If I don't think something is not worth it, I decide I cannot justify the cost and learn to live without that. I reset my expectations and go on with my life. I am not a "money bags" you jerk, I just accept reality and navigate it according to my beliefs.

Instead of complaining about the restaurants prices, why dont you take up the price of the raw goods which compose your Jumbo margarita. (It's $8 bucks because tequila prices went up and tequila enjoyed new popularity a few years ago.)

If you dont want to be labeled "cheap", fair enough. But you need to be realistic. Restaurant owners are not pulling prices out of their asses. The cost of the goods have risen.

I agree with you to a certain extent. If you don't like the amount something costs, don't buy it. It's the power we have as consumers. It's not being "cheap" as money bags t0ph claims it to be.

Not even ten years ago, I used to be able to take my family out to some of these places for under $40. That's with tip, and me drinking a beer or two. Now it's $60 before tip.

We have some local Mexican joints that became popular. They noticed this, and raised their priced through the roof. Is it being "cheap" to complain about a place you once enjoyed gouging you? I think not. $8 for a jumbo margarita that once cost only $4. Is it being "cheap" to think that that is just outrageous? Is it being "cheap" to think that my favorite dish there went from $5.99 to $11.99 in less than six years? I think not, and you know what, I do just as you mentioned, I don't eat there anymore. I can afford it, but I'm just not that stupid.

The supplier is normally corporate headquarters, and they mark it up themselves before it gets to the franchiser. Hence the $4.

Where are you going to get that deal? Everywhere I go, apps are $5.99 and beers are $2.50. It seems like the area standard where I live with all of the chains. Most local joints mark up their apps as well.

Both of the Subways near me only charge $5 for the Turkey sub. It must be the franchiser who's doing this.

Not really, I've been to one Chili's that made me nearly vomit all over the place due to their food prep/unsanitary conditions, but others that were pretty good at doing what Chili's does.
I've also had the same experience with Dennys, TGIF, Subway, etc... The individual restaurant can vary dramatically (probably depending on the owner and management), it's just that they do often maintain the same standards because it's easy to do so and still profitable.

I've tried plantains many, many times, and my opinion is the extreme opposite of yours... TOTALLY FUCKING DISGUSTING, I'D MUCH RATHER EAT A CLUMP OF MUD.
The bastard child of the banana family...

Leaves me at water. Which is what I usually order. Without lemon. Local news reported high amounts of e coli on sliced restaurant lemons. Yikes.

Also, the produce, condiments, bun and fries are cheap as dirt. Meat and cheese are the only things that cost them any money. And they are both significantly cheaper than what you buy in Kroger.

@wrjohnston19283: Very true! It's much easier to justify that $25 6 oz filet when the $45 surf-and-turf is on the menu, but if the filet is $18 and a 6 oz sirlion is $9.99 at the local steakhouse, you can bet I'm buying the sirloin.

@WB: Diet Coke definitely affects the taste of food, at least for me. Any carbonated diet drink + spicy food gives me an extremely unpleasant bitter, chemical taste. On the other hand, beer + spicy food is one of my favorite combinations.

Or what jackbishop said. "Mouthfeel" is a fun word and very appropriate here.

If you don't have enough money to order pizza and tip, don't order pizza. When I worked at restaurant chains like the one above (though not that one), I'd get the earnest kids who didn't have enough money for the meal + tip, and so they'd usually try to scrap something together... but after getting Prom Pictures, CD's, candy, etc., for tips from these kids, you just wanted to tell them, if you *can't* afford the meal, don't go out.

I just tried plantains for the first time a couple of weeks ago. They were GOOD.

@Radi0logy: Well, the article does say a steak sandwich, not ground beef. I'd imagine that the steak is sirloin (since that's the cheapest cut that can still be considered "steak"), which is easily 4 or 5 bucks a pound. The sandwich is probably 1/4 of a pound, so paying around a buck for the beef seems about right. Add produce, condiments, bun, and fries, and it wouldn't suprise me if the ingredients ended up costing around $4.

Also, everyone seems to be forgetting that the restaurants generally can't buy their ingredients wherever they want. Ingredients usually come from the franchising company with a markup, making the $4 even easier to believe.

