I read some article about how subway franchise owners HATED $5 footlong because it was making them go broke. You could tell if you went in there by how aggressively they pushed the cookie on you.
Just the sandwich? You don’t want a cookie? Come on buy a cookie! How about a soda?
My subway was generous, and wrapped up a piece of their food safety glove with my sandwich. They wouldn’t refund me, so I decided to be generous as well, and not ever go back to any locations.
Poor guy’s so broke that he ran out of money for color.
And a final panel!
And the last one isn’t even full size. Is there nothing shrinkflation won’t take from us?
If you’re tight on cash and getting fast food, I have doubts about how tight on cash you actually are
If you run out of people to judge, remember: you can always judge the destitute!
Damn straight. I could feed myself for a day on $5 easy.
I could even stretch it to a weeks worth of meals, if shoplifting is allowed.
If shoplifting is allowed, you could go indefinitely…
Cooking unfortunately isn’t really taught anymore. As someone who graduated and knew nothing about how to even do basic cooking, like didn’t know how to make pasta basic, I was basically in that spot. Luckily I found cooking videos and learned, but right after school it was a hard few years. If it wasn’t peanut butter, top ramen, or Mac and cheese I didn’t know how to make it - and it was incredibly intimidating
I know how to cook, but it’s hard with 2 kids, and we both work A LOT all week. Weekends we are almost always busy as well, so meal prep and cooking most days is hard. I try to do simple stuff, but it’s hard, and I know I can’t be the only one. Plus, I consider this guy lucky since let me check my bank account right now, and oh, it’s currently negative $300 until next friday… life is super hard these days, do what you can…
Cooking videos are probably the most prolific type on the internet after cat videos. But even then, peanut butter, ramen, or mac and cheese would be a lot smarter than spending your last fiver on a single sandwich.
You forgot about porn
I did mention cat / pussy videos :P
Also, it’s really hard to cook for one. I end up spending as much on food that goes bad before I can eat it as it would have cost me to get a $5 value meal.
It primarily requires planning your meals ahead. If you don’t mind left overs it’s even easier. If you eat meat, properly portioning it and freezing the excess simplifies it. Planning multiple meals a week that use the same or similar ingredients saves a bunch and prevents waste.
Agreed. Amortized it much cheaper but when you have an empty kitchen with only a box of macaroni and cheese, getting groceries can feel very expensive.
There are cheap, single serving meals, such as:
- baked potato - extra lazy version is 6 min in the microwave, add toppings
- oatmeal - overnight oats, microwave (3 min, water shouldn’t quite cover oats), etc
- sandwiches - lots of options; freeze extra bread and cheese
- eggs - scrambled, fried, boiled; eggs last weeks
I got through college cooking stuff like this. It was cheap, quick to make small portions, and didn’t require many seasonings. I lived on sleek something like $45-50/month, which covered the vast majority of my meals.
I made apple pie from scratch last weekend for the first time. Best feeling ever.
I was taught cooking in school, graduated in 2014 is that far too long for your “taught anymore”?
I graduated in 2009 and my school didn’t teach us
I graduated over a decade before and was not taught cooking in school.
They usually have a coupon code for $7.99 for any footlong, which isn’t too bad.
Buy bread and deli meat. In fact, rice & beans.
We have gotten on those cook at home flour tortillas and refried beans. Great meal.
They could just go to Little Caesar’s! Oh wait.
Et tu?
You’re right; if I were ever to try to compete with Little Caesar’s, I would name my facility Big Brutus.
As a Little Caesars fan who ordered $5 pizzas all the way up to 2021…
This was my wakeup call when everything got expensive.
$5.99 where I’m at. You’re getting gouged.
They’re franchised and every single one in a 50 mile radius is this priced.
But also, everything is just way more expensive in my city. $15-20 for a lunch is average.
$9.79 here in CA.
Wow. I didn’t realize they had online ordering. The times, they are a-changing.
We went to Little Caesars for the first time in 5 years, and it ended up being more than Dominos, took longer, and wasn’t as good. Little Caesars used to suck but was cheap, now it just sucks.
So just Tiny Caesar’s this month?
I recently went on vacation and experienced this for the first time,
I have never personally done it myself, but when I was in Florida one of my friends would do it every time they entered an establishment they would buy a drink they would drink the drink during the time there and then on their way out they would refill it on the soda fountain. Asked them about it and the response was that they found the establishments that have the soda fountain able to be used by customers generally seemed to have a free refill policy.
I have never heard of that, it’s not a thing in my state, and I don’t think they actually do, but nonetheless I never saw her get stopped by any employee for doing it, and just by sitting at the table eating I could see that it definitely was not just her doing it.
You’re actually the odd one out here. Free refills are nearly universal across the US
Places that limit free refills only say that because people try to abuse the system and load up a gallon container.
Those places, channel your inner boomer and feigning ignorance if you’re caught.
