Visiting Japan this last summer, I was shocked at how much cheaper basic meals were.
Even if you used a 1 USD = 100 JPY exchange rate instead of the real one, I could get nicer breakfasts than McDonald's for much cheaper somewhere like Sukiya, and they're open 24/7 to boot! Fully open, not just a drive through sometimes like in the states. Ordering experience was great too, they have these tablets where you can switch the language to English so it's easy.
Anyway, it kinda feels like McDonald's in the US isn't actually that cheap anymore? When I order breakfast there sometimes, it always feels like the food is kind of pricey considering they're just keeping it warm or warming up premade food.
> Anyway, it kinda feels like McDonald's in the US isn't actually that cheap anymore? When I order breakfast there sometimes, it always feels like the food is kind of pricey considering they're just keeping it warm or warming up premade food.
US McDonalds has extreme price discrimination akin to what you see with grocery store memberships like Ralphs where they have a "regular" price that almost no one is expected to pay because everyone has a free membership that just requires your (or Jenny's) phone number . If you download their app, it has a bunch of coupons that lower the price of (almost) the entire menu.
Now prices have gone up, but if you use the app you basically always get either free medium fries (normally $4), buy-one-get-one-free for a Big Mac or QPC, or a few other promos, or accumulated points (that basically give you 10% off everything in the long run).
Generally speaking I'll pay $8 for a meal that would be $12 otherwise, basically every single time.
(Not to mention that you also skip the line, and if you use the app a few minutes before you arrive, your food will be waiting for you when you do.)
And here I’ve been paying for my fries like a sucker. I’m hesitant to call this information “helpful” as it’ll increase my consumption of French fries, but I appreciate it nonetheless.
Maybe it depends on the McDonald's franchisee in your area, I never see free fries in the app but it's always "any size fries for $1.29" (which is still massively cheaper than their normal price).
Yep, it’s region and even sub-region specific. Sometimes different McD near me (a couple of miles apart) have different deals.
Where I live the one closest always has a BOGO breakfast sandwich while the one closer to my parents (3hrs away) will do a “buy one, get $1 off another”.
It’s crazy how much cheaper things are when using the apps for fast food places. I regularly save $3-5 using some $1-item/BOGO/%-off type of coupon.
Yeah I think the promos are very region dependent. I've never seen that one, for instance. Yours is worse for a medium, but way better because it lets you save money on a large!
Yeah. I was once driving home to Minnesota from Wisconsin. I was getting gas, opened to app, looked at the deals, and decided I’d rather eat later. Once I was in Minnesota a lot of them changed.
I shuddered when the (Canadian) iPhone app insisted that it was allowed to run as a background process and that precise geolocation was on. GFYS was my second reaction.
Precise geolocation is used to pick the nearest McDonald's. You need precise in urban areas where there might be multiple locations only a few blocks away.
I don't know why you would have given it always-on (background) location permission. iPhones don't ever grant that by default, you always have to opt in. Nor does the app require it -- when it asks the first time you run the app, just pick "only while using the app". Or turn it off in Location settings if you picked the wrong setting initially.
Even if you choose "only while using the app", the app can work around that if it's registered as a navigation app. I've seen the "[app] is actively using your location" message in the statusbar when using both the uber and mcdonalds app, despite only granting the "only while using the app" permission. Also the mcdonalds app requires precise location access to see any of the offers/promos.
> I've seen the "[app] is actively using your location" message in the statusbar
Sure, but that's intentional and incredibly obvious in the status bar. It tracks your location between when you place an order and when you're close to the restaurant so that you can confirm for them to start the order.
It's not like it keeps tracking you for hours or days afterwards or anything. Same as Uber -- it turns off after your ride is done. The status bar message disappears.
Point is, the app doesn't seem designed to harvest location data. If you pick up an order at the restaurant, they know you were there anyways. Your phone isn't telling them something they don't already know.
It does actually. The McDonalds app "accidentally" forgets to check when you've picked up your order and keeps tracking you until you go into the app, then it'll check and realize you picked it up and stop tracking you.
It can also be used as an alibi, so if you go kill your ex wife, make sure you have location tracking turned on, and give your phone to someone else to be in another place.
The proof obligation is (correctly) vastly higher in one direction than the other in a US criminal trial.
A defendant using it to create reasonable doubt is a win for the defense. A prosecutor who is only able to cast doubt on it is not a win for the prosecution.
It's evidence. What it means is up to interpretation, but I doubt it would be blocked entirely. It would be up to the prosecutor to challenge the assumption that you and your phone are in the same place, or that there was some other flaw in the data.
When using that workaround the Dynamic Island will show that the app is using navigation. It's a prominent UI indicator impossible to miss. Much more obvious than the small location icon next to the clock.
