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Most of the Taco bells by me have a $5.99 box. It's online only so you have to order it from your phone and pick it up at the counter. It comes with a drink, One of the heavier entrees, one of the generic entrees and one of the sides. I usually do a cheesy gordita crunch, five layer burrito, cheesy potatoes.
Seeing that the drink alone would be $2.45 that's one hell of a deal.
That's said, Taco bells are mostly independent and if you're in some location like LA you might be SOL.
drink alone would be $2.45
which is, itself, absolutely ridiculous.
Especially saying that Pepsi owns the brand.
I was buying 5 gallon syrup boxes from restaurant supply stores and making soda with my SodaStream. A good day I could approach the price of a sale 2 liter bottle. Assuming the cups lids and straws aren't free, The ice is nearly free, The carbonation is relatively cheap. They're probably making at least two full dollars profit per cup.
Add in the overhead:
- Refrigeration (electricity or otherwise)
- Labor ($7.25+; $15+ in some areas)
- Insurance (In case you get sick from the soda, and you sue them)
- Sanitation (outside contractor, with their materials, labor, and markups)
- Maintenance (machine repairs, etc)
I wish I could agree they were making that much money. But when you include all the costs that they have to run just the soda machine, with all the varieties of soda that they have, they're not clearing that much profit per cup.
When I worked at Roy Rogers in the '90s, our large cups cost us 25 cents with product. (On paper) They were $1.37 retail.
Accounting for inflation, $1.37 becomes $2.65.
That tracks squarely for a 48 cent cup If all of the things were equal.
I'm sure that number didn't include labor but at least we can see that things haven't really slid in fast food more than they were in the '90s. At least for this one item.
It only seems like a deal because the in-store prices are artificially inflated to begin with.
You know, yes I could probably make 20 of those meals for $30 at the grocery store. But in the realm of a McDonald's meal with a side and a dessert costing closer to 20 bucks, $7 isn't horrible in this economy.