In the long-ago mists of the 00s, Hardee's advertised a "Six Dollar Burger" that was actually only $3.95 because six dollars for a fast food burger was obviously silly.

The local joints around me you can get a big burger, a big glass of beer, and a big side of fries for $15, maybe $20 tops. Whoever is buying just the burger for $25 is getting ripped off.

Honestly I don’t give a fuck if it’s real meat. As a vegan it pisses me off when these motherfuckers try to charge more for not supporting animal abuse.

Burger parts cost ~$2 at the grocery store.

Don't spend $25 for a burger.

I read this post after ordering my trusty $9.98 double burger with fries at In-N-Out. I pray for the survival of this franchise.

Sometimes I forget people still go out to eat.

i basically stopped going out to eat like a few years ago. i used to go to restaurants basically daily when it was like 6€ for a full, filling lunch. that was the good stuff.

now it's like 8€ for a tiny sandwich and if you go to a "proper restaurant", you easily pay 16€ just for the main course, then add drinks, etc. it's just not worth it.

meanwhile if i eat at home, it's basically never over 10€/day for all the day's food. just mix potato salad with tuna and call it dinner, that's what i do :)

The $20 burger was once very recently referred to as the $10 burger. Outrageous pricing reguardless

I make vegan burgers for like 6 bucks the price gouging is insane

After we were required to start working on office a couple years ago, I decided to explore the area for a while, trying new potential lunch places. I found this little out of the way craft burger place with something like "2023 best burger in the city award winner" painted on their fence.

I thought, "Sweet, this ought to be a pretty good burger". I sat down, checked out the menu, ordered a burger that sounded good (something simple) along with some fries and a water. Didn't look at the price while browsing the menu because... it's a small burger place. Even if it won an award a few years ago, how much could it cost? By the time I even thought to consider it, I'd already ordered and the menu was gone, so I wouldn't find out until the check came.

I figured 15 dollars for a nice craft burger wouldn't be an unreasonable expectation. I could even see around 20, since we are in the burbs of a metro area, which tends to make things a bit more expensive, though this didn't seem like an expensive joint... Turns out it was 28 dollars and change after tax. I about choked when I saw the total. And this was before beef prices went crazy the last year or so.

The burger was good. It was not 28 dollars good. I haven't been back since. I've also heard similar stories from coworkers "Good, but not good enough for the price". Whoever is keeping them in business is getting fleeced. There's no way that that burger and fries cost them more than $5.00 in ingredients, tops. That's a hefty ass margin.

My salary minus rent and cost of living leaves me with about 5 eur/hour. Fast food that costs me 2+ hours? No thanks.

Where is that normal, though?

And yet it's still weirdly expensive at home. I remember when a pound of ground beef was a couple bucks, tops. Now I've seen it as high as $9, albeit the lean kind.

What's a $5 shake taste like?