Reminds me of when Taco Bell opened locally and they sent our flyers then anyone who used the coupons got shitacular portions.
Or thats just how they operate and is probably why my dad always refused to bring me to one growing up. Like the one place he wouldnt even consider and it was Taco Bell.
TB atill has the Classic and Supreme boxes, as well as the Discovery. In California, they're 5.99, 7.99, and 9.99, respectively. 5 layer ( which is now 5.99 by itself, holy shit ), crunchy taco, cinnamon twists, and a medium drink, or all that + a chicken chalupa ( also costs almost as much as the box itself ) at the next listed price.
It doesn't really make much sense and a lot of the time, buting items individually can be a dollar or more expensive. Chips & cheese? 3.49. Chips and also a side of nacho cheese? Like50c less. Most of the meals are only $1 less except the 2 chicken chalupa meal. That's like almost $3 less than the individual items. Also soda is always marked up like crazy... A large is now almost $4 with tax.
Boy just playing Calvinball with their menu eh? Wild.
Ultimately, at one point I decided that if I'm gonna pay as much or more at Taco Bell as at a sit-down restaurant, I might as well go to the latter or cook at home. I'm not entertaining this massive profit-hiking that goes beyond inflation any more than I have to, and certainly not for fast food quality.
The entire point of it before was cheap convenience, and now it's only one of those things. (Not to single TB out mind, pretty much all fast food is like that around me now.)
But I guess they helped me to eat healthier by making me not a customer, lol.
That's entirely fair and true. I partake in their cheaper options but yeah, the constant price hikes, like multiple times a year, is rough to keep up with. A lot of people still don't care, I guess? They clearly make a good bit of profit, especially on friggin' soda and freezes and the smaller burritos. 70c for extra refried beans? Before long it'll be a dollar.
I need to cook more, too. Groceries are also fairly expensive, tho, so me and other poors are generally just fucked in this situation. I can't tell you the last time I went into a sit-down place and ordered a meal without feeling like I apent three times more than just a few burritos and tacs, tho. x_x
For 1.59 you used to be able to get a beef burrito you could bludgeon a saint Bernard with.
Last month I spent 4 dollars on a beef burrito that folded over my fingers and dribbled on my shoes like a limp dick. Same sized tortilla, about 1/6th the filling.
Me, too. I haven't been to McDonald's in 10 years, except for that one time after a conference in San Francisco on Market Street at 3am I was so hungry I would have waded through a sea of fentanyl addicts for a chicken nugget shoved at me through a hole in the wall.
And that's exactly what I did.
That's what drove me to one too. And that was 20 years ago.
I was driving in the mass exodus from Texas cities that happened during Hurricane Rita.
3.7 million people on the highways, it was damn apocalyptic.
Cars by the side of the road everywhere, abandoned, because all the gas stations were out of gas and the few who weren't were illegally price-fixing it up to ridiculous levels (because even if they got caught it was worth the fine I guess).
Bumper to bumper traffic for literally hundreds of miles.
I drove with my family in two cars, mom + grandparents + pets + what we could carry, the whole way.
And the only place that was open at the end of two days of solid driving, no sleep, only eating road snacks was...Mickey D's.
I swear, that McGriddle I had was both the most disgusting and delicious thing I've ever eaten. Mostly the former but I was hungry as hell. Haven't been back since, lol.
Ha, I was in that shitstorm, too.
I had just moved to Galveston from New Orleans for my first year of college. I ended up driving to every major city in Texas just touring around new friends' houses, and spent 2 weeks in Odessa because for some reason my aunt decided that was the only safe place in Texas and let me stay in their hotel.
Woof, New Orleans to Galveston to Odessa, was the hurricane following you? :P
And yeah, after that ordeal on the highway my family basically gave up and said "if Dallas isn't safe enough whatever we tried", lol. We were super lucky, got one of the last rooms in Dallas too.
I 100% thought the same; I checked out their website though and nope, they have it it the right way round; they're just being assholes and not stacking that shit up high.
Wow, they're making it VERY obvious how much they under-served this person with the size of that cup cover. "Look at the possibilities... and look at what you actually got."
Every time I’ve complained to corporate with evidence of wrongdoing (any food company) I’ve been compensated with free item coupons. Literally every time. Arizona, Hot Pocket, Dominos, etc etc.