@johnfrombrooklyn: I hope the lawsuit currently facing KFC over their chicken giveaway will stop these promotions all together. whenever a place gives something out for free I usually make sure to avoid it b/c i'd rather pay $4 for chicken than wait in line for an hour. and then when the chicken given away isn't adequate a lawyer decides to "defend the little guy." giveaways attract some good customers, but they primarily attract cheapskates looking for a handout.

I had a waitress hand me a dessert menu after I had asked her for the check three times, told her I did not want dessert all

Stupid math degree.

@hillsrovey:

I stopped going to my local Subway over a $5 foot-long dispute.

Their menu offered to "add chips and a drink to any sub for $2.29". Not a special, not a coupon, just their charge the make a combo meal. I bought a $5 sub (when ALL the subs were $5) and asked for the chips/drink for $2.29.

Nope, they tell me. We can only do that with full-price subs (remember, EVERY sub was $5). Your combo will be an additional $3.28.

I asked if they would be changing their sign soon, since NO sub would be eligible for the chip/drink price and nowhere did they mention this 'policy'.

He laughed.

I declined to pay for the sub which they had made for me and left. I hate being nickeled and dimed.

I very rarely drink soda when out. I occasionally will have tea.

@Radi0logy:

The real question is, if you owned a place, and I wanted a dishwasher on my burger, would you put it on for me?

But I agree, Habana (there's no "La" in the name) on 6th is amazing.

If you dont like an establishment, dont go. Order you dinner off the dollar menu at Wendy's or McD's and stuff your face in the glow if the television and warm feeling that you just saved some money and paid only 4.97 for your meal.

I used to work with this guy who felt that haircuts should only cost $5. He didn't give a crap about the barber, his livelihood, how many more customers he would have to attend to each day to make a living. I am sick of cheap bastards.

He WASN'T paid like normal (hourly wage), so it did matter to him what people ordered and how much it costs. Sheesh.

As far as a grill or dishwasher, read the original article here. We are talking about INGREDIENTS. I don't put dishwashers on my burgers.

I need...a cashier's check... CHECKING ACOUNT!!!!!!! ... I have six... LOL!!!! My checks are free..... FREE!!!!!!

Now IHOP, I have some stories from IHOP...

Or maybe they are working that job trying to pay for school as many of us are. Sorry that our mommy and daddy didn't pay for everything as it seems that yours did

Esta loca sammich!

I managed a independently owned pizza place for years, and while you're not wrong, there is some logic to the action beyond cost cutting.

Pile to much on in the way of toppings and the cooking is affected. Ingredient balance is a flavor issue. If you put all toppings in at full volume the way you suggest, there would be negative consequences.

In some cases though, you're just getting ripped off.

@slickdealer:

Having worked at 3 different pizza places growing up, 2 that are national brands, I can say that all 3 do what you describe. Siting papa murphys again as it is the last one i worked at, when you order a family size (large) pepperoni you get 80 pepperoni on your pizza for x$ When you order a large pepperoni & sausage you now get 60 pepperoni and 1 cup of sausage. Had you ordered the sausage alone you would get anywhere from 1.5 cups to 2 cups of sausage. When i say cups, i mean the papa murphys standard measuring cup for toppings. Should you order more, they reduce all ingredience by more. This is the standard model for pizza chains as far as i'm aware. The only time you dont lose out is when you order extra cheese. Standard topping cheese was 3oz, extra cheese was another 4oz no matter how many toppings you ordered.

Restaurant costs are broken down into food, liquor, staff and overhead (usually).

I've never seen one with plantains, tho. I have had a jibarito in Chicago, but they used fried plantains as the "bread."

$9 margin on an item that cost $3 to make doesn't fly anymore. You have to make things cost effective. Restaurants sometimes have a problem with this, especially upscale chains. The economy sucks. You are going to have to live with lower margins. You are going to have to live with the fact that many consumers won't pay $2.00 for suger water anymore and certainly won't pay $4.00 for a small sliver of pie for desert. Those little extras add up and end up being a waste of money.

but no matter what, unless if it's a rip off, people will always booze up lol.

