Fast food CEO: Minimum wage hikes closing locations

[drillsgt]

Fast food was invented for the working class to eat fast, don’t think any of that significantly played into its popularity. You do get it right that, especially for families, the pace of life today makes them have to do twigs fast.


I would challenge this to some degree if one is making the exact same thing. I love the Big Mac, not that **** they sell today, what I was getting in the 70’s. I have taught myself to make them at home complete with homemade sauce. Yep I spend more than going and buying a couple at McD’s.


Funny you name two of the better quality and value places and not one disgusting place like McDonalds or Taco Bell, the lines are there because value is there.


Do you realize that the vast majority have no idea how to prepare a meal? Home economics is a relic of the past, and many of the current mothers and fathers parents did not know how to cook, so it is a downward spiral.

I make peanut brittle, butter toffee, aged egg nog, just to make a couple of things I do in this season. The number of folks that cannot believe I make that and how good it is because it is so uncommon today.

From what I see, tragically, kids eat chicken nuggets when out or if at home they eat frozen chicken nuggets quickly baked.


Yep, lock ‘em up. Nobody works late or gets up early and needs a quick bite of food, they can make do at the gas station. Opps, you probably want them closed too…

It might be cheaper now for you to make your own big macs, what used to be a 5-6.00 dollar meal is now 12.00, a family of four is going to spend almost 50.00 now just at McDonalds.

 

[Ingomike]

It might be cheaper now for you to make your own big macs, what used to be a 5-6.00 dollar meal is now 12.00, a family of four is going to spend almost 50.00 now just at McDonalds.

For sure it is higher, especially if there are teenagers involved. From 15 on my McD’s meal was a Big Mac meal, super size when it came out, and a fish sandwich. That now is almost $17!

However, I don’t have four to feed to get the economy of scale, nor do most folks, and I am not eating tube ground beef, buying fresh ingredients. At stores, a pound of ground from whole cuts of meat ground beef is in the $7 range. It adds up quickly then there are energy costs to add to it.

Then labor, labor to go to the grocery, labor to put it away at home, labor to plan and time meals, labor to prep, labor to cook, labor to clean. Oops? Is all that labor a big part of the cost of fast food?

 

[drillsgt]

For sure it is higher, especially if there are teenagers involved. From 15 on my McD’s meal was a Big Mac meal, super size when it came out, and a fish sandwich. That now is almost $17!

However, I don’t have four to feed to get the economy of scale, nor do most folks, and I am not eating tube ground beef, buying fresh ingredients. At stores, a pound of ground from whole cuts of meat ground beef is in the $7 range. It adds up quickly then there are energy costs to add to it.

Then labor, labor to go to the grocery, labor to put it away at home, labor to plan and time meals, labor to prep, labor to cook, labor to clean. Oops? Is all that labor a big part of the cost of fast food?

Yeah, you can go to a real restaurant for 17.00, the problem is employers are not getting better service from their employees at 20.00/hr, the restaurants aren't cleaner, the food isn't better, the service is definitely not better but it did drive the cost of products up (that and the ridiculous inflation).

 

[armalitesheepdog]

Working hard is too hard for many folks today. After being commissioned only retail for over 45 years, one sees the shortcuts in standards.

Let’s take The restaurant (fast food mostly but high line occasionally) typical model. Franchisee has money to invest. Corporate wants the best image. Reality is dirty glass, French fries on the floor, concrete apron to store tacks up the bottom of your shoe, orders not right, making change is a challenge, they are out of everything and food is substandard.

Now while the manager sets around playing Candy Crush, treats the employee’s like crap, and employees see a dead end job cause no one wants to work hard at advancement fixing the above while on duty, hard working people on the go shop at this god forsaken hell hole cause the Drinkun Donuts are cheap, fast and the peopleless apps lets you get in and get out. Maybe even in Westfield. Check it out and open your eyes. Bathrooms are a good start.

Rinse and repeat every single day.

The initiative of the hourly worker is just above having a pulse. They usually are walking comas.

Some have figured it out, but if you look around the tell is screaming volumes of what and how it happens. Not just restaurants but in so many vocations today.

On the flip side, if we could get some standards back and the hourly employees wants to make it his/her own then more than likely $30 an hour is where it could be for a minimum wage in this country.

But with poor management and the people eating like wolves on a tight lunch hour, it is never going to happen.

Retail will always figure it out or that address will be something else next week.

Raising the hourly wage unfortunately will not alone fix the problem of who wants to work hard at bettering their life. It will only do what it has always done. Help people that can’t or won’t survive each day.