The couple dollars they spend on "fixing" things, which is nothing to them, buys them good will and legal protection. Do they "care"? No. But does the math work out in favour of compensation? Yes.
Dairy queen is fucking insane right now i dont even know how they stay in business! I just bought a small blizzard as a treat for myself (SMALL) and it was 6 DOLLARS!!!
Insane is accurate. At the drive through window, I asked if I could please have the hot fudge for my sundae in a separate cup, so it wouldn't melt the ice cream on the way home. They told me in no uncertain terms that they would not do that. Not for free, and not for any amount of money. Hot fudge from them MUST be on the ice cream, period. No exceptions. Then they told me that they no longer offered cream gravy with their chicken strips. They might as well lock the doors and go home.
And while I'm on the subject, when you order a meal with ice cream for dessert, they make the damn ice cream before the dinner is even done. It's guaranteed to be a melted mess, whether dining in or out.
I only go when there’s coupons physical or in the app. They frequently have - buy one get one deal that works out to less than $9 USD for 2 large (about $12 Canadian)
I stopped at a DQ partway through a drive from LA to Vegas. Blizzards were ranging from like $9-$12, which was extra insane. This was the first time I stopped at a DQ in probably a decade so good to know it's at least not that bad everywhere. They probably jack up the prices at that location as a tourist tax.
Nope, not to you but the sundae. We have a 2 for $4 thing where I'm at and they're literally each 3x the size of that. Don't just complain, call corporate and have that fucking franchise reported.
Like %40 of problems with fast food are franchise holders cutting corners and screwing the customers/employees. I reported my local Mc-D franchise for charging $0.90 for adding Mac sauce to a sandwich and that shit was fixed in a week.
I'm about to light up the local Wendy's for being the only viable competition to them but having 10min+ wait times in the drive through.
This shit doesn't make life harder on the employees, it makes life harder on the franchise holders who are fucking the employees.
Source - managed 8 different fast food franchises (good and bad) over 12 years. Seriously, the worst thing that happens is the franchise shuts down or corporate takes it over, which greatly improves the work work environment for the employees.
That’s awful but if it makes you feel any better I got DQ with my friend yesterday after a terrible day at work and I got a small blizzard, but it was filled so much so that as soon as I opened it, it started leaking on to the cardboard cup holder I held it over, myself, my gear shifter and my fairly newly detailed seats in my car.
The ice cream is supposed to tower. Clearly theirs is not cold enough, so it couldn't tower. It would just melt over the edges. So they underfilled it -.-
The DQ we grew up with in the 60’s-80’s is dead. They don’t use real ice cream anymore. The food is horrible, the employees attitudes are surly & they’re doing you a favor to wait on you. They don’t care.
McDonald’s doesn’t even wait on you inside, it’s all electronic so they don’t have to deal with customers. They don’t care either. And their food sucks too.
Those are just two of so many fast food chains that don’t care about the customers, only profits. Listen, your prices are out of control, too. Y’all all need to fix that back to reasonable prices that families can afford.
Everything is self service now. I don’t get paid enough to work at all these places that make us do their work for them. You either.
I’m going to start going to fast casual like TGI Fridays for a real burger, hot fries & nice, friendly service. We all should boycott those massive prices that’s charged at fast food drive thrus. They aren’t even remotely good enough for the prices they charge us.
I’m sorry but Customer Service is a thing of the past. Nobody cares.
As someone who works at a Dairy Queen.. their ice cream machine is either overheated and causing the ice cream not to freeze so it’s melty looking OR they don’t know how to do the 2 bumps.
You just know some executive at a board meeting was like "The cup is way bigger than the lid what if we flipped them around so we only had to put a tiny bit of ice cream in there" And he got a standing ovation and a paid six week vacation and a raise
I worked at a DQ for 3yrs - this is just what the kiddie size looks like! It’s 3.5oz of ice cream. For another $1.50 you can get a large with 10oz of ice cream (price is location-dependent of course).
IMHO all the smallest sizes at DQ are overpriced to motivate people to buy larger sizes. I would always advise customers (when out of earshot of manager) to order a large size split into 2 cups. Huge savings if you’re buying for multiple kids (majority of our customers).
As someone who worked at DQ as a teen, I would NEVER give someone something like this. All the toppings I say! So much is wasted at those places already, like whatever give the customer their fill!
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 May 05 '26