Who’d see this coming, when the population has no money to spend and the top 0.1% is taking all the money, so there’s nothing to spend? Not the billionaires, that’s for sure. I really cannot wait for the fall when they will realise how much they fucked up. I’m definitely not going to help them, no matter how much money they offer. They did this to themselves, and I’ll be happy when the population starts eating ^the rich^.
It’s actually been this way for a while. The top 10% of American earners do half of all consumer spending. A massive amount of the economy has shifted to reflect this. Businesses are often targeting business to business sales rather than business to customer. Pay to win video games use free players as content for whales to play through. And if you’re selling physical goods, you’re probably either doing it as cheaply as possible, or absolutely gouging the assholes you’re selling to (think ikea vs Kohler’s premium brand, for which a lamp costs 5 figures and the website doesn’t gave prices listed).
I always thought whales were actually middle class or even poor people that have essentially a gambling addiction.
Sometimes. The only real difference is earnings. There was the rumor that a saudi prince kept a couple mobile games alive solely based on his own spending for a while. Anecdotally I know of at least one person making six figures who was spending five figures a month on mobile games (and eventually declared bankruptcy) and another spending a grand a month that fit it into his budget. The point remains, games designed to extract thousands from individual players have grown very popular among industry execs because it’s more profitable (and often easier) to squeeze an inordinate amount out of one player than to get $10 out of 100 players. Marketing for that top 1% spender is definitely exploiting addiction, but they’re making it for the ones who will continue to afford it, and thus continue to fund the game
no, they are usually well off or come from wealthy family. all these streamers, influencers are often from rich families.
Millionaires are part of the problem, too.
They shouldn’t get a pass from swaths of never-millionaires.
spoiler
Unless we’re idiots. 🤔
It’s funny how companies just don’t get it.
Fast food has been historically cheap. Chipotle worked because it was fast, it was cheap, and you didn’t feel like you were as much of a fat ass compared to grabbing a giant bacon burger and a bucket of fries.
Now you go to chipotle and pay $20 for a burrito and a soda. Still fast, still decent enough (at least the one near me), but $20 is highway robbery.
OR, I can go across the street to a sit down restaurant, have a first generation Thai guy (who started his American dream restaurant) whip up the best damn drunken noodles I’ve ever had for $12. AND he does this FASTER than chipotle (seriously how does he do it? Must be a magic wok).
Guess where we grab lunch these days.
We pre-cook as much as we can in Asian restaurants. The wok isn’t magic, the chicken/beef/pork is already 75% cooked.
and it almost always tastes fucking great, unlike fast food nowadays
That’s (probably) the oil and magic salivary granules doing mystical things
Magic salivary granuals is a wonderful turn of phrase/euphemism.
Thanks! I spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out something for G and then I immediately felt like an idiot for needing to use a thesaurus when I found it it
My issue with chipotle has always been that the food is lukewarm.
I’m not paying 20 dollars for a lukewarm, lightly seasoned burrito.
Now you go to chipotle and pay $20 for a burrito and a soda. Still fast, still decent enough (at least the one near me), but $20 is highway robbery.
Chipotle Burrito and a small fountain soda is $14 in my area. Its certainly risen in price over the last 6 years.
Sometimes I’m just out with coworkers but not starving. I used to get a cheese and chicken quesadilla. It used to cost $4 and change. Then they started charging burrito prices - $15 and change for a tortilla, a handful of shredded cheese and 1/4 of a chicken breast. I get there is regional pricing differences - but their costs (at least here) are out of control.
Yeah I think the sofritas burrito or bowl is like 10.99 or 11.99 where I live. The meats more expensive though.
The problem is that Chipotle was never really fast food, they were one of the pioneers of the Fast Casual concept, where it was good food, served quickly, but not necessarily cheap. They never really intended to compete against McDonalds head to head. They wanted to be something different.
it used to be 7$ for a giant burrito, now its almost half the size and more than double the cost.
Chipotle wasn’t that fast. They were locally blacklisted by a lot of doordash drivers due to the wait.
Doordash is part of the reason it’s not fast anymore. Chipotle, like everywhere else that makes your food on an assembly line as you order it, should take like a minute per person with overlap. Know what you want, have your card ready to pay, enjoy your lunch. But then a driver cuts straight to the register to grab an order of six burritos and a salad that is only half ready because most places wait until the last second to put take-out orders together (fewer complaints about cold/soggy food) which delays the whole process. Repeat every five minutes.
I mean, even like 2018 it wasn’t uncommon to stand in line at my local Chipotle for 15-20 minutes. No DoorDash orders, no online orders. Just really slow workers, but also understaffed, and somehow always waiting for something (rice, veggies, anything from the grill). I mean I can talk that up to poor management.