Same, every place I would assume so if it was self service. The syrup is like, 7 cents for a large drink anyway, it’s not like they’re going bankrupt if everyone gets a refill on a drink they paid > $1 for
I’m seeing that apparently but yeah, I’m up in Maine close to the border, almost every establishment that has those machines generally also have a sign that says no refill and I really can’t think of any place here that advertises refills as free outside of coffee at dine in establishments.
For sit down restaurants, that’s truly bizarre. Why would I pay $3.50 for a small glass of soda that’s half full of ice unless I’m going to pound 3 of them?
it’s 3.50 for a small where you are? holy cow, it’s roughly like $1 or $2 here for a normal tall glass. The only place that’s really up there in price for soft drinks are fast food establishments like McD which have around 3$ for a large.
Sorry for the confusion, I was referring to restaurants with table service, where you buy the 1 size of soda and it comes in a glass. The small part was my personal judgement. But yeah, Seattle’s expensive.
I have no clue what state you could be from where soda fountains in the dining room aren’t free refills.
I’m from VA and lived in a few different states. I’ve work in fast food. The syrup and carbonated water combo is cheap. The cup is more expensive. Most restaurants would pay the few cents and keep the customer coming back. I always used to refill my soda when I left places. I’ve been cutting back on soda, so I don’t do that anymore.
The ‘trick’ the fast food workers are supposed to look out for is the customer asking for a cup for water and then filling it with soda. Most cashiers don’t care enough to track you though.
Every place I’ve been to with a self serve soda fountain across the US has done free refills. Even a lot of places with the fountain behind the counter did free refills if you asked.
Pretty common in my state for refills to be free. I’ve even seen claims that the cup is more expensive than the soda in it to the company.
That won’t even cover the Doordash charge.
I don’t understand why people use doordash or food delivery.
Especially people with limited funds.
Me neither. My daughter’s prior bf had $200 in the bank and ordered Wendy’s from doordash. There’s a strong treat-yoself mentality that says everybody deserves a little luxury and makes it practically immoral to be frugal or contradict the “healthy food is too expensive” gospel etc.
Just when I’m drunk
You can’t keep a couple of cans of stew in the house?
Stew doesn’t hit like pizza when I’m drunk
I understand it for disabled people and I understand it for very busy people such as families with young kids but I don’t understand the majority of people who use it. Just go get it…
As someone with a family with young kids, it makes even less sense. Kids will order chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, or hotdogs or something, which are expensive at restaurants (>$5 usually), cheap at home (like $2), and easy to make (~10 min)
It literally takes longer to order than to cook IMO. For each of those meals, here’s the process:
- Prep for cooking - about the same time as entering an order, less if kids get to pick drinks and sides
- Wait
- Finish (add sauce, mix, etc) - about the same as unpacking and distributing the doordash stuff
And it costs less than half as much. We keep easy meals in the freezer if it has been one of those days and we need food to be ready in 15-20 min. I made orange chicken tonight, and with cooking rice in the rice cooker, active time was 5 min (wash rice, preheat oven, prep cooking sheet), and we had food about 25 min after starting. Total cost to feed 3 kids and 1 adult (SO was out) was ~$10. If I ordered the same thing, it would’ve been $30 if I picked up or $40-50 delivered. Oh, and no fighting about sodas, we just had water.
If I’m not at work I’m drunk and I’m not driving to pick up food drunk.
Maybe work on the drunk part? Or at least work > pick up food > get drunk?
My ex did, and was of limited funds. I think the answer is depression, apathy, and a good dose of financial illiteracy.
Definitely financial illiteracy.
I can afford it but refuse to use those services. They inflate the menu prices, add fees. I’m ok with tipping but not the rest of that.
Also, it’s ridiculously inefficient compared to picking it up yourself. It’s not just someone else is doing the drive for you. The delivery does work for the store so there is extra driving occurring, deadheading in trucker parlance.
I can afford it but refuse to use those services. They inflate the menu prices, add fees. I’m ok with tipping but not the rest of that.
Same!
I grew up poor and had to stretch every dollar. I’m a highly paid engineer now and I still look at a $10 delivery fee with disgust.
And do people not realize that on Doordash, they charge $1-3 more per item? So your $12 pho bowl is $15 on Doordash.
Price discrimination ,how they treat their contractors, and contractors eating your food, fuck that noise.
Especially when most restaurants I’d order from are like 1-2 miles away. It’s worth it to me to drive 15 min roundtrip to save $10-15 and be able to check my order.
Going to the restaurant and back is the same distance for you as it is for the driver going from the restaurant and back.
That only applies if they live at your house, and only deliver to you for thier entire shift, otherwise they have dead space to cover as part of being able to do delivery between other customers, restaurants and going home. That makes it not the same.
Are you saying it is inefficient because the delivery driver has to drive from the restaurant to your house with food and then back to the restaurant without food? Because delivery drivers usually take more than one order or at a time.
That’s going to depend on the location. I do not live in a heavily populated area so they are usually delivering one order at a time. The only time there was enough volume to stack orders was during Covid.