For such apps I prefer to manually terminate them when not using, instead of merely moving them to the background.
I didn't realize 2GB plans were still common. I'm paying $15 a month for 5 (U.S., in New England), and figured people who paid real money for their plans had enough that one app wouldn't matter.
But then McDonald's also has free WiFi, so does it matter?
To save a few dollars you installed an app that will gather as much data as possible, selling your info to big data providers but we're only worried about Google.
Gasp! Maybe I'll be forced to see an ad somewhere too .. or worse, they'll use this info about me visiting McDonald's to profile me and my kind, and we'll suffer endless harassment and persecution
I hate to tell you, but they already know your location because they know you picked up your food at that McDonald's. They don't need the app for that.
The app isn't tracking your location except between ordering your food and picking it up. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, your Location privacy settings in iOS ensure that.
Location tracking, sharing other apps installed, photos, contacts and aggregating that data to larger providers to be used for rtb adnetworks is the main reason. Doubt you will get persecuted but I also doubt you would publicly share your photo photos.
I always use the app to order because of all the deals. I damned near lived off the free shit from the McDonald's app last year.
One issue is that this system (that many places now use) of only giving you the best prices on the app vastly discriminates against many poor and/or homeless people who often neither have a debit card nor a phone (or no data).
Weird. Here in Europe the prices are the same everywhere in the same country and they don't really do coupons.
They also have the excellent "menu4you" meal here in Spain that gets you a double cheeseburger (basically a big Mac) medium meal for 4,50€. Previously it was even 4€.
They are really trying to promote their app with free goodies though. I tried to install it but it refused to work because I didn't install it through the play store. I don't use a Google account so I use aurora store to install apps. I do have the basic Google play services installed for eg push messages, i just don't use a Google account to minimise tracking.
For some reason the McDonald's app is the single one I have tried that complains about it. Not sure what their issue is with that.
I use McDonald's if I need a known quality food quick. Not great quality but consistent. And I actually like their breakfast muffins once in a while.
McD apps for both Germany and Switzerland feature coupons. In Switzerland, physical coupons show up in my postbox.
For whatever reason the coupons very seldom work for my meal preferences so I don't bother with them.
In Spain the main reason I've gone to McDs is for the cheap affogato in summer.
I often end up in an McD off the Autobahn due to a long road trip I take regularly. Reviews matter. McDs are not consistently run. Many stockpile and serve stale fries, and the attention to detail on burger assembly varies wildly.
I eat at US McDonald's frequently. It's easy to observe how many people use their app, place mobile orders, or have a code to use at the ordering kiosks, and that percentage is quite small.
That's the whole point. Customers who are price-sensitive do use the app to order, while people with money to spare don't bother.
That's why McDonald's does it. It's the same thing grocery stores have always done with coupons in the weekly flyer -- customers who are price-sensitive cut them out and use them, while people with money to spare don't bother. Or with clothing sales -- people who want the trendiest clothes at the start of the season buy them full-price, while people who wait until the end of the season get them at a steep discount.
>That's the whole point. Customers who are price-sensitive do use the app to order, while people with money to spare don't bother.
That's the whole point. Customers willing to sell their privacy for the lower prices use the app to order, while people unwilling to sell their privacy are subject to 'privacy tax'.
The app isn't giving away much privacy information that your credit card isn't.
Yeah, they know my name and what I ordered at each location. I'm OK with that.
You can also use a throwaway email address to sign up and use the app to order, get the discounts, but pay in cash when you arrive. If you're determined to keep your identity secret from McDonald's.
They don't staff the counter anymore so you order from a kiosk, and if I'm ordering from a computer anyway, I might as well use an app on my phone, and then I can do it from my car in the parking lot instead of going in. I'd love to hear from McDonald's how many orders are via the app vs the kiosk vs drive thru.
The app isn’t very good. They don’t start preparing your order until you arrive in store, and it just seems like so many steps compared to the Starbucks app where you just say, I want it now and it gives you the estimated time it will be ready. Apps that allow for ASAP are easier to use.
It depends on the market. I worked at the East Palo Alto McD while I was getting back on my feet a few years back and we had hours where 60-70% of the orders used the app in some way. I’d say probably 35-40% of our customers used the app; of regulars, more than 50%.
I was JUST looking at that location because it's about the closest to me. I'm between EPA, University Ave, Menlo Park, and Stanford locations: 6.59, 6.69, 6.09. Meanwhile, Foster City is only $4.99!
Note that the price was $6.69 at that McDonald's and the one at Stanford Shopping Center. But it was $6.09 at the locations on El Camino Real in Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Mountain View.
The reason is that they have captured a set of customers who don't want cheap fast food, they want McDonalds. Same for most other similar chains.
