Not so where I live. There are casual diners where a sit down meal is $10. I visited the mom & pop diner in my hometown last week. The most expensive 1/2 lb burger (swiss + mushroom) was $11, up maybe a dollar from last year. Comes with one side. The 1/4 lb is a dollar cheaper. You can get a club sandwich for $10. These are pre-tip and not including drinks, though. Prices are comparable where I’m living now. For example one diner has regular burgers for $8.95 including fries, or $10.95 for the most expensive (swiss & mushroom, bacon & cheese, black & bleu). $13.50 for the double cheeseburger. All in all if you aren’t using the app for deals, fast food here is roughly the same price - a lone Big Mac (no meal) being $6.49 and a meal being $11.89, double quarter pounder being $8.49 or as a meal at $12.79. Normal quarter pounder meal $1 cheaper.
So comparing quarter pounders, I get
$11.79 for McDonalds quarter pounder with cheese, fries, drink. Comes to $12.62 after tax.
$8.95 for 1/4 lb diner burger, fries, water. $2.25 for ice tea. Comes to roughly $14.50 after tax and tip.
The chain said in an April press release that it was adding a new burger — which it described as having “twice the beef of a Big Mac and flavors fast food lovers will recognize” — to its ‘3 for me’ value menu. For $10.99, customers get the burger plus an app and a drink.
But it might not be that easy. Getting people to go to Chili’s instead of McDonald’s may be a stretch, said David Henkes, a senior principal at Technomic, a food industry research and consulting firm.
One problem for chains like Chili’s and Applebee’s is that they’re not so much competing on price, as they are on time.
But it’s the last line I quoted that I think is the center piece to the arguments to this thread. I think the consensus is that you can absolutely get better food, and still at a price point that is fully comparable to McD’s - but real or imagined, the difference is TIME. If you’re ordering ahead/on the app, and all you have to do is swing in and pick it up, then that’s a lot of the value - certainly I don’t think a lot of people are going to McD for the culinary experience!
Granted, these days most casual dining places have a spot where you can order ahead and do carry out, but those are often subject to errors and work arounds that fast food places have had decades to iron out.
And given the average age of board members, we’re probably not representative of a full cross section of the current American population.
Still… yeah, from the reporting on McD’s $5 plan, the super sandwich plan and others, it seems that McD has realized they’ve made themselves vulnerable, and hopefully it’ll rebound to the customers favor.
I’m still not eating there unless it’s under food limited circumstances like travel, and even then it’s extremely unlikely.
Although as a laugh, McD’s could take over Musk’s abandoned ideas of a food chain associated with chargers! They’ve got the parking lots that are increasingly unused as people do so little dine-in, and the $$$ to seriously fund a charging network of their own. And it would be a way to increase sales and value add over the competition…
Consumer confusion is the real issue for me. I went to a burger drive through the other day, when the voice told me to pull forward and it would be $18.23, I just didn’t stop. I drove past the window and went to an local Chinese place. They can charge what they want but I don’t want to be stuck in the middle of it.
We make good money but there are weird opportunities out there that have great value. We’re flying to Paris this summer, each round trip ticket is roughly 30 McDonalds meals. Value is hard to keep track of. My wife an I can split one entree at Applebee’s with a side salad or a happy hour app. I put a picnic bag in my car for grocery store dinners. We buy a cooked chicken and a bag of salad for $10-12 and feed a family of 4.
Is anybody offering a similar alternative to Wendy’s pick 5,6,7? Why does that work for them? I can feed my family for under $30 or over $60 at different fast food restaurants a block apart, getting similar food? That can’t be wage or commodity price related?