Then again, my Denny's also has reindeer dishes as special "flavors of the season" in December, so maybe it's only this Denny's.

No, overhead magically causes it to not be profit...possibly even to be a loss.

Also, I meant to direct that at a specific other comment. Whoops.

The best food is always at some hole-in-the-wall...usually a dirty one, run by some fat middle aged person...usually a man. The place usually specializes in a small range of food, possibly only one type.

This is true anywhere in the world.

When I do take advantage of an offer like this, I'm cognizant that I'm getting something I wouldn't otherwise, and try to meet the establishment halfway. For instance, on our trip to Friday's, we got wine before dinner. My dinner guest and I sometimes have wine, but not always ... but we had decided we ought to get a little something "extra" and that's what we chose to do. (Both of us being on Weight Watchers, and Friday's menu being what it is, appetizers and desserts were out of the question. A glass of wine is 2 points, though, and we can work it in without too much trouble.)

Also, we tipped based on the full amount of everything we were brought.

For the commenter who claims tipping is "optional" ... that's just a rationale for being cheap. In an ideal world, perhaps tipping is truly optional. And when it started as a practice, it might have been optional. But today, with the restaurant world as it is, tipping is NOT "optional." For wait staff, it's the majority of their pay — and that's just how it is. An ethical customer does not demand that people wait on him/her, then stiff them of their pay for having done so, using "but tipping is optional" as an excuse.

In cases of bad service, I've been known to leave a low tip. But I have never left no tip, nor even the proverbial "one-penny" tip.

Want to be anything more than a diner in my eye? Offer a water glass. You will be tipped accordingly.

But seriously, back up your statements. I bought a pound of ground beef at Kroger this weekend for $.99, thats AFTER Kroger marked it up God knows how much to bring it to me and assuredly much more than a T.G.I. Friday's buys their meat for. And pretty much also assuredly of better quality than the gristlefat that they use at Fridays. But please, if you have such rock solid evidence to back that up, then present it!

On a similar note, restaurants often add expensive items to make mid priced items seem cheaper, as they know many people will not order the most expensive item. A person may be willing to spend $20 on an entree when another entree on the menu is $30, but if $20 is the maximum, that same person may chose a $15 entree. They add the expensive items to draw your willingness to pay higher.

Same thing with meal sizes - people see "value" in large size meals, even if what you would normally eat costs $10, they can double the amount of food and charge only $5 more, it seems like a better "value", but you end up paying $5 more.

Are you sure that the franchisees have to pay royalties on free items? The franchisor I work for only charges the royalty on the amount a customer pays - buy one get one free means only the royalty on the one part.

Restaurants run on stupidity. I love a diet coke with my dinner, but I've noticed in the past two years restaurants have been upping their soda prices into the stratosphere. While this is an easy way to milk profits, its an easy way to eliminate profits when people switch to water (which restuarants then add an expensive (relatively speaking) lemon wedge to).

And then how about the kid's meal, in which places are charging $4 for a dish of macaroni and cheese.

If these places started reducing the price on their high margin items (the ones that TRULY piss people off), they would probably wind up making more money and have more customers coming in.

"The ingredients alone for each steak sandwich cost about $4, he said." If the items needed to make that TFI Fridays steak sandwich cost the restaurant $4, they need a new supplier! We're talking some meat, a roll, etc... $4?? Doesn't cost that much in ingredents to make one at home.

No offense, but as a former waiter, a tip of five dollars in change is almost more insulting than a stiff. Change requires me to horde it for a long time, then make an extra trip to a bank or coin machine before it can turn into something actually usable in every day life. It's the equivalent of saying thanks for the pizza, now here's a chore. The restaurant I worked in had a donations jar for Shriner's hospitals, so I dumped all coins in there.

Point taken working on the 4th put me in a bad mood

And since the franchisees are usually being forced by their corporate parent to do the promotions, it's hard not to blame them.

Local places are often mediocre, sometimes horrible, sometimes great. Chain restaurants are always mediocre because they're designed that way; their food is ironed flat through multiple focus groups in order to appeal to the largest segment of the market. Selling very good food is risky and chains avoid risk.