Chipotle was great when it was a filling Mexican-ish meal for $5-6. Today the same food is $13-16. It makes no sense for them to stay in business when you can get a burrito for the same price from a much nicer Mexican restaurant across the street, but the people going there specifically want Chipotle burritos and are willing to pay $16 for it.
FWIW, I see 9.20 for Chipotle in Maryland (and one of the more expensive parts of that expensive state, at that) for the chicken burrito/bowl, no add-ons. I don't deny the disappearance of formerly free hacks and add-ons, or that price has gone up, but the nearly 2.5x probably has some local craziness thrown in.
Edit: ouch, just saw it jumped to 10.10 since my last monthly Chipotle order.
Really? I get the vegetarian burrito (includes guac, I get a second bean scoop as well) in the bay for $10 after tax, no tip prompt either which is nice.
When I was a kid/young adult (1980s/1990s) I ate at McDonald's quite a bit. I remember it as being decent food and a pretty good value. The restaurants were generally clean and service was usually fast.
I don't know if my tastes have changed or the food has or both, but I can't stand McDonalds now. I may have eaten there once or twice in the past 5 years.
The food is bad, the french fries in particular are awful (they used to be great), the employees are indifferent and act like customers are an interruption, and it's expensive.
You could be remembering a time when McD's used to cook their fries in beef tallow. They switched to 'vegetable' oil around 1990 [1] due to the persistent myth that animal fats promote heart disease, or at a rate higher than other oils.
IMHO, tallow/lard fried fries taste way better, and McD's really messed up here.
I feel like exchange rate doesn't tell you the whole story. If relative income is lower in Japan then items might be priced lower to accommodate the market.
Yeah, Japan has so many more options than the US when it comes to food on the go whether you compare the foods available at 7/11s or the $2 bento boxes in a subway station. In the US, fast food is your only option on the go.
Right, but normally this is kept somewhat in check by competitive markets.
Prices rising are usually a sign that either input costs have risen in a way in which all parties have to deal with them, or the market is becoming less competitive somehow so incumbents can get away with higher prices.
> price your product where it will give you the maximum amount of return or profit.
this is where price discrimination, aka charging a different price to each customer, comes in.
By finding out the maximum a customer would be willing to pay, you can get more profit than a static price for all customers. The only thing is that another customer would not like to see themselves pay a higher price for the same good.
Coupons, apps, etc, are the modern way to get around the customers seeing the "real" price others are paying.
In short term aligned with the bonus cycle of management. If high price cause people who have McD as habit slowly trickle to alternate chains/cuisine/modes of eating. In long they may make loss.
Japan has an eating out culture due to smaller living spaces. It sadly became a lot more expensive recently with salaries staying low. McDonalds went up dramatically over 5 years. The quality also went down.
Having eaten SFBA and Tokyo McDonald's in the last month I like the SF one better.
(In the US I usually get whichever burger has the most burger for the least bread, ask for extra vegetables, get the mango smoothie, and don't eat the fries.)
Not for Big Macs, but if you’re interested I’ve been collecting Canadian grocery price data over the past couple of years here: https://grocerytracker.ca/
No, but I’ll admit that is my biggest hesitation in promoting it beyond what I already do. Walmart has the most aggressive blocking (in general, I don’t think specifically directed at my site) and I haven’t been able to get new data from them since October I think. Otherwise haven’t had any issues.
Yeah, I used to stop at McDonald's on my way home from a big grocery run and stopped when I saw the fries there cost more than the giant bag of frozen fries I had just bought...
I admire the crispness and precision of your mapping. Zooming in tight so just three or four McD locations are on screen and then sliding a location juuuust off-screen immediately changes the price results.
Thank you, this is amazing -- especially with so many stories about McDonald's sticker-shock recently. This actually shows where that is and isn't the case, how localized it is.
It also illustrates a fundamental problem with the Economist's famous Big Mac Index [1] -- I've never understood how they choose the price of a Big Mac per-country, when it's so extremely variable locally. Even if they tried to choose "major metropolitan city prices", Big Mac prices vary a ton even within New York City, for example. There's more variation within NYC than the Economist reports between many countries. I've never understood it.
Edit: their GitHub page [2] reports:
> In July 2022 we updated the Big Mac index to use a McDonalds-provided price for the United States (previously, we averaged the price from four major US cities).
Which again, gives me no confidence. How is McDonald's providing a single price? That's a black box. And even averaging the cost between four major cities, there's a meaningful difference between a McDonald's in Times Square vs. in the Bronx. So how did they even used to pick a price per-city?
So just thanks for this McCheapest site. Pretty awesome to have actually accurate data.
Well, NYC has wildly differing levels of affluence mostly segregated into neat neighborhoods, sometimes even along a nice north-south gradient.
