California Pizza Hut operators laying off all delivery drivers | Hacker News Reader

California Pizza Hut operators laying off all delivery drivers

ktla.com

FTA: "Fast-food chains Chipotle and McDonald’s have already announced they plan to raise menu prices in California to offset the higher cost of worker compensation"

I guess I will refrain from those chains to offset their higher prices. Not even automation seems to help them want to reduce prices. In comparison, In-n-Out had already been paying their employees a higher salary than those chains, but their menu prices aren't as high.

Temper tantrums all because they want to keep wages low while everything else rises.

It doesn't have to be, but I thought this is how it generally works, higher taxes and employee wages get passed to consumers. This is why taxing the wealthy individually and redistributing wealth (government jobs, basic livable income, healthcare) is key in the long term. Otherwise this cycle continues.

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/11/15/if-wages-go-up-do-fas...

https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/publications/t...

That’s only how it works when profits are artificially prevented from decreasing. Under more reasonable economics, regulation and taxation are leveraged against corporations that behave in this manner, but in US economics the pressure on behalf of consumers is absent.

Agreed. In-n-Out is better than McDonalds anyhow and not far apart in price anymore either.

I’ve found in-n-out to be cheaper than McDonald’s already.

The burgers? No question. The fries? In-n-Out has terrible fries. Good thing I don't much care for fries. (I don't particularly love fast food burgers, either, but if you're on the road you bring it with you or take what you get.)

Thanks to the magic of the Gig Economy, those people can still deliver pizzas, but with the added bonus of making much less money and having no benefits!

With a tight labor market, those folks are going to find other jobs very quickly. They’ll also collect unemployment in the interim. US unemployment rate is around 3.7%, California around 4.9% (Nov 2023).

https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/news_releases_and_announceme...

There is a great deal of pain and suffering that you dismiss with faulty assumptions. Things at the bottom are worse than ever due to the K-shaped pandemic "recovery" and extreme inflation in inelastic necessities like food and housing.

Food inflation is down. Housing has been dysfunctional for some time, although rents should decline in the near term. While emotionally turbulent for these workers, they’re getting churned in a favorable labor market. Not unsympathetic by any means, simply pragmatic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/08/apartment-rents-on-verge-of-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38502068

I don't know the answer to this because people need to be paid enough to live, but fast food before this round of price hikes has already become a bad value relative to higher tiers of food.

I agree. Fast food used to be cheap; back in the late 1990s I remember promotions such as 29 cent and 39 cent hamburgers and cheeseburgers from McDonald’s, 99 cent promo items from Taco Bell such as the introduction of the Gordita, Subway’s $5 footlongs throughout the 2000s, and the various dollar menus that McDonald’s and their competitors had in the 2000s. Even outside of promotions, even the most expensive combo meal didn’t exceed $10 until just a few years ago. Yes, I understand inflation exists, but fast food prices to me seem to have undergone dramatic price hikes since around 2010, and the hikes since the pandemic started have made fast food ridiculously priced when considering the low quality of the food. Nowadays fast food combo meals in my area (Silicon Valley) have exceeded the $10 mark. Even Sacramento, which has lower housing prices and generally lower wages, is no escape; a week or so ago I pulled up to a McDonald’s and was shocked to see that the prices were higher than the already sky-high prices I’ve seen in Silicon Valley. These days I find myself going into a grocery store and getting grab-and-go items whenever I need a quick bite; it’s generally cheaper and the options are healthier anyway. However, sometimes when I forgot to plan ahead or when I can’t plan ahead, I have no choice but to buy fast food and pay today’s insane prices.

Interestingly enough, I recently returned from a trip to Japan, and was amazed by how cheap fast food was there. $10 barely gets you a crappy combo meal in California these days, but ¥1400 in Tokyo gets you some delicious, filling meals, not just from McDonald’s, MOS Burger, and Yoshinoya (just to name a few of the more traditional fast food places), but also at some sit-down chains such as Yayoi-ken, which specializes in set meals (teishoku); I had a wonderful sukiyaki plate with extra beef, rice, and miso soup for less than ¥1400, including tax (the 10% consumption tax is generally part of displayed prices in Japan), and there’s no tipping in Japan. The same plate would’ve easily been $20 before the 9-10% sales tax and an 18% tip in California.

Don't think it's wages that are the issue, it's the relentless need for profit growth. They've basically reached market saturation, so aside from stealing market share from other segments, they'll squeeze clients.

Not raising their prices to a level that enables their employees a decent life seems unethical to me. This also reeks of cutting off their nose to spite their face. That is, it's a childish act of retaliation for not getting their way with wages.

