Why the ‘$28 Burger’ Is a Warning Sign

4 Min Read By MRM Staff

Menu prices can only rise so far before there is pushback from diners -- a “$28 burger” today might be the first sign that restaurant pricing models are about to begin evolving. Many restaurant operators are resorting to reactive price hikes just to keep the doors open in the short term, but that approach risks alienating customers for the long term and doesn’t even solve margin pressure.

“A ‘$28 burger’ is usually a sign that something upstream isn’t working the way it should,” said Bob Vergidis, Founder and Chief Visionary at pointofsale.cloud, “Restaurants don’t jump to pricing like that unless they feel pressure somewhere else, whether it’s food costs, labor or inefficiencies in the operation.”

The challenge is that price is the easiest lever to pull, so it often gets overused, he noted.  

“Guests will go along with it for a while, but when something as familiar as a burger starts to feel like a splurge, that’s when behavior changes. They may come…