What's interesting here is how there's barely any pattern visible to me at all, besides lower manhattan = stay away. The most expensive McDonalds there for instance (besides airports), 1540 Westchester Ave is not affluent at all, the streetview is even covered in garbage.
Lil bit of that lil bit of residents just not caring in these neighborhoods... Above ground train station in a poor neighborhood? You're going to need some very dedicated porters in those buildings next door.
I was rather shocked to see how much the prices varied just within the handful of stores within a couple miles of my home. I’d always assumed they all had the same prices. Silly me.
Certainly not. Land, taxes, labor, etc. vary across the country, and that has an impact on local pricing.
An extreme case is the McDonalds at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, which is a small town, obviously catering to the tourist trade. But, it's also, essentially, in the middle of nowhere. Plus, they have to truck water in, as there's no ground water or wells.
The prices of sodas and beer were about the same, and they have to pay more labor to attract folks to make the drive out to the town to work.
At the time, this was early 90's, it was almost $6.00 for the quarter pounder/fries/coke, which was an "outrageous" price, especially for McDonalds.
Similarly, not McDonalds related, but there's another gas station in the middle of the desert with signs around the store to essentially tell folks "Yes, we know everything is expensive here. We're in the middle of the desert."
The minimum wage varies by $13+ across the US, and labor is a huge portion of a restaurant’s COGS. And land/rent/property tax/insurance/business tax also vary widely, so national pricing rarely makes sense in the US.
Seattle has a 10% sales tax, and a tax on sugary beverages that doesn’t apply to coke zero for example. There is maybe a b/o tax, but nothing really special beyond that.
Franchisees have very little control over anything.
They can't change decoration, they often can't add an extra employee on a shift, they can't opt out of promotions, and they often can't set prices at all, or are allowed to change them only within a very narrow range.
They run the restaurant exactly the way corporate decides. This is standard for franchising. It's just how it works.
(If you want to do things your way, you start your own independent restaurant -- you don't franchise.)
Ads that quote the prices and the dollar menu give the perception of uniform pricing. I guess ads are regional, only mention one or two products, and they mention "in participating stores". I wonder how much the dollar menu varies (if that's even a thing any more, it's been many years...)
Also, the most expensive McDonald's is actually connected to a gas station, which might be part of the high price. It's actually one of two on opposite sides of the highway (for travelers in either direction). The westbound side is more expensive and the eastbound side is cheaper. Wild!
I'm a connoisseur of combination gas station/food joints worldwide. People get away with such interesting and varied culinary sins in those places. My favorite so far has been a place that sold moose steaks shot by the owner up in Finnish Lapland for way, way more than any sane person would pay for.
- If you ever find yourself in Reno, Deli Towne U.S.A. is locally known for making amazing sandwiches in a Chevron station at the corner of Lakeside and Moana.
- Maverik stations in the western U.S. are about the nicest convenience stores I've ever visited, and their onsite kitchens prepare pretty decent gas-station food. Lately, they've rolled out premium pizzas in their larger locations; I had a thick-crust Detroit-style slice recently and it was absolutely restaurant quality.
- I understand Wawa stations in the eastern U.S. are known for their food; can anyone here comment?
Wawa has generally good hoagies (they’re a Philly-centered chain, so I’ll use their vernacular), and above-average coffee. Their hot food is usually pretty disappointing, because they put all of it through convection ovens (vs frying/grilling/deep frying/baking as is usual).
They recently rolled out pizza in my area (northern NJ), and while I haven’t personally tried it, friends say it doesn’t hold up to what local pizza places can do, but it’s better than big chain pizza.
I don’t know if they’re considered big enough, as they both have <5 locations.
But Lykens Markets and Ingrams Fuel in the center “centre” of PA both have surprisingly good food for gas stations. Made fresh. Usually they’ll stock some surprising items from
Local dairies too.
I didn’t say I necessarily wanted to buy moose. It’s attached to a gas station. Visiting sounds like a potentially interesting experience. Plus, I don’t know how common it is to have restaurants serving moose shot by the owner.
Regarding that turnpike, it may be of interest that the service stations were a public-private partnership between McD's and the commonwealth, and that the contract is up soon and the commonwealth gets a cut of the sales:
> Under a 25-year deal brokered two years ago, [the year 2000] McDonald's has spent more than $25 million to overhaul the Pike's 11 service plazas. In return, the Pike receives at least $9.3 million annually in rent, plus a percentage of food sales.
On a toll road, so there's something like a local oligarchy of food and gas at service plazas. I figure the pricing is more akin to airport pricing, but it seems like Lee Plaza manages to beat even the airport McDs…
(Unlike the freeways elsewhere in the US, where you can easily get on/off, so there's a bit more options for food and gas.)