We stopped going after giving them 3 chances. There was a location by us that I literally would wait almost an hour extra for the food that I ordered on the app. The crazy part was I was already like 10 min past the pickup time. People who walked in would get the food way quicker, and when people were complaining and told them to cancel our orders, they just smirked and said oh we can’t do that. The first time we figured, ok places have bad days, but after the 2nd time, which was like 6 months later, and it was basically the same, we were done. The 3rd time was like a year later, and a new closer location to us opened. Figured cool, let’s do it. Nope, same shit. The only good news was 2 of the orders were refunded after complaining, and the 3rd, they just gave us a coupon, but it expired since we were done with them.
That sounds like bad management/ownership trying to shave the operating costs as much as possible (without considering the potential losses involved)
deleted by creator
They do get it, better than most customers.
The entire point is maximizing profit. If you can charge fewer people more for the same product, you’re doing less while making more.
This is just the result of crapitalism. It will never be a system where everyone can afford Chipotle.
Boatwright said Chipotle is “doubling down on restaurant execution,” increasing marketing spend, plans to create more digital experiences, and introduce more innovation.
The problem is prices for the quality you get. Instead of spending money on improving those things, they’re dumping it on more commercials and “digital experiences”.
Yes, that will totally make people or want to buy overpriced mediocre fake Mexican food.
Corporate slop bowls… I can’t see them any different from that now
I don’t eat there because the last time I did, I got severe food poisoning. If I want shit fast Mexican food, I’ll go to Taco Bell.
Plus, at taco bell, you can get like 5 or 6 bean and rice burritos even if you add a few toppings to it and have it toasted, for the same price of one burrito at chipotle.
Isn’t it Mission style which once was part of Mexico but is now the USA. It’s the style from the SF bay area.
There is one sentence in that quote which isn’t complete nonsense
Pretty sure a lot of young people with jobs can’t afford it either.
Maybe robots and AI can buy your food. 😐
And their food is mostly rice and beans.
Yeah i don’t eat there often so it was quite apparent the last couple times that they’ve removed everything with flavor and substituted it for extra rice and beans, while charging more for it. My city has dozens and dozens of Mexican restaurants and food trucks that offer way better taste and portions for way less money.
But it’s such delicious (and overpriced) rice & beans.
Their rice recipe is rice, salt, lime, and cilantro. There, now you can make it at home exactly the same way.
Look, I’m part Mexican, and I can cook. However there is something about the taste of food I didn’t have to make that just makes it better. It’s the same with a sandwich.
I have been telling this for years. The only thing that comes close when making it yourself is cooking in a campfire. Camping food also has a mystical spice that makes no sense
The smoke helps but yes the experience is important.
So that means Chipotle will lead by example and start paying all their employees a livable wage, right? … Right??
higher wages are not the solution; universal basic income is. higher wages just mean it’s even more difficult for companies to higher employees, which means there will be fewer jobs overall. also, you’re excluding people who are unable to work that way.
I’m all for higher employees!
*hire
Overall job loss is not what happened the last thirty-odd times the federal minimum wage was raised, or any of the times individual states raised minimum wage, but go ahead and believe it will happen the next time for sure.
What has happened is the newly higher-paid employees spend that money, and the new demand creates new jobs, enough to offset the losses from the old employers deciding to manage with a smaller staff. As long as the size of the increase is in the same range as all the previous ones, there’s every reason to believe the effect would be the same.
I wish the federal congress would just do several years of catch-up increases, then tie it to inflation so we can stop arguing about it.
Higher wages also just translates to higher rent for their landlords.
Shame poor people can’t connect these dots, but that’s why we are where we are.
that’s just factually not true. i’ll explain it slowly so you can follow:
rent is determined by two things: cost of construction and profit of the landlord.
cost of construction is more or less constant and wouldn’t change if people have more money to spend. profit of the landlord is subject to the free market, i.e. if renting out apartments becomes overly attractive (as in, landlords make more money with it), then new people will enter the market to also become landlords and rent out apartments. since these landlords are all competing against each other, they try to be more attractive to potential customers by lowering their rent, which means lowering their own profit. that’s how the free market works.
Yeah, you’re an actual idiot.
Keep being taken advantage of accordingly.
If you think inflation is bad now, wait until the government starts handing out free money. I’m no economist, but some of y’all are dumb as hell.
The government hands out free money all the time to people taking us for a ride.
Welfare queens aside, Americans don’t know true horror yet. Wait until food gets scarce and your priorities will shift faster than a naked twelve year old running through a GOP bath house.
I think you mistakenly posted this instead of your usual conversation with the mirror.
Inflation depends on the resource people are chasing after and the timeline of the cash infusion. Most resources can be provisioned at greater quantity without price increases if given enough time (years to decades). If everyone poof had double their normal income, and immediately tried to spend it all, there would be supply chain constraints and inflation, sure. Any UI scheme would need to have a gradual rollout to avoid that.
that is not how universal basic income implementations work, atleast educate yourself before commenting.
inflation is kinda irrelevant. what matters is people’s real buying power, and that would increase.