I'd rather take the chance and maybe find a great place to eat than buy food I know won't ever be very good. That local places rarely have fake road signs and stuffed animals screwed to the walls is just a side benefit.

I don't share the op's attitude, but "Buy local" can mean more than shopping in mom-and-pop places. It often means buying local goods, too, and that can be a much larger benefit to the local economy and environment than purchasing imports from other regions or countries.

It would be different if people ordered steak even if they didn't like it, just because it was on sale.

@Possinator:

That's the price non-europeans pay for having ridiculously spread-out distribution. It kills me that it is nearly impossible to find a US restaurant that truly serves fresh food unless you want to eat seafood on the coast.

@unobservant:

That requires an ounce of intelligence in management. While you'll frequently find that at the franchisee level, you're not going to see it often at the corporate level.

@TechnoDestructo:

If I sell an item that costs $1 for $3, I'm making a $2 profit on that item.

Is it gross profit? Yes. That doesn't magically cause it to not be profit.

This is no different than the cost of the ingredients. Along the way, the production of the food that goes into the sandwich incorporates the labor to create/process it (as well as all related expenses).

@kewlfocus: I NEVER have pop in my house. Never. Occasionally I'll have alcohol (usually given as a gift, often not opened until guests come over) around, but it's certainly not common. My drink of choice is water or iced tea (which I make from unsweetened caffeine-free herbal tea). I just don't like sweet drinks with food. Even juice is usually too sweet for me (I fill a glass 1/4 full of juice and then fill the rest with sparkling water when I do have juice). To me, food and sweet drinks don't really go well together. I don't mind soda or a Frappucino on their own, but not with food, please!

Eating out isn't just about the food. It's also about not having to go to any trouble and having something different to eat for an evening. Focusing excessively on food and food costs is ignoring a big part of the picture.

Even if you re-heated your own frozen food, you're still doing the warming, serving, and cleaning in the same old house. It's about the experience as well as the food.

@Spectre1125:

Agreed on the "tip your driver" bit, but I also lean heavily on the driver to "not be an asshole."

At an old apartment, we ordered pizza and realised that, while we had enough in cash to pay for the pizza, we didn't have enough in cash to tip the driver. So we scoured the place for change. All-in-all, we probably scraped together a good $5-$7 in change, figured that we'd just give up the extra money as an apology for giving a tip in change.

So we give the driver the tip, apologize for the change, close the door, and then hear a loud *BANG* a few seconds later. Opening the door again, we see that the driver has thrown the bag of change we gave him against the door, scattering it in the hallway.

What the driver didn't know is that one of our friends was the manager at his location. We got his schedule cut down to nothing.

So, yeah, customers should always tip a reasonable amount, and drivers should always be courteous. If all we can give you is change, accept it and be grateful - you never know who you're delivering to.

A Schlotzsky's Original sandwich costs between $0.50 and $1.50 to make, depending on size and portion control.

Actually, most of the sandwiches that don't include beef cost between $0.50 and $1.50, with the beef sandwiches running close to $2.

I remember that from working at a Schlotzsky's a few years ago. I may even still have the unit cost worksheet around here somewhere. The franchiser sends it out to the franchisees to help them set prices.

corporate guy, wouldn't you be upset for doing the same amount of work for less money? and don't say no because that's ridiculous.

FRIDAYS had a promo a couple of months ago via emailed printable coupon. I have over 10 email addresses and 8 PC'c so I printed out 20 coupons.(which is a consevative # for me...)

It was for a free appetizer...(value below 8.99)for members of their Stripes club. The only thing I ever eat there is the potato skin appetizer...lg. @ $7.99 ..

There are 6 TGIF's within 15 miles.I went to take-out,,told them one coupon was a friends.....got 2 large orders FREE!!!! In total I accumulated about 20 large orders...which are are very adapable to freezing!!!!

Could someone please calulate the gross profit margin for me...mine...not theirs!!! LOL

.