The most expensive ($8.09) in Lee, MA is in a highway rest stop plaza about 110 miles west of Boston near the state’s western border (just outside the Berkshires) that is well known for its crazy prices. You buy anything in that plaza and you’re getting taken for a ride.
For comparison, Boston (and immediate surroundings) Big Mac prices are $5.89 - $6.79 depending on the location, and that includes one of the city’s largest train and subway stations/bus terminals, in some extremely expensive to rent real estate within the financial district because of how many potential customers go through it every day.
A few years ago I could get a sausage mcmuffin and a coke (any size) for $2.12. Over the last 4 years it kept creeping up, price bouncing etc. It reach $4.23 for a few weeks. I remember because it was a penny shy of double the old price. Then one day.... Boom $4.24. No idea how they set prices but it was interesting they felt "just one cent more" was important :-)
And yes there is also a lot of variation around the region, but the above was at a single location.
The McDouble used to be a good deal for a quick bite on a road trip... I think it was about $1.40 when it first showed up? It'll now run $4 at some Bay Area locations.
Just like the high prices of soda ($2.50 for a 20oz bottle?) it's had the effect of making me stop consuming the stuff, so overall it's a win for me.
The McDouble was a replacement for the double cheeseburger on the $1 menu. It was the same burger with one less slice of cheese and acted as a placeholder when they raised the price of the regular double beyond $1
Yea I remember when the McDouble was $1 .. that was like 10 years ago wasn't it?! Burger king had a fantastic double cheeseburger for $1 too, pissed off all the franchisees lol.
Its the only 24 hour place ti get food (including grocers) within a 25 minute drive radius. Thats the only utility. Prices are robbery but theyve got you over a barrel at 3am
Love the website idea. It seems a bit slow on updates. My local McDonald's is 40c more expensive than this website shows, and it says the last update was in February 2023.
It would be neat if it tracked the delivery version of the price too. At my local McDonald's a Big Mac is $6.39 for pickup and $7.79 for delivery. That's not me including a delivery fee in the price, the menu prices are just higher if you select Delivery in the app. There's also a
Okay everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that the Big Mac has 2 menu prices. 6.39 for pickup and 7.79 for delivery. So I'm just going to delete the part where I list the other fees that are separate from the hidden menu price adjustment.
What do you think would be a fair price for hauling a single burger 3 miles to you on demand would be? Objectively, on-demand/super-low-latency (less than an hour!) courier services have always been vastly more expensive than mere food preparation.
Seriously, get in your time machine and go check what it would cost for a law firm in Manhattan[1] c. 1930 to get a document across town on that schedule. That it's down to the same scale as the burger you crave to sate your grumbling tummy is an amazing innovation of our modern techno-whizgig society, not something to whine about in a throwaway comment on HN!
[1] Because needless to say, no one would think to have applied that kind of service to mere burgers.
I think you've completely missed the fact that the base menu price increases when you select delivery? I listed the separate fees to show that the $6.39 to $7.79 price increase does not come from one of the later fees.
Besides do what every other restaurant historically has done and say "$20 order minimum for delivery". Also it's not 3 miles, it's 2000ft. The restaurant is literally 3 blocks away from me.
There's no need to be such an asshole just because you misunderstood my comment. You could also get in your time machine to 2010 when every pizza chain or Chinese restaurant could do this for $2.99 plus tip.
My sincere apologies if you were offended. It really seemed to me (and still does, honestly; maybe you want to edit and rephrase?) like you were complaining about the cost of delivery. And I stand by my reply there. It's an unreasonable complaint, delivery is outrageously cheap in the modern world, such that we can now apply it to things we'd never have had delivered even a decade ago, like a McDonalds burger.
Yes I'm complaining about the fact that they sneakily change the menu prices for items when you select delivery as an option. All the other fees are kind of expected these days.
But again if you want to argue about delivery prices, delivery is far more expensive than it was a decade ago. I know firsthand, I put myself through college delivering pizza and Burger King.
The delivery service charges a fee to the restaurant per delivery. So the restaurant can eat the commission, average it across all customers or pass it along the added cost to the delivery customer.
But it's all part of the cost of delivery. I'm not sure anyone who points out that "delivering things costs lots of money" is missing your point. You're merely assuming that the prices you see broken down the way they break them down is actually an honest accounting.
When I lived in Beijing, getting delivery from the McDonald’s a quarter of a mile away was pretty easy and cheap, and that was only in 2016. The USA is just way too expensive labor wise for that kind of thing. Density helps, of course, and you can get pretty much food from any restaurant delivered for a reasonable fee (no tip).
A lot of New England towns have local regulations that say that any McDonalds (or other chain business) needs to fit in with the local architectural style. Take a look at the most expensive McDonald's in the country in Lee, MA:
It's not what you would think a McDonald's looks like; it actually looks basically like every other rest stop on the Mass Pike, which looks like most of the commercial real estate in the area.
