Wendy's is introducing Uber style surge pricing.

Dear Wendy’s CEO,

This is not Uber. This is a Wendy’s.

I'll simply never go again myself.
- I haven't been in years. Their food has been terrible ever since they changed their fries so many years ago. I used to eat there when I could get jr bacon cheeseburgers for 99 cents but now even that's like $3.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

This new CEO of Wendy's would be wise to remember that fast food is a convenience not a necessity. I've got a nice little propane grill in the backyard and I know how to make a square patty. I don't need you, you need me.

I've got a nice little propane grill in the backyard and I know how to make a square patty
Good for you, unfortunately there are many people out there that can't afford a propane grill or a backyard.
- Okay? Skillets exist. Countertop George Foreman grills exist. Either of which can be purchased for $30 or less and will last for years. There are multiple affordable ways to make a hamburger without a yard if you'd like to do so. Not sure why you're trying to shame me for daring to say that I have an outdoor grill so I'm just gonna go ahead and block you. This isn't worth a moment more of my time.
- If you aren't able to own a grill, perhaps you should be avoiding fast food since it's a rather small amount of food for the cost?

I remember when Dave Thomas was still alive. I loved Wendy's quality over most everyone else, so I would prefer them even if something else was closer or cheaper.

THE VERY NEXT WEEK after Dave died, there was a very noticeable drop in burger patty size and quality. I basically stopped eating at Wendy's after that.

I'm sure this is also what Dave would have wanted.

Dave Thomas is up in hamburger heaven with a list of mfers he's gonna beat with a spatula for ruining his restaurants over the last 22 years.

Where I am, the price of fast food is just about equal to some restaurants. There's no point in doing fast food anymore.

There is a local hamburger joint 3 blocks from my house that is far superior in taste, with lower prices, why the fuck would I ever go to endys?
Same with me in Canada. I go local almost all the time other than my annual Burger King impossible Whopper
I say this to some many people. Wendy's can get some good deals sometimes. Like BOGO spicy chicken, but if I order a meal from any fastfood place around me then just no. I would be better off just going to my Mexican restaurant across the street. On Tuesday is taco Tuesday (obvs) and you get 3 tacos, beans and rice for like $8-$9. They other deals weds, Thurs, but not as good as that Tuesday deal.

Damn, I like some of their food. I guess this is a good reason to stop going there.

Fuck you, Wendy's.

Patronize your local burger joints instead, it's an excellent opportunity to get to know the local businesses.
- I do that too. But they don't have a drive thru and are getting rarer and rarer.
- There are no local burger joints. For several hours drive in every direction from me, every burger place is a chain. Sure some local restaurants also serve burgers, even the Mexican places because burgers are such a staple of American food, but none of them dedicate any real skill or quality to it. No local place dedicated to burgers would stand a chance competing against all the chains and every other bar and grill that makes everything else in addition to burgers.

We're so bad at employee management and don't want to pay a living wage, so we'll charge you extra when we're busy. But wait, there's more, we're still not going to pay a living wage to hire more employees, so you're not only going to pay more, but your wait will still be the same.

Why not just hike the prices and be done with it?
- They will, after everyone tells them how much they hate this, they'll 'backtrack' to higher pricing. They're letting their first idea eat the hate and resistance so they can execute plan B.
- I think this is exactly the plan. If the prices are constantly fluctuating, it will be easy to slowly rise them by a bit every week without everyone noticing.
  Boiling frogs is literally becoming a business plan

Yeah, and I'm introducing "no more eating at Wendy's" pricing.

Wendy's seems blissfully unaware that's there's plenty of adequate competitors in the burger market. It's a great time to get to know your local restaurants.
- McDonald's is already out of the running. A mcdouble and medium fry is 8 bucks.
- Theyre probably hoping people wont notice

In an environment of painful (almost insulting) food price increases everywhere, Wendy’s decides to remove price predictability from the equation, ensuring that I never know what I’m going to pay, except that I can guarantee I’m going to be gouged when I most want to eat.

Yeah, I don’t care what they sell. I don’t want to be treated like that.

The next logical step is to use facial recognition to ~~discriminate~~ estimate how much money is in each customer's wallet to dynamically price the food.

Imagine walking in, seeing a price on the board, waiting behind someone with a big order, and by the time you get to the counter the price has increased. I forsee yelling and fights happening in lines.

