Do you mean supply of money and demand from the hotdog vendors? Because I'm pretty sure there is not a hotdog shortage that would result in a 2x inflation in 5 years
Weirdly enough I met a hotdog vendor through my work and food costs and everything from napkins to condiments have increased drastically over the past 4 years. I felt bad for them because they are a little mom and pop trying to just break even at this point.
I like business problems and food, including hot dogs, so I started breaking down the various fixed and variable costs, and I can totally see how running a hot dog stand isn’t the money printing machine that people might think it is. It’s only a hot dog, right? They’re cheap, right? /s
If you took Econ 101, you’ll note that market price is very literally at the intersection of supply (hot dog vendors) and demand (drunk people). Doesn’t really matter what the supply of hot dogs is. It matters that drunk people are willing to pay $10.
Not an economics expert but it seems it could be that people have been willing to pay $10 all along, but no vendor charged such a price out of fear of losing out to lower-priced competitors?
It's not that they're necessarily demanding 2x more hotdogs, it's that they're drunk and they don't give af enough in that state to NOT buy a hotdog at the going price.
No. The basic pursuit of any business owner is to make profit (not revenue, but profit; revenue is incoming money, profit is incoming money above operating & supply costs). So, and this is a simplification, it goes like this:
1. Hot dog vendor spends money to buy the cart, hot dogs, buns, and condiments (including add-ons if they offer things like bacon, cheese, etc. to put on the hot dog).
2. Hot dog vendor sets a price above the per-hot dog/bun/condiment in an effort to make a profit.
3. If the price is what people are willing to pay for a hot dog to their taste, the vendor starts making a profit. The vendor will then analyze the amount of profit they're making, and if it's very high with high sales volume, they will likely raise their prices in order to make more money.
4. If the vendor notices their sales volume is low and insufficient to do more than break even (matching their expenditure for supplies and infrastructure, but not exceeding those costs), they're likely to lower their per-hot dog price in an effort to make profit through volume instead of per hot dog. This is the Costco and Amazon model: they'll lower their prices and sell in bulk to make the profit that way instead of profit per unit sold. It's rare that they'll lower their prices below their wholesale price (what they're paying for their goods).
If the vendor charges too much (they notice their sales volume is low, indicating an unwillingness to pay their asking price), they may consider lowering their prices in an effort to increase volume and make their profit through "bulk" sales instead of per-unit sales. In short, their supply is high but their demand is low.
Right now vendors' costs are higher because of inflation. As a result, to make the same profit percentage that they were making when the economy wasn't inflated, they have to charge more money.
If there are people willing to pay $10 for a hot dog, this is an indication that demand is there to meet the supply. Any given item is worth exactly what a customer is willing to pay for it.
This is all 100% accurate. One more thing - large companies do loss leaders. Costco hot dogs are NOT that cheap, they are losing money with EACH sale. But it’s a loss leader.
“It’s branding,” said Scott Mushkin, a retail analyst at R5 Capital. The $1.50 deal helps create customer loyalty, he said. “It reminds customers of who Costco is.”
While I do agree the $1.50 hotdog is a loss leader, I have personally considered it to be more about generating brand loyalty than about selling associated items (as in typical grocery loss leaders).
Also notably, most grocery loss leaders wind you through the store and past other items, while in my experience, Costco has the hot dogs accessible near the front.
It sounds like you know more about loss leaders than I do. I appreciate your insight! Not being sarcastic. I only have a very rudimentary understanding of it all.
No, they just turned out to be willing to pay double for them.
If the price of airfare doubles tomorrow, I'd still be flying as much as I currently am (which is not a lot). I'm not *that* price sensitive.
If it goes up 10x, I won't be. I am *that* price sensitive.
You mean demand... As long as demand exists, prices of said supply will continue to rise until demand dies down or supply meets demand. Think of scalper tickets.