It can start with the shopper. Leave a note, (after you get your food) Report to corporate. Observe the hostess at Pee For Chongs watching TickTok when the foyer doors are filthy or the tables with no bussers.

You ever see one of these joints that are not hiring.? We call that a clue.

The beat goes on.

Very true. But it makes me wonder where Chick Filet gets there people who are normally on point and very courteous. Do they pay more therefore can be more selective?

 

[Creedmoor]

Very true. But it makes me wonder where Chick Filet gets there people who are normally on point and very courteous. Do they pay more therefore can be more selective?

Since it's a Christian based company, I would assume from there local churches.
Edit.
Chick-Fil-A Inc pays its employees an average of $13.16 an hour. Hourly pay at Chick-Fil-A Inc ranges from an average of $9.09 to $20.39 an hour.

 

[Ingomike]

But it makes me wonder where Chick Filet gets there people who are normally on point and very courteous.

They recruit evangelical Christian‘s that do not want to work on Sunday for one specific tactic…

 

[Creedmoor]

I don't think retail has a very good chance of continuing in the modern era. Amazon took that industry's lunch entirely thanks to covid, and due to patterns, I think it's a trend that will continue.

Then we're back to arguing whether someone running boxes in a warehouse should be paid $30 an hour or not, while robots and drones slowly replace all of them anyway.

We don't have much value creation in the current economy, it's not sustainable. I think that's the key in all of this, people know their jobs are not driving the economy along or generating value, they're just arranging chairs on the titanic. It all drives back to the point that we need to start making things domestically.

For one to continually make in the upper twentys and low thirtys per hour picking products in a distribution centers they have to be picking above 100% of there rate every hour they work. Most pic at 85 to 100% of there numbers.
Thats tough to do when one is picking in the bagged and case pet food isles.
The young college men seem to do the best in the heavy areas.
Picking is a labor intensive job, the attrition rate is huge.

 

[foszoe]

They recruit evangelical Christian‘s that do not want to work on Sunday for one specific tactic…

Yep. Lots of pastor's wifes and preacher's kids work there for that specific reason.

 

[tim87tr]

Do you realize that the vast majority have no idea how to prepare a meal? Home economics is a relic of the past, and many of the current mothers and fathers parents did not know how to cook, so it is a downward spiral.

I make peanut brittle, butter toffee, aged egg nog, just to make a couple of things I do in this season. The number of folks that cannot believe I make that and how good it is because it is so uncommon today.

From what I see, tragically, kids eat chicken nuggets when out or if at home they eat frozen chicken nuggets quickly baked.

Served three chuck roasts, smoked and pressure cooked, yesterday at home for a holiday dinner. Had a few people ask what it was, which tells me they haven't cooked a roast. Might do frozen chicken nuggets next time for food recognition. Trying to teach the older grandchildren how to make the Christmas candy.

Served aged homemade egg nog also. There was some surprise reactions when I told them it was a year old. Told them I've had it 4 years old and it's fine since it was 25% alcohol

 

[Twangbanger]

I'm not the free market absolutist I was 9 years ago. But also I don't think government should determine what wages should be. Generally the markets work better than arbitrary numbers picked by ideologues as a solution for something they don't understand.

I agree about the impact of an open border. But setting those wages arbitrarily high, to TB's point, doesn't solve it. Either way the border needs closed for illegal immigrants. I don't have a problem with protectionism either. I think we need to bring manufacturing back to the US.

The problem that caused McDonald's to even be in this discussion is that it was formerly a job for teens and college students. Not to provide a living for a family. Pushing real jobs to Mexico and China caused that problem. To me the solution isn't to force McDonald's to pay more. Stop the global nonsense, bring manufacturing back here (yeah, there will be a hit on prices) and close the borders.

I'm not even as opposed to Unions as I was 9 years ago. I think they're necessary in corporations to help offset corporate greed, because they would definitely **** the workers if they could do whatever they want. But, unions are overbearing and have too much power. I think there needs to be a reset of power between labor and corporations. Neither should have an upper hand. I think the laws now give the unions a greater advantage than they should have.

I'm not as concerned about the wage gap. Wealth is not a zero sum game. But I am concerned about access to the ability to make wealth. I'm not wealthy. I do alright. I'm comfortable. I'm satisfied. I don't chase wealth. Doesn't bother me what Elon Musk has. Or how he got it. But in terms of access to wealth, it used to be that a nobody could use a good idea to make wealth. I don't think that access is as available as it once was. I'm not sure what the answer to that is. But redistributing wealth is probably not the right answer either.

