No, it’s because they increased prices dramatically while both quality and food quantity were drastically reduced. Then gaslighted us again for noticing.

No, it's because a Big Mac meal is the same price as an entrée at a better local restaurant.

To be fair, fast food prices have gone up so much, McDonald's now costs as much as most sit-down restaurants in my area. Why pay that much for shittier food?

We all know McDonald's food is shit, but it used to be cheap, so we accepted it. Now it's the same price as a sit down restaurant but it's still shit. So why not pay the same price for actually good food and good service at a real restaurant?

McDonald's needs to relearn that they are not a top tier establishment. Accept who you are.

There's that old adage about getting work done by a contractor: fast, cheap, good - pick any 2.

Fast food took off because it was fast and cheap. I could walk in, get a burger and fries for a couple bucks, and walk out five minutes later. It wasn't necessarily great food, but it was filling and vaguely nutritious.

A couple years ago I was on a road trip and decided to hit up a Burger King drive through. Ordered a whopper with cheese and (small or medium? I can't remember) fries. I was kinda expecting it to be about $12-15, and it was like $22. And then it took over half an hour for me to get my food.

Fast food is no longer fast, it's no longer cheap, and it never was very good. I can get a better experience and better food, faster and cheaper, from a local restaurant. Why would I ever do fast food again?

No, the prices are just nuts. For like 5 dollars more, I could go to a decent sit-down restaurant with service and better/healthier food - while supporting locally-owned business. So I'll do that or cook for myself

Sounds like McDonald’s problem to me.

I stopped going when they doubled the price on everything. The food was never good but it was affordable.

Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two.

That's the golden rule for a lot of industries, and fast food is no exception. For my entire life, it's been well known that this is not good food -- in the sense that most people realize it's unhealthy, processed, junk. So, these places basically have to deliver on the fast and cheap part.

Now, they've pretty much all given up on being cheap. Most of them are as expensive, or nearly as expensive, as a sit down restaurant with a server who comes to your table.

And based on nearly every fast food experience I've had in the past 5 or so years (which honestly isn't much), I don't even think they're really delivering on the promise of fast, compared to a typical sit down place of similar caliber food.

So, then when the working class, the bread and butter of the fast food industry, is getting economically squeezed to the brink, I suppose this isn't exactly all that surprising of an outcome. Fast food was for those nights when people were too busy working all day to prepare a meal for dinner, for a bite to each on your lunch hour when you forgot to pack something, or a quick stop while you're on a road trip. But think about how many people are out of work now (don't let the official unemployment numbers fool you). They aren't traveling, away from home during lunch, and they have way more time and much less money so dinner prep at home it is. And people who are gainfully employed with money to spare, they're going to non-fast food places because the food is better quality, about the same price, and usually just as fast or faster.

So where's that leave "fast" food? It's time to return to the core tenants (cheap & fast) or these places will likely continue to see declines.

Fucking fries are $5 for a large where I live. It is probably ten cents of product and thirty cents for labor, equipment, and oil. Their markup is absolutely insane.

Even with the app the prices are insane. Remember the dollar menu? Ancient history

We take regular road trips and used to stop at McDonald's for breakfast or lunch regularly. During Covid the food quality went to shit and the prices went through the roof. Orders were wrong and the food was regularly inedible. Since we were driving we couldn't go back and get them to fix it without taking a 20+ minute detour and their expensive food often ended up in the trash. Things should have improved after Covid, but McDonald's prices continued to rise while the food quality stayed in the toilet.

The ridiculous prices alone would just have us going to McDonald's less often. That and the crappy food has us avoiding McDonald's (and fast food) completely. We've gone from a few visits a month to zero and haven't been in well over a year.

Instead we stop at grocery store delis which only adds a few minutes to our travel time. The food is cheaper, the quality is far better and since we don't have the waste we did at McDonald's we're probably spending 50% less.

Yeah, allowing a fascist dictator to pretend to work at your drive-through didn't help optics either.

Fast food corporations are doomed to die.

Investors and shareholders will continuously demand a larger and larger piece of the pie every year.

But local restaurants and non-chain restaurants don't have investors. They just need to mark up their prices enough to afford CPI increases on food and equipments which corporate restaurants also. Have to account for.

Eventually fast food will be more expensive then fine dining simply because shareholders want more money.

Cause their shit is so expensive. I recognize I'm privileged enough that I don't need to always think about the specifics of food prices, but seriously, the price difference between fast food and sit down food is getting smaller and smaller, it's crazy.

I'm addicted to fast food, and McDonald's was a weekly thing, if not more often. But prices now are just crazy, and the quality is just slop. I've not had a McDonald's for over a month and I'm better off for it.

Beans and rice cook really easy and are awesome foods.

For $15 I'm get a burger and fries literally anywhere else.

Also their stuff is about nutritious as a cardboard Soufflé.

When they killed off the dollar menu is when they killed their business. Sheer momentum is all that's kept them going. Loudly supporting genocide didnt help.

Bad food and overpriced. Why would anyone choose that? Get bent, McDonald's. I hope you have to start closing locations.

Time to bring back automats

rats will eat cocaine until they die. i heard. iced macchiato tasted like cleaning soap. done with mcd's

Read a recipe and cook.

Fast food shouldn't be cheap.

They're overcharging, but the problem is that with labor costs increasing, they would still be overpriced if they cut back to a really low (>1%) margin. COVID killed going out. Being able to go back to the grocery store after the lockdowns killed ordering in.

The whole hospitality industry needs to be replaced. It's funny to watch it as it dies, though.

I haven’t ordered from McDonald’s this year. Uninstalled the app a long time ago. Raised all the prices and eliminated all the remotely good coupons and BOGO or BOGO$1 deals. My family’s order went from $17 to $43. There are a hell of a lot better options, both fast food and fast casual, at that price point than McDonald’s.

Burgers are so easy to make at home. Like 15 minutes. And you get to control what goes in it. It's fast food because it's literally fast to make. Do it yourself.

Really interested in long term health correlations to this

The Free Market at work. If people can't afford to pay for a burger at McD's, they won't - even if they want to.

For the economy to work properly, everyone has to be at least somewhat well-off - not living paycheck-to-paycheck without a dollar to spare for a start.