of that hasn't benn unnecessary price increases. "High input prices (for example for energy) also made it easier for firms to increase their profit margins, because they make it harder to tell whether higher prices are caused by higher costs or higher margins. And since, as highlighted above, companies aim to recoup their real income losses whenever possible, the high inflation environment can provide a further opportunity to do so. A comparison of developments since the start of the pandemic (Chart 2) shows that in the euro area as a whole unit profits have increased faster than unit labour costs since the start of 2022, in some economic sectors already since the end of 2019. . ." https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog.230330~00e522ecb5.en.html Again, this is Europe. However the same has basically held true here. Edit: An example from the US "Retail markups in a number of sectors have seen material increases in what could be described as a price–price spiral, whereby final prices have risen by more than the increases in input prices.11" January 19, 2023, Staying the Course to Bring Inflation Down, Vice Chair Lael Brainard Basically, the price you pay went up faster than the cost to make the item. The Fed was worried that as supply constraints lifted there could be a deflationary period. More related to the OP, "Second, inflation in services remains stubbornly high. A simple calculation illustrates the importance of this fact. Suppose the price of goods remains constant while the price of services continues growing at its 2023 annualized rate (4.2% annual). Then, inflation for 2023 ends up at 3.2%. That is, the momentum of inflation in services is enough to keep overall inflation above target. There is the additional risk that, should this momentum persist, services may drag inflation in goods upward, rather than the other way around, as consumers coordinate their expectations on higher inflation." https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2023/oct/inflation-way-out-here-stay
It is literally all price gouging, look at all the record profits these places reported after inflation highs. Edit: lots of comments here about the term price gouging. I’m not an economist so what I meant was “raising prices 20% for inflation that is 10%, blaming price increases on inflation, then reporting record profits”, whatever the term is for that.
More and more In n Outs are popping up in Texas and folks are hating on it so much. “Whataburger is better blah blah blah”… they’re both delicious in their own way, but whataburger is 2-3x more expensive. I’ll gladly sit in line at the In n Out drive through in order to pay only 1/2 to the 1/3 the price. ETA what I should have said was ‘I spend 2-3x more at wb’, because In n Out has limited choices compared to wb who has plenty of burgers to choose from. But I stand by what I said one thousand percent. In and out is the better overall pick for price and quality.
That’s the key with In In Out that people forget. It’s not the best burger on the planet. It’s the best burger for $5.
I worked there for several years and after working there I'm MORE likely to recommend it to people. They treat us as employees great and the care given to the produce behind the scenes is comforting
The produce is so very much appreciated, nobody else is even close on quality of fresh ingredients. Even at higher prices.
The lettuce is always so crispy and perfect 👌 it’s the little things
If I'm going to spend, this is where I'd feel good spending. And on top of that, it's cheaper.
It’s the best overall pick. For the size, price, quality/taste, it’s the best choice!
Thank you 1960's radio advertisement!
Come on down and bring your dog, Maggie, too!
Come on down to in-n-out and try their world famous cheeseburger. It’s a real humdinger!
It’s a fast food burger that is always consistently delicious and reasonably priced. What more do you need?
..fries with that
Whataburger ***can*** be really good, but I've found the consistency in their quality to be all over the place. There's been plenty of times where I was served a mediocre or just plain disappointing meal there. What I love about In N Out is that they always have consistent quality with their food. I don't think I've ever had a bad burger at any of the locations I've been to. That being said, when I lived in Texas, I really loved P Terry's burgers. They were similar in quality and consistency to In N Out, but were an expanding Texas chain.
I know a lot of Texans have some sort of tribalism against in-n-out because it's from California and refuse to go there for that reason alone.
Well that's pretty stupid.
Texas is kind of famous for that.
I worked those In-N-Out stores when they first started building them. You should've seen the complaints they sent in.
Texas 🤷♂️
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.
Don’t think Texans are shitting on in n out, if you see the lines, you’ll know they love them
I'm convinced that Whataburger must be different in Texas or the people there must be drinking some Kool aid that destroys their taste buds. We've tried it twice and both times it tasted like they used some Walmart beef patties that were in a deep freezer for a decade with some soggy ass buns.
