Fast Food Surge Pricing

It doesn't seem customer friendly at all to have your prices fluctuating with no notice. I don't eat at Wendy's, but I imagine if they have success with this, plenty of other food establishments will follow their lead.

It's already so damn expensive and now it'll cost me even more if I want to eat AT dinner time? No thanks. I'm OUT.

It’s not just fast food places that change prices constantly. We are looking to rent an apartment in another area of our large city. The prices can change daily because of an algorithm the parent companies use to assess how the apts rent. We were looking at one community online on Friday and on Saturday the same apt went up $40 overnight. Monday morning it was back down $40.  It makes me mad. 

Wendys pricing is why we only order the $5 biggie bag. If they start surge pricing, I will never set foot in there again- even if they eventually do away with it

This reminds me of a recent trup to Arby's. My grandson had order a combo meal in medium size. When I got to the window to receive the food, the gal handed me a drink and it was very little. I asked her, is this a medium. She said yes, that they had changed all their drink sizes and that was now a medium. I told her, wow, I bet a lot of people are going to be unhappy and she said they have had tons of people drive off and not take their food. I figured the must have offered drinks before taking the payment or someone disputed a charge on their credit card.

This is true. But the draw of fast food has always been easy, cheap, and reliable (reliable in that a family on a tight budget can generally know exactly what it will cost to feed everyone). If it's now neither cheap nor reliable, a lot of people are going to think it's not worth it.

Yeah, it would be ok if Wendy’s had set times, such as $2 off from 2-4PM, but to change it without customers knowing when is not good.

I think a sit down restaurant tried this a few years ago. I don’t think it worked and went back to regular pricing.

We have never done a lot of fast food but seriously get sticker shock every time we do. We typically look for coupons or do taco Tuesdays if we do eat out. I miss getting Arby coupons.

I would not go back to a place if I found out they were doing this if I would only eat there at off times.

It seems to me that restaurant food prices have already surged. I understand it and it was coming. Wages were so low for so long and now they are paying more. Food is more expensive. Housing is higher priced so I would expect their shelter costs for restaurants have risen as well.

We never ate fast food very often, now we almost never do. Today I was going to the gym and to pick up groceries. I had leftovers for lunch but offered to get DH something fresh if he wanted it. "So my alternative is a $10 hamburger?" he said. He ate the leftover casserole with fresh side dishes I made and even complimented the meal. Nothing like the price of going out to make home cooking more appealing.

I read what they were proposing in the article.  I was just trying to make the point that fast food pricing has already risen considerably and it seems like it has happened in a short time frame - not in a day but over the course of only a year or so.  So I'm not inclined toward fast food already and certainly not if you can't even plan on a steady price.  Who do they think they are?  OPEC? 

The best thing we as consumers could do would be to only eat there at non-surge pricing times to send a message. I guess that would change their surge times.

this is the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard.  i think it will hurt them more than help them.  what they forget is that people have choices, lots of other choices.  it's not like Wendy's is Chik-fil-A (where there isn't a chicken place every other block).  Wendy's is Wendy's.  whoever thought this up needs to find a box and start clearing out their desk.

I  was thinking the same thing, the surge times would just change. The best thing we can do is not eat there at all. And I did read an article recently that mentioned a couple of fast food places that were starting to see dips in sales because more people are eating at home. 

Do you know how nice of a meal we can have at home for $30? 

We have a buffet in town here that had "lunch" prices 11-2 and then "dinner" prices (which are about $8 higher) from 3-close. On weekends it is even higher. It is the same food for all the days/meals. I guess it is to get more money at the busier times.