Do you people have
phonesKlarna?Split that meal into four payments
I split that payment into five meals. I get a chicken bowl with extra rice and beans and all the free fixinz, then I shake it up and spoon it into tortillas and wrap them into individual burritos. Freeze and you have a zero effort M-F meal prep you just need to microwave each day, at about 300 cal each (get extra cheese too actually, and go heavy on the hot salsa, it’s tasty.)
You poor dear.
Wait why?! I just like to stretch meals as far as I can with what I have available hahaha. One burrito or bowl is way too much for me, but if I get a bowl and load it up, it goes far.
Otherwise I cook chorizo, make cilantro lime rice, cook flavored pepper beans, and put all of that with cheese into burritos which takes hours… sometimes I want someone else to do it for me and I tip them and have out with my boi for those extra hours.
Quick edit: I should mention it’s not actually a money thing for me, it’s a time thing. But for anyone looking to save time AND money, it works out well!
You’re making me hungry.
It’s a great deal! Homemade is better, but sometimes I’m just a lazy bitch (often, but normally that just means frozen pizza)
It’s an older reference but it checks out sir.
shit. im over a decade older than that group and my wife and I have had to cut out all outside food for over a year.
I think folks in our age group have cut more aggressively. More responsibilities
less “more responsibilities” and more once-in-a-generation/century crises.
Also $11 for a burrito? Yeah, miss me with that bullshit. I’m thankful for chipotle keeping me full while I was in college but shit is literally double the price it was then.
My household and I weren’t able to eat at a restaurant since before COVID hit, even fast food had jacked their prices up too high. That’s only just now starting to change because we’ve left the US.
Just out of curiosity, what country did you move to and how does it compare with your lifestyle and cost of living in the USA?
fast food was cheap to me until a bit after covid although the dollar menus were getting pretty weak.
Nah, the food just really sucks. Used to be good, isn’t anymore. It’s not that they can’t afford it, it’s that if you’re going out for cheap food once in a while, Chipotle is somehow worse than what you can make at home, for more money.
I love the taste of supply chain optimization.
and they charge extra for sloppy gaucomole, you might as well buy your own.
maybe it has something to do with ripping people off on takeout orders
I thought I was CRAZY. I tried the $5 burrito hack on a take out order and was mildly unimpressed. It’s ok in a pinch but for 50 cents more I’ll get way more food at McDonald’s. My wife went in and ordered it on a different day and they gave her SIGNIFICANTLY more food. Like double. In that scenario it’s definitely worth it.
hearing people say “get way more food for $5.50 (total) at McDonald’s” is wild
in Canada, a jr chicken (mchicken equivalent? it’s been a while) is $4. used to be a good value. not anymore
I remember when the McChicken was a buck.
Same
Don’t forget all the other restaurants that are screwing us blue.
Taco Bell adheres to the 12.72% year over year inflation rate because why not?
Two mcchickens or a mcchicken and McDouble are only $5 in most areas.
One regular mcchicken on its own is like 3.79 (California, but I travel a lot and it’s sorta consistent).
Here in AZ a sausage mcmuffin with egg is 6.99 before tax
Thats crazy, I can get 2 sausage egg n cheese mcmuffins for $4.50 after tax and this is NJ (were not cheap).
Portland metro area a mcchicken is $4.20
They have the audacity to still have it in the “McValue” section
What is this hack? My Chipotle hack is to order a burrito bowl with all the free extra toppings, get two tortillas on the side, and you can portion out the bowl into about two regular sized Chipotle burritos.
It’s the same but you order a taco instead of the burrito bowl. All the free toppings you get them on the side.
Well this is interesting to me given that my employer has internally been talking about how Chipotle, the fast casual counter serve restaurant, has been growing faster than our full service pasta restaurant. Which obviously means they’re stealing our market share in our separate segment and we need to move to compete with CMG more.
Methinks it is time to leave this industry.
Edit: haha. hahahahahahaha
A particularly challenged cohort is the 25- to 35-year-old age group," Boatwright said. "This group is facing several headwinds, including unemployment, increased due loan repayment and slower real wage growth.
ahahahahahahaha they are so out of touch if this is news to them
We’re picking up speed now. Economic doom is imminent!
Millenials killed chipotle too, huh?
Don’t stop the guac, don’t stop the guac.
Guacamole? In this economy?
Is that a backyardigans reference? Love it!
Hey! They said young people, that’s gen-z. 😭👴
Fuck all this capitalist bullshit. Bring about a basic income for all. No one should have to be forced into violence just to feed themselves or their family. A whole shitload of social problems would disappear if basic income were enacted.
The food is meh. The prices are high. Young people are broke. What do you expect?
