Flavortown is dead 😔

No problem, as salaries also trippled in that time
- Maybe not tripled, but making 7.25-10/hour was pretty common in 2008. The standard today is 15-20/hour at fast food.
  I'm aware this doesn't justify tripling the price. Even 3x wages would not triple the cost of the burger.
  
  Yet $7.25 is still the federal minimum wage today
- Consider me spoiled 😢

Wow, so I did tha math. The official inflation rate factors up to just over 1.5 (50% increase) over the past 16 years. But this meme suggests a factor of 3.58!!! (258% increase)
- The official inflation rate doesn't include food or energy. It's ridiculous.
  
  Food and products have 2.3x'd since just before covid started.
  
  The most funny thing was the "I can't eat an iPad" reply, when someone from the Fed tried to explain these mental gymnastics
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704893604576199113452719274
  
  It does include food and energy, but they also separately report a "core" inflation that excludes those items because food and energy tend to go up and down.
- Looking at beef in particular, a pound of ground beef has gone up from $2.10/lb in 2008 to $6.20 in 2025.
  Chicken breast, on the other hand, has gone from $3.50/lb to about $4.10.
  Beef has been getting more expensive faster than inflation basically my whole life, while stuff like chicken, milk, and eggs have been volatile, jumping up and down at times, and stuff like rice and flour have long periods of stability with the occasional big permanent jump.
  
  That chicken price is indicative of the increasing size and density of factory farms, which caused the bird flu epidemic in the first place.
- It was on a famous show.
- It’s prepared food, so the price also depends on wage increase and changes to tip structure in that state. Several states began fair wage for servers after 2008, so the gratuity may now be included in the price of the meal.
  
  I would like to say, California instituted a $20 fast food minimum wage which was estimated to cause an 8% increase in overall wages (they already trend high there) but a 1.5% increase in menu prices. To my mind this tracks as wages are kind of small (too small) against ingredients, building lease, etc.
  Granted, increasing the wages of everybody in the agricultural supply chain would probably have a bigger effect, but overall I think businesses tend to mcfucking lie about the impact of wage increases on consumer prices.

AI burger meat is my favorite.
- That's good, cause it's all we'll be able to afford in a few years.
- You mean your cheese slices don't have more than 4 points?

In Pulp Fiction (1994) John Travolta's character freaks out over the "5$ milkshake".
- In 2025 a chocolate shake is 5.49 at the sonic near me. I thought that was expensive but compared to this thread apparently inflation on milkshakes hasn't been to bad. Though I'm pretty sure you can get a $10 shake if you start asking them to add every kind of diabetes candy into it.
  
  There's a fast food chain where I live called Nifty Fifty's ('50s themed of course). They have "dessert milkshakes" for $9.85 - basically shakes with a whole extra dessert blended in - and if you get it malted you're at $10.50. TBF they're really fucking good milkshakes, but $10 is ridiculous.

One of my parents said that steaks were 35 cents when they were kids.
I am not looking forward to my Walmart cheese & breadstick snacks costing $70 bucks for a set of five.

Being on a food TV show and becoming slightly famous therefor allows you to increase your prices and still keep all the seats filled. The best burger place near me has increased to $10 from $5 over roughly the same time period, in keeping with the increase in beef prices over that time.

Guess what will happen to food prices in the US when farmers cannot exploit cheap migrants anymore...
- Not to worry - they'll be replaced with children and prisoners and robots.

The CEO's, shareholders and the 1% need to make more! There is no fucking way I am going to spend $17.00 for a fucking cheeseburger.
- Yup. As soon as I see a fancy toothpick in the picture, I know I should just leave.

Do we really not see that being on that show might have something to do with that?
- I mean, it probably had an impact, but even the 1/4 pounder with cheese meal at mcdonalds is 12 dollars here

Gentrification came for flavortown.
Rent is now $4000/mth. No loitering.
- LOL where can you find $4k/month? My dentist said her office rent in W. Seattle was $11k/mo.
  
  For commercial rent that nearly seems reasonable. Especially considering what they're charging for dentistry, that's like... 3 people without insurance? 🥲

We're not in flavor town anymore, Toto.