I agree with most all of this. It's too bad we couldn't figure out a way for Unions to continue to exist in manufacturing industries, without putting the inmates in charge of the asylum and protecting incompetent people. The greatest thing about Unions was when people got laid off, when conditions improved, the company was forced to go back and re-hire the same people at the same pay. That was huge, because it made sure the middle class didn't get its wages knocked backwards 10 years every time the Fed decided to have a recession, having to go find a new job at lower pay. Wall Street hated that, and searched for a way to combat it for literally decades, because the Street desperately wants the middle class to get that kick in the teeth every 20 years or so.

Where unions totally sucked, and was their eventual undoing, was the seniority system and the complete lack of ability to give anyone any kind of rating of their job performance. Useless f*cktards became untouchable, permanent pieces of furniture in every plant of every company in every industry, and after they managed to get a few years under their belt, you couldn't even get a break from them during layoffs, because the youngest people had to go first. I really believe this steeled the resolve of Wall Street to lobby for trade deals and admitting China to the WTO. It would have eventually been lobbied for, anyway, but the senselessness of having to keep useless, toxic people in the workplace made even middle class managerial people begrudgingly go along with "free trade" (or at least not fight it too hard), because even they were sick of spending 80% of their time managing the worst 20% of the human capital.

When middle class wages kept going up over the years, was when two critical things happened in America:

1) Unions forcing the re-hiring of people at the same pay after layoffs, and

2) Periodically closing the border to new immigrants.

#2 put upward pressure on wages, and #1 did the same while also preventing the progress from being lost every time the Federal Reserve decided to have a recession. If these protective processes are in place for even a third of the middle class, it has/had a ripple effect on everything.

As usual, we can't have nice things. For various reasons.

 

[Creedmoor]

I agree with most all of this. It's too bad we couldn't figure out a way for Unions to continue to exist in manufacturing industries, without putting the inmates in charge of the asylum and protecting incompetent people. The greatest thing about Unions was when people got laid off, when conditions improved, the company was forced to go back and re-hire the same people at the same pay. That was huge, because it made sure the middle class didn't get its wages knocked backwards 10 years every time the Fed decided to have a recession, having to go find a new job at lower pay. Wall Street hated that, and searched for a way to combat it for literally decades, because the Street desperately wants the middle class to get that kick in the teeth every 20 years or so.

Where unions totally sucked, and was their eventual undoing, was the seniority system and the complete lack of ability to give anyone any kind of rating of their job performance. Useless f*cktards became untouchable, permanent pieces of furniture in every plant of every company in every industry, and after they managed to get a few years under their belt, you couldn't even get a break from them during layoffs, because the youngest people had to go first. I really believe this steeled the resolve of Wall Street to lobby for trade deals and admitting China to the WTO. It would have eventually been lobbied for, anyway, but the senselessness of having to keep useless, toxic people in the workplace made even middle class managerial people begrudgingly go along with "free trade" (or at least not fight it too hard), because even they were sick of spending 80% of their time managing the worst 20% of the human capital.

When middle class wages kept going up over the years, was when two critical things happened in America:

1) Unions forcing the re-hiring of people at the same pay after layoffs, and

2) Periodically closing the border to new immigrants.

#2 put upward pressure on wages, and #1 did the same while also preventing the progress from being lost every time the Federal Reserve decided to have a recession. If these protective processes are in place for even a third of the middle class, it has/had a ripple effect on everything.

As usual, we can't have nice things. For various reasons.

We didn't and don't have those problems with the trade unions outside of the UAW. Like Painters, Pipe fitters, Sprinkler fitter, Elevator Constructors, Steam fitters and so on. The only seniority the elevator union has is what helpers go first to work as a temp mechanic. All Unions are not the same.

 

[HoosierLife]

I think the big corps are putting their profits into robots and AI.

That will eliminate these jobs in the next few decades.

Guys that can fix robots and debug the AI will have jobs.

This is why they’re pushing UBI and eating bugs.

 

[firecadet613]

Served three chuck roasts, smoked and pressure cooked, yesterday at home for a holiday dinner. Had a few people ask what it was, which tells me they haven't cooked a roast. Might do frozen chicken nuggets next time for food recognition. Trying to teach the older grandchildren how to make the Christmas candy.

Served aged homemade egg nog also. There was some surprise reactions when I told them it was a year old. Told them I've had it 4 years old and it's fine since it was 25% alcohol

You, sir, are one of very few who could do that these days!

There's a reason Bob Evans and others sell out of their pre-made holiday meals (that just need to be reheated) every year...