So kudos again for the local joints. And Publix makes the best cold subs :)

But I'm certainly with you aaron8301 -- large chains have the benefit of consistency. If I'm in the mood for Friday's heart-stopping cheesy bacon cheeseburger (mmmm....), it's gonna be the same anywhere. You take a chance with local places, and sometimes they're great, and other times they're not.

@slickdealer: Order less than 4 toppings (including extra cheese) and you shouldn't have that problem if you're talking about Domino's.

There are 1 topping, 2-3 toppings, and +4 toppings portions. So long as you order under 4 toppings on a pizza, your meat portions should be the same as if you had ordered separate single topping pizzas. The main reason we have to scale back ingredients is the pizzas won't cook properly otherwise. The higher the water content of an ingredient, the less we can put on the pizza. Even a single topping ham pizza will sometimes have to be remade/well done because it was overtopped and didn't brown up.

But, it can also be a way for bad managers to cut corners. The CSRs might also be rushing and cutting toppings, either because they are trying to get the oven load times down or they were trained incorrectly on purpose. In particular, lots of pepperoni and ham can slow up the makeline as each slice has to be placed on the pizza nearly individually. The store I work at generally does 400-500ish pizzas a day, with about half of that in the span of two hours during the evening. There's a lot of time pressure and "pseudo-quotas" involved.

Domino's has a satisfaction guarantee. It should be on the side of the pizza boxes and maybe the pasta boxes. Call the store and complain if you aren't happy with what you got. They are obligated by the company to make you a happy, returning customer. You can read the guarantee to the person on the phone word for word if you have to. Under normal circumstances, it shouldn't be difficult at all to get a manager to either replace your pizza or credit you if you are not happy with the product.

One thing to keep in mind though is managers can and do look up a detailed order history of an address if they feel the need. Also, anybody in the store can see when you ordered, who took your order, when your order left the store, and how long the driver has been out on the road if you have a delivery. This means it's important not to exaggerate. You'll likely end up having to do more work and getting way less assistance if the manager suspects you're scamming for free food.

Try not to sound too frustrated or confrontational either, particularly if it's dark/late. If you get angry, you can get nailed as a "robbery risk". This effectively means Domino's won't deliver to you for the next hundred years or so unless you convince the hierarchy that you aren't crazy or dangerous. Even if you do, drivers can't be forced to deliver an order if they consider it unsafe to do such. The driver is allowed to abort a run anytime up to the point that they take your money if there is suspicion of danger. Not answering your phone if we call you falls under that category, especially if it is nighttime or your neighborhood is rough. If we do call, it's usually for a confirmation or the driver can't locate your house and needs help.

If you are having consistent issues that aren't being resolved, call the store and ask for the general manager. Tell them to give you the number for the district manager. They have to give it to you, and if you are talking to the general manager they definitely know the number. If they claim they can't get the number for you, ask for the number for another Domino's in the same area and call them for it instead. At this level, you're getting out of the frontline manager pool and talking to people that are much more capable of initiatizing or making significant store changes.

Give the people at the store a chance to help you out first before anything. We don't benefit from making bad customers or driving away business. You will always be better off if the employees and managers solve your problem.

And as a side note to anyone who happens to order from us, please tip your driver! There's no excuse for stiffing your driver, especially when you just ordered pizza. We shoot for an average of *two dollars* in tips plus our cut of the fee per delivery. For the majority of orders, that doesn't even amount to 10% of the bill.

Domino's charges a delivery fee to cover the "associated overhead" of having delivery service itself... Depending on the price of gas, the driver may not even get so much as half of the fee. Currently we're hovering at about $1.10 per order. Drivers also do not make minimum wage. Furthermore, indications for the moment are when minimum wage jumps up again, driver wages won't.

But if I'm already "out", such as my every other week trip to the shopping mall, then I might eat at a restaurant. Convenience is part of what I'm paying for. If it's the local mall (80% of the time) I usually eat on the cheap like Wendy's. If it's the mall over in Pittsburgh, I often take in something more expensive like Chili's. When I lived in Dallas I did a lot worse.

Looks like a trip to Pittsburgh next week because the local Best Buy still won't get any stock in of the particular netbook computer I want and have been willing to buy for the last 10 weeks. Maybe I'll try T.G.I. Friday's this time (if I can find one ... no idea where one is offhand).