According to the US Dept of Labor and Statistics, ground chuck cost $2.83/lb in March 2008, and 5.85/lb in March 2025. If i can basic math, that’s an increase of ~~206~~ 106%.
Edit: Math hard.
- 106%
- That is an increase of 106%
- Well, at least you can do basic logic…
- US department of Labor and Statistics
  You say? Ooh I know this, a direct Survey can give the enumerator data for a final presentating about the unemployment rate is!
  (This has been an Any Austin tribute)
  
  a direct Survey can give the enumerator data for a final presentating about the unemployment rate is!
  Forgive me for being dense, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.

$10 Aud gets you a proper burger in Oz at a bakery or takeaway spot, you'll pay $20+ Aud inc chips/fries in a pub/bistro, but either way you have to tackle them to stop them putting fucking pickled beetroot on it first, dark times all round indeed..
- Holy cow, where do you live that Burgers are still $10 anywhere.
  
  Suburban fish and chip shops that have been around for 30 years and also sell either souvlaki or an assortment of chinese dishes.
  
  I had a double smash cheeseburger for 9€ on friday in germany.
  160g meat
  
  Yeah local bakeries still do them for $10, proper fresh buns and salad, still do schnitzel rolls with proper chicken for that price too, not with a big processed chicken nugget pretending to be a schnitzel...

That seems to track. A local place near me burgers have gone from around 10 bucks about 7 years ago to 17-18 bucks a burger. Seems to be the going rate these days

In-N-Out
Is the objectively superior choice
- rotatingsandwiches.com mentioned! Probably one of the best website on the internet icl
- I miss in n out but at least my current state has a cheap burger joint. Its not as good but the cheapest option is like 2.50 which im not sure how that's financially possible tbh
  
  Man in my country the trash burger joints (the burgers are good they just look or feel nothing like classical burgers, they put in a ton of salad and shit to make it bigger) used to do 1.80 and such. The most famous one did a gigantic one for I think 2.50 back in.... 2013. Same burger now is 6.50
  In our case the minimum salary has nearly tripled, so it's kinda OK, but it's kinda sad that economic growth is just canceled out by rising prices.
- Interior to Whataburger
  
  I've heard Texans rave about that shit for years
  Imagine my surprise when it was the worst burger I've ever had, I spit it out. Truly Texans are dipshits
- hail corporate
- Nice animation, but their burgers, at least around here, are atrocious. Really the worst of the worst.

Burgers are fine-dining now. Still trying to find cheap food that's nutritious and doesn't contain too much fiber for medical reasons. Eventually that will be fine dining prices too.

What 'Murica thinks flavour is: fat, salt, sugar, shit.
- Cheeseburger with bacon is a quintessential white man food.
  Muslims and Jews cannot eat it. Indians are forbidden too. Asians don’t tolerate lactose and other minorities can’t afford it nowadays.
  When on some day you feel cultural superiority in your veins, order a cheeseburger with bacon and know that you are amongst the selected few who can savour this delicacy
  Put on a Burger King hat too for a good measure and order it sitting in your SUV. Celebrate this wonderful country
  
  The Christian Bible has the same restrictions about eating pigs, but they just ignore it. A lot of Jewish people in the US do as well.
  
  Muslims and Jews cannot eat it
  Those are religions, not races.
  other minorities can’t afford it nowadays.
  Because minorities are poor?
  Asians don’t tolerate lactose
  Neither do I, but I'm having that ice cream and destroying that toilet.
  Stop being weird. It's unnecessary.
- Someone should tell the rest of the world that fat, sugar, and salt aren't allowed.

$17 for a burger, even if it really did look like the picture, which we all know it doesn't, is way too much. No, thank you.
I pay $12/day to feed myself. I make all of my own meals at home, I haven't eaten out since the pandemic. I formed the habit, and just kept cooking at home as prices got ridiculous. My diet is excellent, mostly fresh vegetables, and organic chicken.

When Bob's Burgers started airing the burger of the day was $5.95. This used to be a reasonable price for a burger.

Carl's Jr. $5 Burger used to mock this bullshit. It cost $3 and it was fucking amazing.

Coming out of left field here, but… scaling beef production is not very sustainable?
Like, unless it’s a rare treat, I feel like beef has to go artificial or prices keep going up, even if wealth distribution is worked out.

American here, but this photo feels like a legit parody of American eating habits. If I were gonna make fun of us I would use this exact image LOL.

But I want to know how Bitcoin could be doing so well, it makes no sense, what demand is there for a finite commodity to store their value?
- https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/apr/how-big-mac-index-relates-overall-consumer-inflation