They run on spreadsheets. Not ethics or spite. If they’re wrong, we’ll get to enjoy watching them discover that the hard way.

I politely disagree about spreadsheets. Using a spreadsheet they could easily increase the value of delivered pizza while increasing the price enough to make a net gain allowing them to increase the wages. Imagine a sales pitch something like: "Our new home delivered pizzas come with twice the cheese and twice the sauce! Just pop it in a hot oven and in 5 minutes enjoy the smell of freshly baked bread and superb pizza taste, and all without leaving the comfort of your home!" It's a marketing problem accessible with a spreadsheet. I admit that it would not be quite this easy, but you get the idea.

Pizza hut (in Canada) is one of the only pizza places I'll order from because they don't use uber and have their own drivers. I'm sure this is inevitable though.

This is unfortunate since Pizza Hut is quite possibly the best pizza available in California. Does anyone from California know why the pizza selection is so awful there?

There are no independent pizza places? Here in the north east US, I have at least 3 independent pizza places in walking distance. They may outnumber the Dunkin Donuts.

Whaaaat? It’s been a while since I lived in california (Monterey and later the Bay Area) but I found California to have some of the best pizza anywhere…

Pesto and potato pizza in the Castro was amazing.

This thread packs more info in it that any I've seen the last decade, at least, to this northeasterner who put a few years in Cali.

"Pizza Hut is best pizza place in Cali" is rationally incorrect but is broadly correct, in that, California suffers from either:

A) bargain basement tomato-sauce-on-cardboard pizza...think Dominos.

or...

B) pizza that frankly is _not_ pizza to people below 80th percentile income who aren't foodies. To wit, "Pesto and Potato Pizza"

Yay, an internet pizza thread. Get ready for:

1) snobby east coasters telling everyone what good pizza is, which is only found at the slice shop in their neighborhood;

2) no true Scotsmen, keepers of the purity of pizza, arriving to tell everyone what isn’t pizza (typically a subset of 1);

3) random people in Midwest locations describing how their favorite pizza has ranch as the base, or is cooked in a deep fryer, or whatever other local innovations/aberrations (sure to be shouted down by 1 and 2).

Don’t forget the guy who can’t make up his mind so he tries to be both a food snob and the voice of the people at the same time

Yes, I would claim that SF Bay Area is a pizza desert.

The midwest easily stomps bay area for pizza (Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago).

disclaimer: 10 years bay area resident.

I agree on the average level of pizza here being low (grew up in Chicagoland, now east bay resident for 9 years) but there are some bright spots. Zachary’s specifically is the best Chicago style deep dish I’ve found outside of Chicago. In fact it’s better than most I had in Chicago, not all to be clear since Uno still holds it for me. Patxis is pretty decent too, though less traditional it’s still on the level of say Giordano’s (roughly third tier Chicago style IMO). Oddly though, if I want a good New York style or tavern style slice, that’s much harder. Mountain Mike’s at least uses good pepperoni, but the odd crust depth is not ideal. At least there are options.

The Bay Area in particular is known for Indian pizza. https://www.vice.com/en/article/bmpa9d/meet-the-godfather-of...

None of it is gourmet, but if you want pizza and spice, it gets the job done.

Capo’s in SF is amazing.

Agreed. There is maybe 1 or 2 decent pizza places in all of the Bay Area. My grandfather was a chef from Connecticut who lived in CA for 40 years. I also lived in the Bay Area for about 30 years. Once upon a time the chain Pizz'A Chicago in San Jose was okay, but IIRC it broke up or changed.

Edit: If anyone knows of decent pizza in Austin that isn't hipster, overpriced, inconsistent, and/or trash, let me know. I've been disappointed by every pizza place so far.

Tell me the best pizza you’ve had in the Bay Area and I’ll quickly respond with a ton of better places.

Yes, pizza culture is better in Chicago + NY + MA, but the Bay Area has probably what I’d say is the best pizza culture vs all other metro areas out west

Long Bridge in SF and Emilia’s in Berkeley are just as good as the best pizza I’ve had in NY. And that’s just off the top of my head.

We do, I’m really confused by the original commenter.

Are you asking why do we have “bad” chain pizza? We don’t

Are you asking why we have “bad” pizza overall? We don’t

Pizza Hut is what it is, but I have pizza places I prefer in orange county and santa clara county. Where are you and someone will make pizza recomendations. Good pizza costs money, but if you're looking at Pizza Hut, maybe you're looking for cheap and palettable rather than good?

