moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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The Fast Food Thread
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Lanx
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Furry
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That 'not actually smaller' is lying by statistics. 2/3s the carbs and lots of extra fat means they made it way more compact. They probably substituted some of the beef and bun with more processed cheese or extra mayo, whichever was cheaper, and just outright lowered the beef quality.
This 100% confirms severe shrinkflation is underway.
Furry
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I have a green list of places I'll go. I probably eat something fast food once a month. I'm much more into eating random crap at the grocery store. McDonalds for me is that once every few months I crave the mcdonalds beef chemicals. I usually just get a double cheeseburger and no fries or drink. Hits the craving and its like 3$.
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Fogel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Only fast food I get right now is the occasional Chik Fil A and Captain D's has a 2 piece fish and fries for 6 bucks and the fish pieces are huge so they aren't skimping out there. Once in awhile I'm forced to go to McD's for my nugget fix, but that's all I'll ever get from there.
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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You keep acting like acknowledging context is the same as "defending drug use." No one said substances aren't a factor. What's being challenged is your insistence on treating downstream labor symptoms as if they're the engine driving declines in food quality.
Your argument works like this - 20% of workers are impaired -> impaired people don't care -> therefore restaurants are bad now. But that's not an analysis, that's feels-based causality (liberals do this, btw).
If worker quality were the primary determinant of food quality, we'd expect chains with sober, well-trained workers to serve better food (they don't - it still tastes like shit, costs way too much, has suffered from shrinkflation, etc.), chains in stricter labor markets to outperform others, and establishments with in-house prep to consistently excel. But the data, industry history, and even the examples you yourself cited all say the opposite - quality is tracking with supply chain decisions, not employee lifestyle choices.
Outback didn't decline because Chad on the grill hit a blunt. It declined when corporate leadership replaced in-house prep with centrally sourced product to protect margins. You keep circling back to drugs, old people, and lazy kids because those are morally convenient culprits. They let you feel like you've diagnosed something without having to understand how consolidation, logistics, and scaling incentives reshape entire industries. That's why Matt's video resonated with you, because it moralizes structural economics. That's precisely why he first starts with the "drugs" red herring and then throws in the "woke"/WOMEN! red herring toward the latter part of the video. It's easier to blame individuals than to understand systems. It's fascinating to watch how people supporting the "right" are just as easily captured by "moral outrage" as the left. Only instead of abortion, SNAP, etc. they capture you with illegal immigration, drugs, crime, etc.
As for the "keep eating the slop" line? I'm not defending the food, I'm explaining why it's slop. Your stance amounts to - "The ship is sinking because the deckhand doesn't row hard enough!". Meanwhile, the hull was sold off to private equity and replaced with cardboard. You're not wrong that workers can be a factor. You're wrong in thinking that factor is primary, causal, or fixable in isolation. You can fire every "druggie" tomorrow and nothing fundamentally changes until the inputs, incentives, and distribution networks do. That's not an excuse, that's the architecture of the industry.
Blaming workers feels satisfying. Understanding supply chains actually explains something.
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McCheese
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Grocery store has been my alternative, too. I can buy a full bag of those TGIFridays chips for $1.69 and any one of a huge variety of beverages for like $2 to $3. I can add on a meat stick if I want protein for another $2. That's more food for about half the price.
The only downside is I have to get out of my car but given I'm eating a whole bag of chips for breakfast the walking does me good.
zzeris
The Real Benny Johnson
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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You don't have to literally say something is "the engine" for your argument to rely on it functioning as a primary driver. When someone repeatedly returns to a factor, elevates it rhetorically, and uses it as the point of distinction between "then vs. now," they're not treating it as "incidental", they're positioning it as causal. The way you've framed drug use, generational attitudes, and worker indifference isn't just as a background condition. You've repeatedly positioned those things as the reason food quality has declined. That's why I pushed back. You're assigning cultural and behavioral explanations to an outcome that's far more directly tied to supply chain decisions, centralized prep, and cost-driven sourcing.
No one's denying substance abuse exists or that it creates challenges. The question is whether it meaningfully explains national menu homogenization, lower ingredient quality, or the outsourcing of food prep to massive distributors. If removing those workers tomorrow wouldn't reverse any of that, then it's not the causal lever you are framing it as. It's a contribution to a much larger picture, not the thing steering the ship.
If your point is simply that worker quality can affect execution at the margins, fine. Most people would agree with that. But when the inputs, sourcing, and prep are standardized at the corporate or distributor level, the ceiling on quality is already set long before the fry cook touches anything. That's why pushing the conversation toward cultural decay or personal responsibility feels like a distraction and falling for the red herring Matt offers up. It doesn't address the mechanisms that actually changed the industry.
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You know the fast food industry has jumped the shark when a guy named McCheese won’t visit the establishments.
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stop eating at faggot panera
or you can spend 1.50$ and get cambells 3d printed chicken noodles
Exactly this, it's like these retards don't realize they can simply say fucking no. If I ordered some dogshit soup and a couple of sandwiched and some American Inventor was like yeah that's $70 fucking dollars and also please hit the tip button on the ipad I am just leaving the food on the counter and fucking leaving.
Straight up plenty of just normal sit down restaurants are cheaper than that shit.
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Malakriss
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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[Bowl - 280 Cal] Cream of Chicken & Wild Rice Soup - $6.69
[Group Serving - 650 Cal] Cream of Chicken & Wild Rice Soup - $22.76
2.32x the amount for 3.40x the price it would literally be smarter to order 3 bowls instead if they are seriously getting no sides. Normal people not baiting for a video probably want their 4-pack option with french baguettes, apples, or chips. Still overpriced but their order is stupid.
[Group Serving - 650 Cal] Cream of Chicken & Wild Rice Soup - $22.76
2.32x the amount for 3.40x the price it would literally be smarter to order 3 bowls instead if they are seriously getting no sides. Normal people not baiting for a video probably want their 4-pack option with french baguettes, apples, or chips. Still overpriced but their order is stupid.
Furry
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Panera is weird. Their food for men, which is basically the coffee and bagels is reasonably priced. Their food for women is a gigantic FUCK YOU that costs 5x what it should. My sister figured out you could put together some 40 fucking dollar sandwich when my dad gave her his credit card. It wasn't even good. I wanted to slap the shit out of her the couple times she ordered that thing.
I never got a reason on why my dad stopped going to panera.
I never got a reason on why my dad stopped going to panera.
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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stop eating at faggot panera
or you can spend 1.50$ and get cambells 3d printed chicken noodles
Brick of Tillamook Cheese, A few bars of butter, and two loaves of bread.
That's like $15 total and you can make IDK 20 grilled cheeses from that. Retards gonna retard.
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Falstaff
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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McDonald’s app is on a legendary run this week. Big Mac meal for $4.89, 6 piece nuggets buy one get one for $1. Added a large fry and the kids and I had dinner for like $11.
The other night they had 20 piece nuggets, two medium fries, two cheeseburgers for $12.89 or something.
The other night they had 20 piece nuggets, two medium fries, two cheeseburgers for $12.89 or something.
McCheese
SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
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