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How economical is your local Taco Bell?

taconomical.com

301–310 of 356 posts

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're joking but just in case someone miss it, even 1 meal of McDonald chicken nugget is bad for health. Its just that after 15 years you die of it, before you are very unhealthy, especially for kids.

> even 1 meal of McDonald chicken nugget is bad for health I think this isn't true in any meaningful way. Absolutely, making it (or any fast food) a big component of your diet is not going to promote good health. The more often you eat them, the more likely it will have an impact on your health, mostly from the increased sodium and trans fats. Consistently living with high blood sugar and higher LDL will increase you…

I understand it's not fair to compare a dog to a baby but I'll just throw it out there. When my dogs refuse to eat the food I give him, I just take it back and surely enough 12 hours later he is eating the very same food he refused before. A kid isn't a dog but sometimes it got to get worst before it gets better.

About macnuggets : I might be extremist in the way I consider alimentation but I consider that even one McDonald's nuggets is bad for health not only for the immediate impact on your body, which is indeed minimal from one meal, but mostly because it gives a bad Habit.

Everyone likes junk food, it always tastes better than healthy food so you're putting yourself at disadvantage at the very first bite in a chicken nugget. A bit like what happens with drugs, the first time is the most important and the more you do after the worst it's going to be to get out of it.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app makes it so your food is ready soon after you arrive. You can spend all the time browsing the menu and ordering before arriving at the physical location and then the food is already prepared or is made upon your arrival. Apps are used rather than PWA websites because most users find it difficult to save a mobile website to their homepage and mobile web push notifications etc add extra friction compared to nat…

I just typed "taco" in the search bar of Safari and the second autocomplete result was for the restaurant 1.7 miles from me, the third was for the tacobell.com. Easy! In contrast I struggle to find apps installed on my iPad because the icons look all the same. Apple has a leg up on Android but for me Apple's icons are mainly forgettable or meaningless and most icons from third parties are a forgettable stylized lette…

There are solutions to every problem you cited. As an example, you can search on an iPhone.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For customers to feel like they're saving time (versus having a cashier take their order) the kiosk isn't it: you can't on average discover and select on a screen faster than you can speak. The time savings of the app/website is from building the order on the way there, reducing the in-store interaction to speaking your name or order number (which is mostly constant across all methods of ordering). As for app vs webs…

I don’t know anyone who likes having to order through the apps for fast food places, or regards them as a time-saving convenience—rather, they’re an inconvenience the places make you suffer to get what should be normal menu prices under the broader inflation rate, rather than the 300% markup above that all these places have applied to their menu prices.

I find it very convenient. I can place an order, walk in and pick it up. There’s no wait involved. Other people have also agreed that it’s convenient.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#304
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> top-tier my sample size is small, but I've found it far from top tier (I would put Five Guys and Shake Shack as top tier fast food, and In-N-Out except for their fries).

Not sure why you’re downvoted but you’re right. Although none of the places you mentioned are technically “fast food” — they’re fresh made to order always which is counter to the concept of fast food and as a result are very good respectable food.

“Fast casual”

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#305
post #181
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that justifies an app, vs an in-store kiosk or a website.

The app works better for the drive thru, and also for families with kids that like to push buttons on the giant ipad. Speaking of which, we stopped going to fast food burger places because 75% of them can’t make things like “a hamburger with no cheese or any other toppings except ketchup”, or “a cheeseburger with no other toppings”. I suspect an LLM that supports audio input would outperform most drive through window…

“A hamburger with no cheese or any other toppings except ketchup.”

Try:

“A hamburger with only ketchup.”

When you take hundreds of orders a day, circular communications won’t stick.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#306
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there are any airport located Taco Bells. Those kind of captive locations are notorious for crazy prices.

IIUC, virtually all of the crazy airport prices come from management companies like HMS Host, Sodexo, etc - which manage most of the restaurants and stores in airports. Their business model is - they big up the price of all the available spots such that no one can make money unless they charge exorbitant prices. After they capture the majority of the market, they're free to charge a ton of money. How they haven't bee…

The Starbucks in airports are usually still franchised (which otherwise is rare for Starbucks), and at least a few I’ve encountered are definitely operated by HMS Host.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#307
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> top-tier my sample size is small, but I've found it far from top tier (I would put Five Guys and Shake Shack as top tier fast food, and In-N-Out except for their fries).

I don’t think you understood their point. They were comparing that location to other Taco Bell locations. It wasn’t a comment about the chain.

yeah, I misread

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even 1 meal of McDonald chicken nugget is bad for health I think this isn't true in any meaningful way. Absolutely, making it (or any fast food) a big component of your diet is not going to promote good health. The more often you eat them, the more likely it will have an impact on your health, mostly from the increased sodium and trans fats. Consistently living with high blood sugar and higher LDL will increase you…

I understand it's not fair to compare a dog to a baby but I'll just throw it out there. When my dogs refuse to eat the food I give him, I just take it back and surely enough 12 hours later he is eating the very same food he refused before. A kid isn't a dog but sometimes it got to get worst before it gets better. About macnuggets : I might be extremist in the way I consider alimentation but I consider that even one M…

Trying to enforce healthier eating on our daughter lead to her being underweight.

Her nutritionist, pediatrician, endocrinologist, and therapist all advised us it was better to allow her to eat her comfort foods rather than fight her on it.

So no, kids aren't like dogs.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust me, I know. Some batches of nuggets were rejected based on being too crispy or too chewy.

Have you tried ordering them "fresh"? It takes a few minutes longer, some cashiers won't know what that means, and they might not do it if its late and they're closing up, but I've always ordered "fresh" nuggets and french fries that are made to order instead of pulled from the baskets. Explaining that it's a food sensitivity issue will almost certainly get most of them to comply. It works at all the fast food places…

We did start doing that, though now our daughter has moved on from chicken nuggets to a new comfort food.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#310
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still a Taco Bell with a few much better sit down places in the adjacent strip mall

I intentionally went there a few years ago when I was in the area to check it out because a few people at work were making a big deal about it. It fine and all but it was still just a normal Taco Bell like you said, the only thing nicer about it is the decor.

Penn and Teller did a show 20 years ago where they served snooty people food from Taco Bell. Might be worth a watch.
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