November 17, 2004

• Because, uh, less is more?
• BECAUSE THEY CAN
• cuz they want you to be fat?
• Regular cheeseburgers have that hip retro appeal?
• I actually asked the guy to give me a double cheeseburger, hold one patty, one slice of cheese - and he actually explained it that way to the person making the burgers, saying to put it in a double cheeseburger wrapper....hopefully they didn't spit in it...or worse... I don't know - am I the nutcase here? Probably, but it just doesn't seem right to me. This is why I avoid fast food.
• All part of the plot. Muhhhahahaaaaa
• Because McDonalds operates under the Leninist principles that quantity is itself a quality?
• Because when you ask for a single cheeseburger, they have to take a double cheeseburger, take a patty out, put it in a truck, drive it to NASA, put it into a rocket and fire it at the Sun?
• allow me to give the first real answer: The double cheeseburger for $1 is probably an offer specific to that location - possibly for a limited time. Each location is allowed to have certain items priced specially - At other locations the double cheeseburger may be the normal price - $2.49 or whatever it is - and they might have other items (dessert, mcnuggets, etc) that are priced lower than average. In my poor college days, there was a McD with the same deal that stopped the offer, so we had to search out a new location for the $1 double cheese.
• BBF: ahahaha. Best answer on the thread. That said, I believe baksheesh is probably right. You would think I would know, since I worked at a McDonald's for two and a half fucking years, but, I've wiped my memory clean of their operational and business practices. (Though if you want vaguely disturbing stories of food handling practices and recycling used food, gimme a shout - some spots ne'er come out.)
• It's a "special offer", even though damn near every McDonald's offers it. I've seen some McD's that offer a Filet-O-Fish for $1. Now that's a deal!
• Can't beat the double-cheese for a buck. I can feed my family of four on this stuff forever!
• How do they do it? VOLUME!
• I don't know, but I hadn't eaten there for almost a year before my last visit, about a month ago. I ordered two double cheeseburgers because I was very hungry, and they were very cheap. And boy, did I regret it. BOY, DID I. In hindsight, I guess I'm kind of glad I ate those little gutbombs. The experience convinced me - once and for all - to swear off eating at McDonalds ever again.
• Maybe they butter the bun on a regular cheeseburger. No, wait. That's the wrong House of Grease.
• Count me unAmerican, but I don't eat there. ugggggghhhh!
• I dunno baksheesh, every time I do go, I see this - on the dollar menu. DOn't make a whole lotta sense to me......
• It's burger wars and dumb consumers. Menu items roughly scale in price, like any restaurant of course, so the basic cheeseburger is only a dollar in comparison to the Quarter Pounder, etc. Even so, I'm the only person I know who ever took advantage of the low price. Staff seem downright thrown off stride when you order one. You can pig out on several cheeseburgers for less than a specialty McSandwich, and they taste the same as a Quarter Pounder. i.e. Dumb Consumers However, I also have a friend who works for Burger King corporate, and apparently because of the slide in sales at traditional fast food chains, the competition has gotten brutal. Very much a race to the bottom is going on. If one chain, such as Wendy's, introduces a low cost item, all the other chains feel that they absolutely must match it with a similar specialty item. Corporate makes these decisions, and the fanchisees are supposedly complaining bitterly because the low price strategy doesn't seem to be getting them anything except sales of loss-leaders. Corporate response? Introduce another low cost sandwich. i.e. The $1 double cheeseburger is probably a response to some other $1 deal at Burger King, etc, and they'll probably introduce another $1 deal in response to the double-cheeseburger. Enjoy your cheap sandwich. Don't buy any stock.
• Communism. Actually I have no idea, but, I tell you what, the McDonalds at Davie and Cardero here in Vancouver needs to change the name of its Sausage Mcmuffin to Snausage McBonechip, because dude, that's what I got Monday at 9:22 am.
• Loss leader. Chances are if you're buying a double cheeseburger, you think you're saving money and buy something else. Coke, fries, etc. It's all about the green baby. And we're certainly not talking the kind of lettuce you'd have in a salad.
• MJ - "Snausage McBonechip" fucking hilarious; Thank you for brightening an otherwise dreary day in Illinois.
• A few years ago BK's was offering a deal: a single cheeseburger for 49 cents, a double for 99 cents, and a triple for $1.49. Amazingly, I was the only person who noticed that by buying two singles as opposed to one double you not only saved money, but also got all the extra fixin's too. What this is really representative of is the price margins that these fast food companies operate on. Obviously MdD's can afford to sell a double cheeseburger at $1 and at least break even - so when they regularly offer it at $1.95 or whatever, they're looking at a huge markup. Incidentally, the biggest profit margin for fast food chains in general is on the sodas.
• I get the whole thing about loss leaders - I have a degree in marketing - but to me, as a thinking individual, this would only seem to work when it's something that only comes in one size, or is the smallest of its type, or cost, say $1.09 for the double and $1.00 for the single! How is it people don't notice they are paying more for less? I did know that soda is the big profit margin item at fast food joints, and I get that the cheap burger means more soda sales, but I don't understand how a company could literally bend you over and stick it up your rear end like this. I feel like I'm tilting at windmills [is that the right cliche? or am I pulling a George Bush and mixing up two cliches?], but how long are people going to stand for the obvious bullshit being fed us by these monolithic corporations? I just saw today that KMART (aren't they bankrupt?) is buying SEARS! SEARS! The oldest department store! What is going on here? When will everything be owned by one company? Hasn't anyone read 1984?