We’re not quite sure how to preface this incredibly hot take from MarketWatch, so we won’t preface it with anything. Instead, we’ll just plop it right here so you can check it out for yourselves:
The cost to make a Margherita pizza: $1.77
How much restaurants charge on average for a pizza: $12
Markup: 580%https://t.co/P8DTpOUwSa pic.twitter.com/wksAmhsfQb— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) March 31, 2018
See what we mean? How do you even begin to introduce something like that?
this is such a remarkably stupid way of describing restaurant costs that i refuse to click on the link or even share the original tweet pic.twitter.com/lbcwntuPbN
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) April 2, 2018
Like, you don’t even need to be a brilliant economist to know why that’s terrible.
You may have missed a few expenses here, champ. https://t.co/qkKNC97dPR
— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) April 2, 2018
https://twitter.com/TonyGrisafi1/status/980191705768124416
Congrats on Marketwatch as conflating total cost with the bill of materials. Not like youre a financial services paper or anything.
— Robbie Evans (@therobbieevans) April 2, 2018
Yes.. then the ingredients magically get to the restaurant, cook themselves (without an oven) and appear in front of the customer all on their own…
— Frog Capital? (@FrogNews) March 31, 2018
Add in overhead and staff and that is closer to a 20% markup. I’ve run many restaurants. This is just stupid.
— David Liberman (@ElDavisimo) April 2, 2018
They….can’t be serious.
— Lady L. North (@LadyLNorth) April 2, 2018
The article, which they for whatever reason decided to reheat after originally publishing it in early April of last year, does mention this:
To be fair, every time you dine at a restaurant, you’re paying for more than just the food. About 30% of restaurant revenue goes to labor costs, 30% goes to general overhead and 30% is spent on the actual ingredients, according to PlateIQ. That means that restaurants still need to mark up ingredients by an average of 300% to break even.
Which raises the question: What was the point of the article? That restaurants charge more for food than the ingredients cost? Because we’re pretty sure everybody already knew that.
It's painful, but I can handle someone being economically illiterate. The implication that there is something wrong with someone making a profit if they provide a product that people are willing to pay for is the much bigger issue.
— Poor Substitute for Publius (@psforpublius) April 2, 2018
We’ll leave you with this:
Shot and chaser: pic.twitter.com/b9W9H31okh
— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) April 2, 2018
Oof.
Cost of writing a clickbait article:
pencil: $0.17
paper: $0.03
total: $0.20
Price: $100.00
Markup: 40,000%— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 2, 2018
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