I foreseee never stepping into a restaurant like that.
They will stop doing this when the poorest people are just sitting around the restaurant waiting for the price to go down.
If you only had $3 and the price of a burger was above that, you would just wait. The restaurant is sometimes nicer than sitting outside. They can't kick you out, because you're waiting to order. Now they're going have like 3-5 bums waiting around for the price to drop.
It's just stupid. Although I did go to a bar like that once that was pretty fun. It had a stock market board with drink prices that went up and down. You would go up there hoping to get a particular drink, but come back with something else because it was half off. It'd be like "tequila shots $7" but "red wine $3.50"! Wine it is!

What a bullshit idea. I fucking hate this timeline we’re on.

A Dave's Single combo already costs 12 bucks here. Fuck off Wendy's, like hell we're paying more for that.

Edit: And that's for a small combo. Want a large? Fuck you, pay 15.

... planning to invest approximately $20 million to roll out digital menu boards...
Wendy’s will also invest an additional $10 million over two years...

Have you tried not spending $30 million dollars to sell hamburgers?

I mean, holy shit. You sell burgers and fries. Does everything need to be digitally and AI enhanced?

A spokesperson for Wendy's confirmed the news with Food & Wine, stating the company is focused on providing "great-tasting" food and is "making a significant investment" to grow its digital business, including rolling out digital menu boards in some U.S. restaurants. "Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing a variety of enhanced features on these digital menuboards like dynamic pricing, different offerings in certain parts of the day, AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling based on factors such as weather. Dynamic pricing can allow Wendy's to be competitive and flexible with pricing, motivate customers to visit and provide them with the food they love at a great value. We will test a number of features that we think will provide an enhanced customer and crew experience."

- It would take more than $30m to pull off that incredible feat.
It's why Five Guys and In-n-Out have been gaining market share the last 10 years. Give me a good burger, good fries.... that's all I want.
- Five Guys is more expensive than the vastly superior local burger joints now. Not a great comparison.
  In-N-Out is an unbeatable value, but is only franchised in very limited areas in order to control quality.
The digital menu boards are there so they don't have to hire as many cashiers.
Why would I, as a customer, be 'motivated to visit' to see your magic price changing menu? I'm going to a restaurant that can't fucking do that.

Wendy’s won’t last. Their quality is so bad, their menu is terrible, they deserve to die and this will help.

Wendy's is the busiest fast food restaurant in town where I live, and I consistently see most locations being very busy, so... no? They're not going anywhere.
- Probably due to the 6$ biggie bag. If prices keep going up, I cant imagine people will keep going. I had to stop after they got rid of the 5$ menu. The food taste too trashy to be worth any more than that.
- Based of this line of thinking then they're absolutely going out of buisness. The one near me is lucky to get a couple of cars at a time.
- They aren't the busiest here, they are the slowest though. They always have a line wrapped around the building, but that's because the line hardly moves.
It's amazing the nose dive their quality has taken

Baconator ain’t worth it

Cool, guess I will continue to avoid fast food.

Smart.

Wouldn't this run afoul of most states weights and meaures?

Because only rich people are entitled to access to food.

A combo anywhere I go is over 10 bucks. What do they want from us, consumers are already being overmilked like a skinny cow

What's going to happen is people will stop buying there. I hope anyway. I like a treat too but I'll give my local joints money first.

This is great! Considering I haven't had Wendys for years and this is another reason not to!

I actually haven't either when I think about it, I last got my husband a Frosty about a year ago when he was hospitalized and it was the only kind of food he could tolerate, but I can't think the last time I ate food there.

At least with Uber it made some sense. Higher prices and this payments to drivers was meant to compel more drivers to head out to pick up the increased demand.

But here, there are no surge wages, nor are employees coming in to cover a rush.

Wonder if they'll only pay them in wages earned during a surge.

Even McDonald's is seeing lowered sales due to these high prices. People are only willing to pay so much for grease with a side of "chicken."

Wendy’s has been going downhill ever since Dave died.

This should be illegal.

Sure should. Conservatives think it's great I'm sure.
- ITS THR INVISIBLE HAND OF THE MARKET!!

No thanks Wendys lol

I just go to local burger joints now, it's the same price and the food is better, and (probably) someone local is getting money and not some ceo across the world who doesn't care about my local economy or people.

ITT: people who didn't eat fast food anyways stroking themselves at the thought of the poors getting poorer. The only people eating Wendy's go here because it is their comfort food and they probably feel like it's the best option. They will pay the higher prices.

Imma broke bitch, it sucked giant ass when the biggie bag went from 4 to 5 then to 6 bucks in my area. There is no delusions of grandeur when eatin at Wendy's, is jus cheap an becoming less an less.

Guess I'm going to Taco Bell.

I'd rather Waffle House but we don't have them here. Actually I'll just order their hash browns for home and make that instead.
- WH is a sit-down place. I need eat-in-my-car foods.