@Don't take anything aaron8301 says seriously: Packaging and shipping costs do decrease, however.

@KStrike155: You're right, and I should have been clearer. I was responding to Megladon's Papa Murphy's example, where the pizza was $14, the ingredients werer $3.25, and he claimed a $10 profit. I was pointing out the other costs involved that would cut profits.

As far as the article goes, I would believe a $4 ingredient cost-I'm assuming Friday's has to buy food from corporate, and if corporatre is making a healthy profit off food sales, it could easily cost the franchise this much.

With retaurants, it is different. The national chains, while franchises that are owned and operated locally, still have to serve what is on that menu. It's going to be the same food at TGIFriday's in Miami or TGIFriday's in Seattle. If the food isn't that good in one, it's not going to be good at any of them, as it's all the same food.

A local non-franchise restaurant can serve whatever they want. They actually have the power to control what they're serving, and make it better if they wish. They can respond to customer complaints and praise.

So while eating at a chain restaurant may support your local economy just as much as eating at a mom-n-pop joint, your taste buds may have a different opinion.

Agreed. I worked at T.G.I. Friday's back in 2005 as a waiter. We had a promotion that offered a three course meal for $9.99, if I recall correctly. Alone, those items would bring the bill to around $17. So, not only was I working harder for a smaller tip (waiters make most of the deserts and salads at TGI, a real pain in the ass time-wise) -- but I was making the company more money by servicing increased volume. Some would say that's helpful for the waiters -- brings in more people, but my tips actually dropped because the bills were less. I was doing more work for the same take-away.

Plus, a three course meal would slow down turn-over on my tables -- versus an app. and entree or merely entree only meal...

At least I could cherish my experience as a waiter and appreciate hard work, long hours, and ignorant management. Taught me a lot about myself and corporate America.

Btw, I worked at a TGI in eastern Pennsylvania.

For example, a local restaurant has a Monday night deal that any dinner on the menu costs $9.99. The most expensive item on the menu is normally a flat-iron steak that costs $14.99. On Monday nights when you walk around the restaurant most people seem to be eating said steak, whereas any other night people are eating burgers or salad.

If they did something interesting and difficult to do right, like super-dark, darker-than-coffee tea, that might be worth it.

But you aren't ordering the bottled water!

(The easiest answer to that, to only offer bottled water...or only charge as though it is bottled water...would just cause me to not go to that restaurant ever again.)

For the sit-down chain restaurant type of stuff, the food is usually better at...at least ONE local place.

Also if your goal is to support the local economy, there's no franchise fees going out of town.

I guess this explains how pizza places can let a large pizza sit in the "by the slice" cabinet until it's dessicated, having sold only one or two slices at 3 or 4 bucks a piece.

It's the airport vending machine pricing model. Why sell four at a profit of 25 cents each when you can sell one for a buck profit?

But seriously, I never understood the "buy local or die" mentality. It's astounding how many folks around here will blindly proclaim that any and all local establishment is inherently healthier, tastier, cheaper, etc., etc. In my experience, that's certainly not true.

Also, some places moved to nasty machine tea, such as IHOP. Disgusting tasting crap.

@bige311: He's not saying that the steak sandwich should cost the same as a $1.25, YOU fool, he's using it as a comparison that the cost, in general, of producing food in the chain restaurant industry is often pennies-on-the-dollar of what they charge for it.

Go easy on the jumping to insults.

That's only 5% profit & in my experience about typical for a hard working owner who runs multiple franchise outlets.

The applebees 2 for 20 deal FTW! Before they had that, I barely ever there. Now, after work me and my g/f (we work at the same place) often stop there for dinner 1-2 nights a week.

Thank your Coles_Law

@IfThenElvis: It's around 60% on the gross, not net - i.e. after food costs, before everything else.

The last time I worked fast food the GM cost the store 2% for labor all the time. Of course, he had a 50+ hour workweek. Then add other labor costs, expenses for power et cetera and franchise fees. You can make money, but our owner made around $100k on sales of almost $1.8 million. Of course, he owned like 12 stores.