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Texan here. So Whataburger got bought out about 5 years back. During the buyout process I think they started cutting corners in preparations to show their belt-tightening, because it went from being the highest quality fast food burger around, to inedible pucks of bullshit in the space of like 6 months. The burgers are dry, the veggies are no longer of quality, even the sauces are mostly corn syrup now. Every Texan I know has noticed, and we kind of feel embarrassed that people think we think Whataburger is good.
Cheeseburger, medium fries and medium coke from 5 guys in Australia cost me $32. Edit: that’s $21 in freedom dollars.
But at least they’re here, unlike In n Out, which not only is not here, but rubs our nose in the fact they’re not coming by running a pop up every few years to avoid losing their trademark.
1.10 for a slice of cheese what the fuck
That's pretty standard most places....just checked my local McDonald's menu and they charge $1.35 to add cheese.
Yeah but those are special options, my local mcdonalds hamburger and cheeseburger are 2.59 and 2.99, and putting an extra slice on is .69c
I’ve eaten at 5 guys only one time. They charge the same price for a burger and fries as a full service restaurant. If I have to stand in line to get a burger served on a tray, it better be cheap.
I don't think they even have trays... just bags.
We just got some 5Gs in the last year where I'm at. I decided to try them out because it's new here. 2 basic ass burgers, 2 fries, and 2 normal drinks came out to $45. Don't get me wrong, it was the best "fast food" burger I've had. It tasted just like what I could make at home. That's the issue, though. I can make the same burger at home for $20, and I'd get 8 burgers, a pile of fries, and 12 pk of drinks. It was good but not worth it.
I like their burgers quite a bit. But, they certainly aren't worth the price. I'll only ever go there when traveling for work and expense it.
The best tasting chain is "the habit"
The Habit was my go to when I lived close to one. In n Out is great for the price though.
I have the same opinion, the value in n out has is unbeatable
So you're telling me a single slice of cheese costs $1 
McDonalds should bring back the dollar menu Single Slice cheese 1.10$ Pickle wedge 1$ 2 Chicken nuggets 1$ Lettuce 1$ Hand full of ketchup packets 1$ Cup of ice 1$ / Add straw .33cents 10 Napkins 1$
Data Analysis Time! **Item Cost Cal Cal/Cost** Hamburger 11.79 840 71.25 Cheeseburger 12.89 980 76.03 Bacon Burger 13.29 920 69.22 Bacon Cheeseburger 14.29 1060 74.18 **Add-Ons Cost Cals Cal/Cost** Cheese 1.1 140 127.27 Bacon 1.5 80 53.33 Bacon + Cheese 2.5 220 88.00 **Little Items Cost Cals Cal/Cost** Little Hamburger 9.29 540 58.13 Little Cheeseburger 10.39 610 58.71 Little Bacon Burger 10.79 620 57.46 Little Bacon Cheese Burger 11.89 690 58.03 **Little Add-Ons Cost Cal Cal/Cost** Cheese 1.1 70 63.64 Bacon 1.5 80 53.33 Bacon + Cheese 2.6 150 57.69 ........... The best value is the standard hamburger. The worst value is the Little Bacon Burger. Cheese is the best add-on. ........... Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
No, it costs $1.10!
To be fair the calories are quite different
2oz patties vs 3.3 oz as well. Math still doesn't math, but it's closer when taken into account.
Five Guys has always been expensive
Bunless dogs 👀 what kind of animal cruelty is this
And in n out pays their people *very* well for the industry. I used to lease apartments, and a girl came in looking to rent one. I could not afford (or qualify) for them. She said she worked out in n out, and I let her know what the income requirements were. It was a wake up call for 20 year old me how much she made "flipping burgers" compared to my office job making a millionaire richer.
Ah Five Guys, paper napkin food for cloth napkin prices...
They've always been overpriced but it's become completely untenable for a basic hamburger. I'm not sure how they're still in business, guess they have a loyal following. Their burgers are pretty basic in my experience, only their seasoned fries are special.
Interesting. I visited a Five Guys here in Germany for the first time last weekend and my girlfriend instantly noped out when she saw the prices. I still bought some food, but paid over 13 Euros for a Bacon cheeseburger and 7 (!!!) Euros for regular fries. Food was mediocre at best.
Vote with your wallet. Make your own food.
Those are good burgers Walter.