I’d probably consider it for a place like Subway. They’re ubiquitous enough, have just enough variety and have healthy enough options that I could eat there daily and not get too bored/fat. One meal there per day for 5 years would cost a minimum of $11,000. Assuming I had the cash on hand I would probably pay $11k for unlimited lifetime meals.
What happens if they go out of business?
I would hate it! I hate being recognized at restaurants as it is, and as soon as I am, I will go somewhere else for a while. And what if they change their chef? And the food starts sucking? Or they go out of business?
Does the deal include anything and everything on the menu, and all I can eat at each meal?
I’d take a lifetime of free meals at McDonald’s. They are not going out of business, they are ubiquitous, they have food I like for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I already eat there regularly.
I would actually prefer Burger King but there’s not one as close to my house as McD’s 
Not sure how much I’d pay, though. Currently I only go there like once every two weeks and spend about $5. So maybe $125/year. I’ll expect to live another 40 years with those eating habits So maybe I’d pay $4000?
And you’re damned right I would keep track of how much I use it to make sure I get over $4000 worth of stuff!
I eat too much fast food already, so I don’t need that incentive.
It would have to be a national chain in case I move some day, and someplace I would reasonably want to eat at pretty often, forever.
I would have to be confident that they wouldn’t go out of business in 5 or 10 or 15 years.
That’s a very narrow list.
Of course, it would depend on the price. I’m 47. Would I get a lower price than my 11 year old son? If we both live to 90, his pass is worth about twice as much as mine.
I almost mentioned the same thing. I greatly prefer Burger King, but there are about 10 times as many McDonald’s in a five-mile radius from my house as there are Burger Kings, and if I’m going to buy a basically all-you-can-eat pass, I want to be lazy about it, dammit!
I don’t eat out much at all; when I do, it’s at local restaurants; local restaurants live longer than mayflies, but not that much longer.
But I’d still do it. I’d just do it for an insultingly low figure, say $100.
If we were talking Whoppers and Croissanwiches, BK fries and Diet Dr Peppers…I think I would up my bid to $8k 
I east out so very, very rarely. It’d be something like $20 for McD’s shake and fries. Paying real money would be a complete and total waste.
I’d choose either Subway, McDonald’s, or KFC. (I live in the UK.)
The former, I’d pay about £500. The second one, £250. And the latter, £750.
Though having said that I don’t eat too much fast food, but at the prices above, it’d be worthwhile.
Margery Allingham had a Mr. Campion short story in which this basically happened. It was called The Hat Trick.
I looked for a synopsis online, but couldn’t find one. IIRC a man had been offered the opportunity to buy a hat token which would enable him and a party of guests to eat at a fancy restaurant whenever he wanted for free. This had to be purchased through a certain gentleman because they had a limited number of tokens available and they couldn’t sell them to just anybody.
Of course, it turned out to be a scam. The man purportedly selling the token had deposited a sum of money at the restaurant with the understanding that anyone who showed the hat token would have their bill charged against the deposit. Of course, the deposit the man made was a small fraction of what he was charging for the token.
This, exactly! Some people in this thread have mentioned restaurant chains going bankrupt, but I’d be equally concerned about the restaurant reneging on the deal if it turned out to be a money-loser for them.
The OP’s scenario reminds me of the lifetime passes that American Airlines offered in the 80s and 90s. This turned out to be a bad business decision for AA, and they started treating the pass holders more like crooks than VIPs.
“Oh, you’ve got one of our lifetime food passes? Sorry, all you can buy with that is the mac-and-cheese from the kids menu. New corporate policy. What, you want a steak? Are you trying to bankrupt us, you greedy, ungrateful fuck?!?”
It would be tempting but I would probably not participate. The main reason being that I tend to exploit these kinds of opportunities and would eat out far too often. If I did my weight would be impossible to maintain and it’s high enough already.
But for the sake of speculation, I’m a breakfast person and a local place in town is exceptional. I would propose a modification to the offer that stipulated one meal per week instead of three per day. If agreeable, I would pony up $3200 ($16 x 40 weeks x 5 years) for a lifetime.
After five years I’m finally on the plus side. But I also think the place would be out of business before then, making me an idiot for accepting in the first place.
BTW: I thought this an interesting speculative question.
They’d have to assume you’d not actually eat 3 meals a day for the remainder of your life, otherwise any price that would actually pay for that would be astronomically expensive. They’d probably have to assume you’d eat a small fraction of your total meals on this scheme.
Let’s say the average “lifetime” for this program would be 35 years. That’s 12,775 days, or 38,325 meals.
If you assume each meal costs the restaurant $15 on average, then you’re looking at 574,875 worth of meals.
Nowif you look at that as an annuity (let’s say a bi-weekly payout one), that earns 6% and has 3% inflation, and pays out $630 every 2 weeks (42 meals @ $15 each), you’re still looking at a principal value of $244,255 if it pays out for 35 years, just to cover costs, without even making profit.
I don’t know many people who’d be willing to fork over nearly 250,000 bucks for lifetime meals at restaurants versus just paying as they go, and that would be for the restaurant to break even.
Yeah, the question actually came to me from that end, Bump - I was wondering what a restaurant could charge for such a thing (and my thinking and logic was about the same as yours - look at the initial payment as an annuity with the assumption that the person would eat ALL their meals there first, then do the math).
Then I thought about it from the other end - what would people pay for such a thing? Would they? And for what restaurant?
I think you could buy a lifetime Food annuity (Foonuity?), but it would be so prohibitively expensive that it would be one of those things you hear rich people do - like spend a quarter-million to fly in space for a few hours, stuff like that. So, Commander’s Palace could probably do such a thing, but Chili’s could not - no buyers.
I will say I’m excited about the ideas thrown about - “lunch passes”, “2-year plans”, things like that. It would be interesting to see the market reaction if a restaurant could properly price such a thing.
I have made these feasible for the restaurant fiscally.
- Fast food (McD’s, Chipotle, Wendy’s) - 1 meal daily
QDoba - $2750 (I’d have to move back to Boston though…) - Dine-in (Chili’s, Egg & I, Longhorn’s) - 1 meal per week
Outback - $2000 - Fine Dining (Morton’s, Commander’s Palace, local restaurant) - 1 meal per week
Oyster Club + Tree House/Engine Room (same owners) - $5000 (Peter Luger’s if it could be anywhere) - Specialty (Vegan, Pizza, Ethnic) - 1 meal per week
Some sushi place - $2000
You can take a look at what the Olive Garden charged for their unlimited pasta pass: $100 per person for a seven-week period.
Bet the waitstaff loves this promotion. For seven weeks some dude waddles in every day, eats as much as he can, then tips twenty percent of free.