#and that can really fork over small businesses that aren't willing to jack up prices to compensate

[firebirdeternal]

my favorite place to eat is a little hole in the wall Chinese restaurant that's been around and in the same family for over 30 years, which I know because I've been eating there basically my entire life since my mom used to work next door and would bring my sister and I to work with her on nights when she couldn't find childcare.

It's also now the *cheapest* place to eat in town, by like a wide margin, I can get their lunch special which is a HUGE bowl of rice and main and a side of soup or crab rangoon for 8 dollars. It's delicious, it's filling, it's like half the price of a combo meal at a fast food place. They sell containers of Wonton Soup the size of my *head* for like 5 bucks.

I dunno man. I found out today that a subway sandwich is $14 now. A shitty subway footlong sandwich that isn't actually 12 inches long and is occasionally made with expired ingredients and was never a great option to start with. I ate those in high school because I was broke and at the mall a lot.

There are poke bowls in my city from a local place for $16. Super fresh fish and veg, warm rice, more than I can eat in one sitting, for the price of a sandwich and a drink at america's most mid-tier sandwich shop.

Someone in another post said (paraphrased) you used to be able to get something mediocre for cheap, but now the mediocre things cost as much as the nice things so why would you?