Live data from Hacker News

How economical is your local Taco Bell?

taconomical.com

61–70 of 356 posts

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#62

How much does this map correlate with how economical an area is in general? Say, I want to plan a road trip through the US, will hitting the green areas result in cheaper lodging, gas and food as a whole?

I live in Munster, Indiana.... it's essentially the food court of Northwest Indiana. People stop here to avoid Illinois sticker shock. It turns out our Taco bell (1/4 mile south from the exit) is the cheapest in the area. They're ALWAYS busy.

I assume they make it up in volume.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#63

Wow. Most of these are really close together. The US clearly eats way too much fast food.

Not sure if you've been to the USA but it's not like many Americans have a choice. As an American from a smaller town it's something that depresses me a great deal. Basically every restaurant is an instance of a chain. Outside of the cities it's rare to find an original small business. Especially because the only place to get food is sometimes a parking lot "food court" or mall, and I guess only the franchisers can afford the rent there? Idk.

Anyway that combined with the fact that fast food chains can leverage cost saving measures like putting their employees on food stamps and economies of scale mean nobody can beat them on prices, so for those that don't have a grocery store and wouldn't know how to cook a meal even if they did, for your daily dinner the 5$ McDonald's burger or whatever is genuinely your only choice unless you wanna eat gas station canned chili.

Meanwhile now I live in Taiwan and every alley is chock full of original, small business restaurants all serving population that basically exclusively eats out for every meal and it's lovely.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#64
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to know the burrito price, you open the app/website and look at the burrito price... you don't go to a "Taconomics" website comparing taco prices across a continent. As it stands, there are a number of uncontrolled variables that mean this is not an effective analysis of "How economical is your local Taco Bell?"

> you don't go to a "Taconomics" website comparing taco prices across a continent but that's what people do, in aggregate. It's why manufacturing all went to china in the last 2 decades.

[deleted]

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#65

Cool map. Taco Bell is no where near economical anymore though.

Idk, I'm getting a $6 combo with a drink and 3 items filled with potatoes, beans, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream in one of the most expensive metros in the US. Not too bad.

That's not bad if you don't remember ordering those same items off of the 99¢ menu for the first ten years of your adult life

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#66
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to know the burrito price, you open the app/website and look at the burrito price... you don't go to a "Taconomics" website comparing taco prices across a continent. As it stands, there are a number of uncontrolled variables that mean this is not an effective analysis of "How economical is your local Taco Bell?"

> you don't go to a "Taconomics" website comparing taco prices across a continent but that's what people do, in aggregate. It's why manufacturing all went to china in the last 2 decades.

[deleted]

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#67

This map needs to be scaled by rent cost/sqft for commercial real estate in the county. Otherwise, the results are really just a pass-thru of rent in the burrito price.

Generally I would agree with you, but I just checked where I am at and it appears that the less the competition the higher the price. I compared a few small relatively poor towns that I am familiar with to larger ones that I know charge between 4 and 7 times as much per sqft for commercial real estate, and the more expensive tacos are in the poorer towns! Up to $0.40 cheaper in the larger more bougie towns. My only g…

Could there be other explanations here? Like marginal cost of one taco when there might be less customers?

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#69
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally I would agree with you, but I just checked where I am at and it appears that the less the competition the higher the price. I compared a few small relatively poor towns that I am familiar with to larger ones that I know charge between 4 and 7 times as much per sqft for commercial real estate, and the more expensive tacos are in the poorer towns! Up to $0.40 cheaper in the larger more bougie towns. My only g…

Could there be other explanations here? Like marginal cost of one taco when there might be less customers?

Also, higher labor prices, since labor is also a pretty big component of cost in the restaurant business.

That’s why SoCal has the highest land prices, but not the highest priced food at restaurants.

Re: How economical is your local Taco Bell?

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be rude but I'm just curious... did you try simply not giving them junk food? I have done some research on this and have not found any good evidence that most autistic children will actually starve themselves for any meaningful amount of time if their picky foods are not provided.

Framing it as "being picky" is really not helpful. As somebody on the spectrum, my (fortunately very few) food sensitivities aren't a mere matter of preference... they're the result of me experiencing visceral, nauseating revulsion at specific tastes/textures/smells. If it's the only option, I will absolutely skip a meal entirely rather than deal with it. I would probably have to be at the point of literally (not fig…

Not giving them junk food doesn't equate to ignoring food sensitivities. If someone is tolerating chicken nuggets, there's a whole host of healthier food with similar textures, tastes and smells.
Post reply on HN