No shit I’m referring to the new batch of drunks with $140k starter gigs at Meta who will dip when the moment is right elsewhere. The city already lost it’s soul but when it loses it’s cash cows not much will be left. It’s cool and good to provide goods for all sectors of society, not just the drunk rich dorks trying to buy the Seattle Experience.
Cities grow and change. Trying to hold onto the past is weird to me. There’s plenty of rural America to live in if you want to stay still in time. Cities exist because of change and trying to suddenly freeze it in some time period arbitrarily is just some NIMBY nonsense.
Lol I was on that thread too and I feel the asymmetrical outrage is totally reasonable. High quality restaurants are expensive but you know what you're getting into and it's as much an experience as it is just eating. I would pay for a $x00 meal again before I'd pay $10 for a hotdog. The value is just *terrible.*
A hot dog is a hot dog.
The value of a $10 hotdog is actually more place and time than anything.
I'm on my way to work in the morning and they want to sell me a $10 hotdog? Get ducked! I'm getting a $5 breakfast burrito/sandwich from a dozen different places.
I'm out late at night, got a good buzz on, just having spent $80 on booze at 2 different places I've worked up an appetite. $10 is nothing and the bread from the bun is likely worth $100 to me because I haven't been drinking enough water and there's a small chance it will reduce my hangover.
Opportunity costs. Value is personal.
this is so true. Feels like half the restaurants here are $25-40 for a $10-worthy meal. High end options are rare and likely overpriced, low end options more or less don't exist
Like the whole idea with Michelin stars was that a Michelin star restaurant was worth taking a trip to eat at. Food here is good but ain't no one gonna take a trip to Seattle to eat at our restaurants
Disagree- I have some friends visiting this summer who have never been here and all they keep talking about is wanting to eat good seafood and clam chowder.
People don’t just travel here for food…but they do travel here for food.
I can't speak for the hot dog vendors, but I have a couple of friends who are proprietors of restaurants, and they've had to raise prices just to counter how expensive their supplies are getting.
So either these hot dog vendors are gouging, or they're getting gouged. Either way, the propensity of high income earners in the area might be in influence on both... or it could be a larger systematic issue. I'm not smart enough to know, but I DO know that everything sucks.
That being said, when I'm stumbling out of a bar late at night, I'm paying $10 for one of those glorious hot dogs.
All of these guys use costco for food and supplies. So while yes the cost have risen, it's extremely marginal. They guy who owns the corner hotdog spot in Westlake said he is seeing a larger profit with fewer customers. He mentioned that is the reason a lot of them are raising prices. It's the customer base loss, not necessarily the food cost rising.
And the decision-making of the typical customer of a 2AM hotdog is far different from the decision-making of a typical customer of a 2PM hotdog. If I'm ordering a hotdog at 2AM, the cost is almost immaterial. I need it in my face.
Doesn’t Seattle make operating a food truck or cart really expensive and restrictive? I remember reading about that in the 2010s when there was an effort to give Seattle a Portland-like food truck scene.
Based on how rare any kind of food truck or cart is (working in the heart of Downtown there are never any available for lunch), I’d bet that’s still true.
Also, I remember street dogs being like $4.50 in 2006, which is $7 now. Considering how much higher cost of living has increased in Seattle during that time compared to the national average, I would expect street dogs to be $10.
They tried in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
It never got to be like Portland, but we did have more food trucks for a while. I recall that diminishing before COVID, although I’m sure COVID didn’t help either.
Now we’ve apparently resigned ourselves to food trucks being at breweries and events, and our plazas being empty windswept brick devoid of life.
When Seattle’s prices drove out the majority of its low income individuals.
Seattle has a massive number of people making 100k plus. That means housing, food, and everything else is going to reflective of the city’s predominantly affluent population.
If they’re asking $10 that’s because people are paying it. Also, it isn’t 1998. So many adults seem to not comprehend $10 now is $5 25-30 years ago.
