A bit of a rant today — but the prices that Jack is charging just blows me away... Around here they recently increased the price of their food. Again!
In one market (Two of the counties I cover in my routes are in the cheaper one, the other 2 are more expensive) a Jumbo Jack combo is over 8 bucks (was under 8 before) and the other its is now almost $10 (was low 9’s). Absolutely insane... this was their burger that sat at a price point from $.99 to $1.49 for a good 15 years before just exploding in price to over ~$4.50 depending on the location in the last 5 or 6 years. A combo was always reliably 3.29-3.99 for years +tax.
What’s even crazier is the Double Jack Combo — which is essentially a Double Jumbo Jack — recently came out to $12.33 after tax. That’s basically $3 for an extra meat patty.
At what point I wonder will the increased prices hurt their business? Over the last 20 years I feel like fast food — and particularly Jack — has outpaced inflation by many multiples. Considerably more than sit down restaurants as well... when a combo was $3.99-4.99 that was fine... anything pushing 10 bucks and I’m out. If it wasn’t for these shops, I would never hardly eat at Jack — I used to love an Ultimate Cheeseburger in college. The medium combo was $5.49 +tax and was one of the more expensive items. A quick little plug into the inflation calculator shows it should be around $7.50 now — rather than $10.98 +tax. Even plain fries are now 3.39/3.69/3.99 — that’s *insane*.
Does anyone else feel this way? I know that food prices have went up... but McDonald’s and Wendy’s have seemed to keep their prices a bit more in check. I remember around 2010 or so all the Jack locations went from corporate to franchise — and that’s when the prices really started to spiral up.