There are probably extra costs associated with making the outside of a building look just like every other building, while making the inside conform to McDonald's franchise specifications. Also you lose some of the branding benefit that the nationwide chain has, and the local populace tends to be a bit more hostile toward fast food.
Not sure what the downvotes are for. Pricing capabilities at volume have surpassed the period where prices are affected by business costs.
Three of the five factors used by a corporation like McDonald's to mandate the maximum price are oriented toward the kinds of advantages you get by maintaining a presence, regardless of a boutique facade. Only one (bundle pricing) is even indirectly related to cost.
Yeah, I thought it's going to be some ridiculous building, but it looks very generic. I doubt it would be any harder than fitting a McD in some plazas/department stores.
>> THE BIG MAC index was invented by The Economist in 1986 as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level. It is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), the notion that in the long run exchange rates should move towards the rate that would equalise the prices of an identical basket of goods and services (in this case, a burger) in any two countries.
Burgernomics was never intended as a precise gauge of currency misalignment, merely a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. Yet the Big Mac index has become a global standard, included in several economic textbooks and the subject of dozens of academic studies. For those who take their fast food more seriously, we also calculate a gourmet version of the index.
My Canadian province there is a "kingpin" of sorts a family who owns many restaurants. One brother owns all the local Tim Horton's coffee shops here and another brother owns Wendy's restaurants. The also both have a pile of restaurants like steak, micro breweries. There is an even worse guy super arrogant but not related to the other two who owns many properties. People hate them.
This works while there are four food chains and they all completely independently decide that prices should be a little higher.
Even without cooperation that isn’t allowed, let’s say 5Guys comes in and see that the market will bear higher prices. Why wouldn’t they take advantage of that?
But if the prices are way higher, then 5Guys sees that by setting prices a bit lower it can capture 90% of the market, rather than 50%. Which is way more total profit.
That's how downwards price pressure in capitalism works -- by reducing price you gain market share and increase profit overall. Otherwise, under capitalism, all our prices would be sky-high!
This assumes that Five Guys is in direct competition with those other chains and that people are directly comparing prices when choosing where to eat. People are not the perfect rational actors economists like to pretend they are, and they tend to make assumptions about prices and have personal preferences (e.g. the last time I went to BK it was so bad you would have to pay me to go back).
Wow this shatters my assumption that prices were generally the same in my metro. I figured real estate, prevailing wages, etc were main drivers of price but there’s a lot of variability despite that.
I wonder why?
My guess is different franchise owners - I notice some lower cost ones cluster near each other and then another cluster in next city over will be more expensive
Honestly I think it's a pretty direct function of rent and volume. Rent varies dramatically between a chic shopping district and a distant strip mall, and similarly a downtown McD's might have 10x the volume of one further out. (While labor varies very little within a commuting area.)
Higher rent means higher prices, but higher volume allows lower prices to a certain extent. Which is why downtown locations aren't always the most expensive.
Agreed! Big Mac patties are wafer-thin and that bun disc in the middle makes the sandwich look bigger. I'll bet they're the most profitable burger on their menu.
I have a pet peeve about this. From the chart, Indonesia's currency is undervalued (meaning burger prices should be more expensive). But for many people here, eating a Big Mac is a "luxury" (not "caviar luxury" but more like "taking Uber instead of taking the subway" luxury).
Some things cost more depending on their situational advantage. For example a run-down Jeep sitting in a garage and thought of as 'worthless' would be worth a fortune at a Jeep fair and seen as a collectible.
Well, some stuff can be centralized, like burger production, or ordering million gallons of Coke. Some stuff, however, has to remain local, like labor, or real estate costs.
Honestly, that's the only reason I'd ever go there (and even then only very rarely). Not because it was "good," but because I knew what to expect. Although... I should probably qualify that bit about expectations: Last time I was there was probably early '22 and only because my dad was in hospice with a craving for one of their menu items (and fries). I bought a BigMac for myself, got home, and saw that the bun was moldy. No thanks!
Another cool data set would be to show what hourly wage employees are making especially at the ones with dark red colored locations where a Big Mac is over $7.00.
The Axios article linked in another comment shows this data for selected cities.
There appears to be a pretty weak correlation. Although there could be other offsetting factors (maybe fewer employees in the high wage areas, more use of the order-yourself screens or something).
Those two really expensive ones in western Massachusetts are on a toll road in a sparsely populated area (Mass Turnpike/I90). Lee is a rest area franchise and a de facto monopoly - no competition for hamburgers unless you significantly interrupt your journey. There are likely high fees charged to the franchisee to operate at that location over a period of many years.