Why? Their profit margins are about the same, they both employ locals, and in most cases the franchisees are locals.

@Megladon: There's more to costs than ingredient cost alone. None of this includes employee salary, rent, utility bills, etc.

Still, I think people need to worry less about what their meal is costing the restaurant and just choose the place that gives them the best overall experience (good food, ambience, decent service short distance from home, etc). If the experience isn't that good, you might as well buy your favorite meal stuff at the supermarket, cook it at home, and save the difference.

I remember when I left Burger King back in 01 that the cost of a Whopper was just under $0.30, without cheese. The cost for that was something like 10-20 cents per slice. Considering the average cost of goods doubles every 10 years or so, it's still under a dollar to make one, and they sell them for what, $2.50 on average?

Most fast food places are still going to make a killing on the profit. It's just not going to be as large as they are used to with everyone else's pockets hurting.

I enjoy drinking water too. That said, we're passing up more than HFCs. There's also usually unsweetened tea, milk, coffee, juice, lemonade and beer.

In my experience a franchise take-out pizza place will spend about 30% of sales on ingredients and 25% on labor - then add in overhead, utilities, rent, advertising (5%), and royalties.

Pizza has probably the highest markup value of any restaurant menu item, save perhaps soda and desserts. What pisses me off however is when I ordered multiple toppings on a pizza. I have no problem paying $1.50 or so per item, but don't cut each item's quantity by the number of items I order, and still charge me the same amount. For example, if I order a large pizza with pepperoni, and they would normally put, let's say, 30 slices of pepperoni on it, if I order pepperoni and sausage, they will usually put like 15-20 slices of pepperoni, a little sausage, and charge me the $3. That's bullshit.

Not true. Denny's has horrible service and mediocre food, and when they offered a free breakfast with a retail value of only $2.99, they had lines out the door, and wait times of hours long. Boggles my mind how people will wait 2 hours to save a couple of dollars.

@Radi0logy:

I agree, a slab of meat does cost more. Papa Murphys most expensive pizza costs around 3.25 to make including labor and ingredients. It sells at regular price for 13.99. Often you can get a 2$ off coupon and its only 11.99. Thats over a 10$ profit on 1 pizza. Keep in mind that cheaper pizzas still have a hell of a markup, just not as much as that one. If places wanted to get you into eat, they could, but it would really get you thinking after the ressession why you were paying so much before for what you had deeply discounted now.

I, on the other hand, have tried many new restaurants when I got a coupon (usually 2 entrees for the price of one with two drinks ordered or something like that), and when the food is decent for the price and the service is good, we generally go back. More local places than national chains, but the coupons do get us out to places we haven't been before, and if we like them we tend to go back.

I expect the dividing line between success and failure on a lot of these promotions is the service -- sometimes you show up for a promotion or with a coupon and the waitstaff is awful to you, pre-emptively assuming you'll undertip or whatever. We don't go back to those places, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yes a slab of meat off of a dead cow cost more than a it costs to make a pizza you fool.

We do hit up restaurants we get coupons for in that "LocalSaver" thingie that comes once a month. But those are more often local places, not chains.

I wouldn't pay 'full price' for anything from Friday's. It's mostly frozen crap sold for top dollar prices. I can get similar stuff at local places that is either the same price and much higher quality OR the same quality and much less.

I kind of wondered while the promotion was going on about how they were covering costs, especially with the Steak Sandwich. I mean, I wouldn't have gone to Friday's without it, and I won't be back anytime soon, so did they really make anything off my visit?

The only thing I can assume the marketing people though is that it would get groups of folks in who would A) buy overpriced/too little booze bar drinks or appetizers B) have people in the party too picky to get either a salad or a sandwich.

I'm not sure how often that happened.

On another note, my g/f works at Wendy's and has told me that the "Double Stacker" on the dollar menu costs the company more then the .99 cents they sell it for. It's honestly the only thing I get when I go there. A couple of those fill me up the same way as the 5 dollar double does.

The consumer is hurting in the wallet as well. We are more concerned about more bang for the buck than we are for the restaurants profits. If the food is not good or the service is bad, most people wouldn't eat there if it were free.