Also, maybe where were you that had pizza more to your liking? Or what kind of pizza are you looking for if you can be specific.

For anyone that doesn’t get it, add a /s to this.

I worked at a Pizza Hut 30 years ago. It's absolutely banal shit. The reason it's mostly shit is because it's not NYC or Chicago. There are maybe a handful of excellent pizza places in all of California.

Is Chick-fil-A going to follow that too? Their in-house delivery staff are the best, Uber eats will just dump my order outside the apartment building and run while the Chicfila staff will walk it to my door and send a photo.

They deliver themselves? In my area they use DoorDash from their app.

Time to seriously upcharge on those apps. See how inelastic the demand is.

tech has all but made pizza extinct

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/sf-little-star-pizza-cha...

VCs are rent seekers, like copyright holders

The aggregate have no physical obligation to propagate the memes about their value to society. Their value is coupled to nation state policy, not daily life support of others.

If we’re just going to be forced to work for rich people 7 days a week we may as well make our own stuff, barter with our community 7 days week.

Let the rich help labor class by doing the work to serve their real needs rather than externalize. I’m happy to turn a blind eye to any rich who die sick and penniless, as they project is acceptable way to treat others.

Such memes are propagating on social media; whether organic posts or not, readers are walking away from Reddit and elsewhere questioning the real day to day value of enabling distant financiers

> If we’re just going to be forced to work for rich people 7 days a week we may as well make our own stuff, barter with our community 7 days week.

You've always had that option, you just can't force other people into your system.

Freedom to choose, and I choose to not be in whatever unformed economic idealistic system you come up with.

No I don’t have that choice; I have to play fiat wealth accumulation to buy land. An ideal system for fiat wealth game players.

I can’t force you, but society at large can put upon you whatever it wants and you have no choice but to accept it.

For example; status quo socialized meme of your ideal society is none of us have to lift finger to heal or feed someone in need. Including you should you find yourself penniless in alleyway.

You don’t define for others where “idealistic” applies. This is an ideal system for some and I don’t have to accept that. You don’t define language associations for others.

You might go meditate on the depth to which physics like relativity and entropy apply to social life. Also how socialized discovery of goods, services and prices our system is ostensibly built around isn’t at all hardcore free market capitalism.

Whatever message wins over the aggregate wins. Gen Alpha is just a few years from graduating HS and running into the same systemic issues as GenZ and Millennials based upon politically contrived ideals that insulate a minority from real work keeping themselves alive. If that is all Gen Alpha is going to get out of the system after watching the same put upon their elder siblings, good luck keeping your ideal system in place.

Inline with the logic of the system you prefer, if you end up in the gutter; oh well.

> No I don’t have that choice; I have to play fiat wealth accumulation to buy land.

Why can you not barter within the community for the land you need?

If you’d talked about needing to break out of the barter economy to trade for fiat to pay government taxes on income or land, I’d agree that you can’t have a fully closed barter economy, but for the acquisition of land itself, you can barter.

I have tried. Landholders these days are locked into loans; be it initial mortgage or equity loans. They can’t barter land away, as the banks (with government backing) demand fiat capital.

Most cannot afford to own anything; most rent from a back but semantically claim ownership. The rich propagate hallucination their portfolio of assets gives them greater leverage via the sycophancy of their large flock… er… shareholders.

Take the metaphor, analogy, poetry out of the Bible and you’re left with rudimentary framework that became capitalism. A few shekels and goats for a daughter.

Makes sense. In the US sense of obligation, participation in religious activities only began to decline in the early 2000s.

Brainwave sync with prior generations, true believers, was embedded implicitly.

That signal is being attenuated by generational churn.

That seems likely that you didn’t offer enough in barter for them to satisfy their obligations to others, in other words not that “bartering for land can’t work” but rather “bartering for land doesn’t work if the goods offered for land is too low”.

Your ideal system forces people to involuntarily provide labor for others at no cost.

No thanks.

Ah no; it requires people to learn how to, and do more towards, their real survival, take demand off others bodies.

Grab a shovel and grow some carrots and potatoes for yourself.

No one owes beating up their body to feed you. I had a friend commit suicide rather than spend the rest of his life in chronic pain acquired by via a construction career.

Your ideal system seems to be extract as much as possible no matter the cost to others (fiat or real). If you end the same way; oh well.

> You don’t define for others where “idealistic” applies. This is an ideal system for some and I don’t have to accept that. You don’t define language associations for others.

If I can't do it, then who gave you authority? Rules for thee is all it seems to be these days.

Anyways, I think I've had enough of communists for the remainder of the year.

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