TIL it’s not the same (or merely varying by sales tax) across the US. I thought they always had the same prices in one country. That’s why they feel cheap at the airport or in the center of the capital but relatively more expensive in rural areas. Not so in the US then?
I used Appium (selenium based app automation) to screen scrape the McDonald's app on an android phone. It was painful and got blocked once it went viral.
Couldn't figure out the security/certificate pinning in their internal API so just went with what worked.
I'll update it soon and try again at cracking the API security.
This is really neat. I wish it had an alternate color mode, as when the creator chose the endpoints of their scale, they managed to pick the two colors that are least distinguishable for me and about 5% of people!
I mean, in general, the east bay is cheaper than the peninsula and south bay. You can even see how the prices sorta stay high in fremont then go lower as you go north. And particularly when you get to the tri-valley, land is a lot cheaper (relatively speaking, of course :)
Customers should have right to convenient pricing information. Companies should be forced to publish up to date prices in machone readable prices so they can be tracked and compared by third parties.
Not surprised one of the most expensive McDonald's in the country is the one by me. This dude took over it about 5 years ago and seemingly just doubled the cost of everything. The prices are jaw dropping insane.
But...
It's in an extremely high traffic area and still to this day regularly has lines at the drive through. Even though there are two other McDonald's within 5 miles with sane prices.
Not that I go to McDonald's a lot and am upset about it, but more upset that this guy is shamelessly ripping people off and no one seems to care.
Just looking at Austin area I was pretty surprised to see that the price varied from $3.89 to $5.39 between South Austin and Round Rock (North Austin). But also even a $1 difference from McDonalds in Round Rock on opposite sides of the free way.
I don’t really eat at McDonalds but surely people who do would notice these kinds of differences right away.
Well the road is the Mass Pike (I-90) so a little harder than just driving across the street to get to, but pretty wild. Also the variances for fairly short distances are very interesting. I wonder how this is all computed.
Yeah, unless you're willing to try the emergency turnaround spots (if there's a cop speed-trapping, you'll get a hefty ticket, and by the time you've slowed down enough to use the turnaround, it's probably too late), you'll probably end up more than paying the difference in tolls.
If you already passed through the Lee Toll Gantry by MM 10, you'll have to drive all the way to exit 3 to turn around, go to the cheaper McD's, then pass through the toll readers around MM 10 to turn back around at exit 10, then incur another toll after getting back on the highway.
You're better off exiting the highway to eat at the McD's off exit 10, which is still $0.40 more expensive than the eastbound service plaza location, but still $1.00 cheaper than the westbound service plaza location.
Edit: Turns out I was wrong. I calculated the difference, and paying the toll thrice would cost $0.75-$1.80 (vs. paying $0.25-$0.60 once), depending on if you have E-Z Pass MA, E-Z Pass (other states), or pay by mail.
Depending on how you pay the toll, you'll save $0.20-$0.70 paying thrice to visit the eastbound McD's vs. paying once to visit westbound McD's, but the cost of gas might make it a wash. If you're paying by mail, the best choice is exiting the highway, paying $7.09, then re-entering. (That said, if you're going eastbound, stopping at the service plaza wins every time.)
I’ve stopped at that Lee McDonald’s and remember thinking the price seemed kind of high. Little did I know it was the most expensive in the country. Even the eastbound one across I-90 is $1.40 cheaper!
McDonalds is a franchise. Franchise owners set prices and promotions. The cost of running any given McDonald's is going to be different based on many factors. Hence the prices are different.
The variation even for very nearby McDonalds is fascinating. In the bay area I see differences of over $1 for locations basically next door to each other.
In my area there's two Subways essentially next door, one inside a Walmart in a strip mall and the other in the food court of a healthy indoor mall. A footlong rotisserie chicken sub is $14 in the mall and $10 in the Walmart.
I remember the prices seeming comparatively much higher in Alaska/Hawaii in the past. Fast food prices have gone up so much everywhere that shipping to these places likely represents a lower percentage of the total cost now.
Don't forget rent and energy. They like to gripe about the cost of labour and labour regulations, but the biggest share of operating expenses is rent, then energy.
They're all owned by different people (it's a franchise) and, as you might expect with a country the geographic size of the US, costs vary widely.
Land taxes, shipping costs, utility costs, average local salary pushing up (or down) the wage floor they hire at, all influence the minimum amount of money any particular restaurant needs to make to break even or be profitable.
Since they're all owned independently and merely rent the name (and sometimes the land) from the McDonald's corporate entity, they have some leeway on setting their prices. There's a whole lot of rules they have to follow, of course, but that's the jist.
Usually, prices don't vary much, if at all, when looking at a smaller area or among locations owned by the same person.
The exceptions are if a particular location is especially expensive or high demand, such as interstate highway rest stops or when the location is attached to a highly trafficked gas station. The rents and taxes on those locations alone are enough to push prices up.