Fast food joints are opening a ton of new locations every year, and their sales continue to increase. That industry is NOT going away and a great first job for many Americans...

When expenses (labor, food cost, utilies, taxes, etc) on their P&L go up, so do menu prices. Business owners will not operate at a loss and want to increase profits year over year...

 

[Ingomike]

Served three chuck roasts, smoked and pressure cooked, yesterday at home for a holiday dinner. Had a few people ask what it was, which tells me they haven't cooked a roast. Might do frozen chicken nuggets next time for food recognition. Trying to teach the older grandchildren how to make the Christmas candy.

Served aged homemade egg nog also. There was some surprise reactions when I told them it was a year old. Told them I've had it 4 years old and it's fine since it was 25% alcohol

Agree with firecadet, few can actually do thus stuff, which is why people are so incredulous when they taste your stuff and it is so good, no preservatives, and fresh…

 

[bwframe]

...makes me wonder where Chick Filet gets there people who are normally on point and very courteous. Do they pay more therefore can be more selective?

It's the management and the company structure. Culvers has a similarly exceptional staff. There might be others that I have not seen, but for sure they are surrounded by a sea of ne'er-do-wells. If you can find an operation with the same staff as the last time you were there, there might be a chance for them.

A lot of restaurant operations had potential, but fooled around and let inexperienced kids (kids of all ages) manage the kids. You cannot expect folks that just don't know and have never been lead to lead others.

Food service is staffed by gypsies that jump from one operation to another frequently. The work ethic of young people these days is set by generations of folks without a work ethic. You can see it beyond the food service industry. Otherwise decent employees are raised by parents, management and sometimes their chosen industry to work as hard or harder to NOT work, than to do the job at hand.

With a little knowledge of restaurant bottom lines, you'll see that labor costs at least double, if not triple food costs.

 

[firecadet613]

It's the management and the company structure. Culvers has a similarly exceptional staff. There might be others that I have not seen, but for sure they are surrounded by a sea of ne'er-do-wells. If you can find an operation with the same staff as the last time you were there, there might be a chance for them.

A lot of restaurant operations had potential, but fooled around and let inexperienced kids (kids of all ages) manage the kids. You cannot expect folks that just don't know and have never been lead to lead others.

Food service is staffed by gypsies that jump from one operation to another frequently. The work ethic of young people these days is set by generations of folks without a work ethic. You can see it beyond the food service industry. Otherwise decent employees are raised by parents, management and sometimes their chosen industry to work as hard or harder to NOT work, than to do the job at hand.

With a little knowledge of restaurant bottom lines, you'll see that labor costs at least double, if not triple food costs.

The difference with the two you mentioned (Culver's and Chic Fil A) and most other franchised restaurants are they do not have very large franchisees with multiple locations. Their franchisees are likely much closer to daily operations, having only a handful of locations they own.

Other chains have franchisees with 10s or 100s of locations, and the owners aren't as in tune to daily ops.

Labor and food should be close to each other, depending on the chain. Labor anywhere from 20-30% and food about the same as that...

 

[Leadeye]

Squirrel and deer still cost the same as a cartridge, although most of the food we eat is store bought.

Restaurant food is quite a rarity here.

 

[Twangbanger]

We didn't and don't have those problems with the trade unions outside of the UAW. Like Painters, Pipe fitters, Sprinkler fitter, Elevator Constructors, Steam fitters and so on. The only seniority the elevator union has is what helpers go first to work as a temp mechanic. All Unions are not the same.

That's why I said "...unions in manufacturing industries..." I'm all for high school educated people getting good jobs in the trades, but there aren't enough of those jobs for everyone, and never will be. Trade unions don't comprise enough job positions in America to save the middle class in the sense that we used to know it, hence are irrelevant to this discussion.

 

[Creedmoor]

That's why I said "...unions in manufacturing industries..." I'm all for high school educated people getting good jobs in the trades, but there aren't enough of those jobs for everyone, and never will be. Trade unions don't comprise enough job positions in America to save the middle class in the sense that we used to know it, hence are irrelevant to this discussion.

The just need to expand their horizons on the workforce they go after.

 

[Trapper Jim]

Since it's a Christian based company, I would assume from there local churches.
Edit.
Chick-Fil-A Inc pays its employees an average of $13.16 an hour. Hourly pay at Chick-Fil-A Inc ranges from an average of $9.09 to $20.39 an hour.

CF has a strong training program with quality managers every day. Plus perks you don’t normally find in a dead end job.

Speed of the captain….speed of the crew.