There is a massive difference in cost of living between the states. A six figure salary in New York City would afford a very different lifestyle than one in the rural Midwest.
I was okay paying $10 for Five Guys, but I haven't been there in a while, so it might be $15 for a meal there now.
But most of the chains like Chili's/Applebees have a basic burger for $8.99 and even a combo or two for $20 where you get a fries and soft drink. That's hard to beat even when you throw in a tip.
Fast food has become incredibly expensive if you don't have a coupon or use the app to get a "deal". Burger King has a two whopper meal for $13.99 with drinks/fries, and two Whopper jr meal for $7.99 with fries but no drinks.
Despite them being next door, they’re on opposite sides of a major highway (I-90/Mass Pike) and you’d need to drive just shy of 5 miles to get from one to the other.
FWIW, In-n-Out only exists in a few locations, many of us believe they have much worse fries (you might disagree), and McDonalds has a much larger menu (which is even more of a discrepancy if you don't know you can customize the In-n-Out burger, which many people do not); it additionally is a different model which takes a lot longer to order.
I am not usually a fast food person, but I’ve tried In n Out several times, because it seems to be recommended, in the last couple years due to travel taking me to their territory and haven’t found it to be particularly good. Compared to McDonalds, which I also rarely frequent unless it’s a splurge day from the gym or I’m on a road trip, it seems objectively worse. The McDonalds quarter pounder and double quarter pounder are significantly better than InO.
My suspicion is, like Whataburger, it’s a bit of a “having grown up with it” sort of thing that makes people recommend it so highly.
In Texas, there are very few In-n-outs, and they always have ridiculous lines. Sometimes you want literal fast food, and McD is everywhere. Also after having it a few times, I prefer Whataburger to In-n-out (like In-n-out, Whataburger isn't everywhere)
Preferring Whataburger over In-n-out is the most Texas thing there is. It’s more true of a stereotype than most Texas stereotypes like Cowboy Boots, cowboy hats, guns, or high school football.
I live in Monterrey, Mexico, 3 to 4 hours from the US border with Texas. There are people who offer Whataburger delivery services.
They will collect orders throughout the week and on the weekend drive to Texas and pick up the burgers. I think they have a deal with a local whataburger because they pick the burgers disassembled.
The heat and reassemble them here in Monterrey. No fries, though.
Can't speak for Whataburger but Five Guys is usually messier and the "little cheeseburger" is huge. Maybe the patties are better and the fries are objectively better but I wish they had a "little little cheeseburger" or something
Not where I live. A Five Guys little cheeseburger is maybe 20% more than a quarter pounder with cheese. It's true that Five Guys serves mostly exclusively the suburban markets that support higher prices, and doesn't compete with the cheapest McDonalds. But where they overlap, they're very comparable in price.
The Chipotles in my area have been turning away walk-ins at undetermined hours. During working hours, the doors may be locked. Or you can be in line where people are ordering, but as soon as you get to the front, they tell you that they won't take your order because they're suddenly doing online only. There are no signs posted or anything as to why this happens. It's very unusual
Just save it for a time you’re out west. It’s good; well above average in fact. But it won’t live up to the hype.
If you asked my kids what the best burger place is, they’d say Culver’s without a second thought. They’re pretty rare unless you’re within 100 miles of Wisconsin, except there’s a bunch of them in Florida.
In n Out always has a 30+ minute line when I try to go there.. quicker to buy ingredients at a grocery store, go home, cook burgers myself, then clean up
hmm, I could never see any open parking spots either.. it's weird too, that place is packed even in off-peak times
I'll admit the burgers are a lot better than McDonald's, although still not as good as something half-assedly home made with bottom-shelf Safeway ingredients
If you're heading to Tahoe or Reno, Dave's Giant Hamburger in Fairfield makes burgers better than an animal-style Double-Double, and bigger: 1/3-pound (151g) patties and double-thick cheese. Ask for fried onions and "the hot sauce." The shakes and chili are brilliant, too.
Even if you used a 1 USD = 100 JPY exchange rate instead of the real one, I could get nicer breakfasts than McDonald's for much cheaper somewhere like Sukiya, and they're open 24/7 to boot! Fully open, not just a drive through sometimes like in the states. Ordering experience was great too, they have these tablets where you can switch the language to English so it's easy.
Anyway, it kinda feels like McDonald's in the US isn't actually that cheap anymore? When I order breakfast there sometimes, it always feels like the food is kind of pricey considering they're just keeping it warm or warming up premade food.
Edit: looks like I'm not just imagining it, Big Mac prices have outpaced inflation over the last couple decades - https://www.axios.com/2022/04/17/mcdonalds-big-mac-inflation...
I wonder why?