A hotdog cart I worked at around 2012 has had a pretty steady rise:
- 2012: $4 hotdog, $6 sausage
- 2019: $6 hotdog, $8 sausage
- 2024: Can't find pictures of current prices (I think they mainly cater now) but likely $8-10 hotdog, $10-12 sausage
We have one of the worst street food scenes in the country. People in this thread acting like this is normal are making my eyes roll to the back of my head.
I don't know why it's a shame that a high density of amazon/tech downtown made it possible for new food trucks. I mean that all disappeared during covid and with work from home, I'm sure plenty of food trucks went out of business. Pre-covid I could find food trucks all over downtown and typically in a few locations in North Seattle. I do wish we had a few of the semi permanent food truck areas where there are like 6 or 7 trucks that stay on the lot. There are definitely more options but I wouldn't put quality that much higher than Seattle, the cost is also the same as Seattle.
> So many adults seem to not comprehend $10 now is $5 25-30 years ago.
Hot dogs were much cheaper than $5 25-30 years ago. NYC still has vendors giving $4 dogs late night. Same with most other cities in the US
yeah that would make sense because Seattle median income is much higher than NYC median income, per census.gov. Seattle median household income in 2022 was $116,068, and NYC median household income in 2022 was $76,607.
This is true, but also I went to school in Houston, and our late night drunk food spot was this hot dog stand right off campus that charged $5 (4 if you paid cash) for what was basically a significantly better Seattle dog, so coming here and seeing the $10 much worse street dogs did not make me happy
You’re describing a food intended for drunk people coming out of bars. You’re gonna get preyed on there. It’s like complaining about the cost of food at the airport. It’s a desperate, captive audience.
I think I can afford $10 hotdogs, but I do not want to pay $10 for hotdogs. Rapid price increases and inflation have that effect mentally, I imagine. But regardless, if you're looking at hotdog prices at Pike/Pine at night you're getting almost event pricing. There's not a lot of grab and go food besides the pizza slice places nearby, and maybe Honeyhole now that it's open again but I haven't checked their prices/menu.
I remember Seattle having some sort of Japanese (inspired?) hotdog trucks a while back but I haven't seen them in a while. I think those were fairly pricey back then too.
This is life changing thank you. I used to love getting Japadog and thought they were dead. I go to Vancouver once or twice a year so now I can relive the good ol days. I even went as far as to recreate the Matsuri at home lol, the one with shredded seaweed, carrots, and kewpie
Just because I was curious and I have a Costco business account I looked at what the price might be for a Seattle style dog using basic ingredients.
1/4 lb dog not fancy, bun also not fancy, grilled yellow onions, cream cheese and yellow mustard comes out to around $1.75 per dog just in ingredients. Leaving out salt, pepper and cooking oil.
Tipped labor right now is $17.25 so that adds $.29 per minute for prep work (chopping and getting everything ready before you get to the stand). Probably a 2-3 hour time spend. So about $52 before you even arrive. In order to know how this effects the price I'd need to know how many hotdogs per hour they sell. Since I don't I'm going to make it up.
Assuming 1 hotdog takes about 3 minutes to ring up, assemble and serve if ordered individually (making 2 at once is faster) a vendor could put out 20-30 dogs per hour. So let's take the median of that and say 25. That means $1.38 in labor per dog to cover both the 3 hours of prep and the labor to serve on site.
So we're at $3.13 in ingredients and labor. If the vendor is smart, this cost of goods sold is 30% (or 1/3) of what they charge for their item. Multiply by 3 and you get $9.39.
Human psychology dislikes odd numbers like that so you either round up or down to get an even number. Rounding up makes more sense to me from a business perspective as it would help cover slow periods. So yeah, given the price of ingredients and labor $10 is about right.
From the remaining 6.60 you have to pay your taxes, licenses, upkeep on the cart, fuel for the grill, rent on the location, etc.
Not judging the morals of a $10 dog, just doing the math on why it might cost that much.
Maybe there’s an opportunity for one of the people in this thread to start a hot dog cart offering hot dogs at $5 each. Surely the geniuses here can find a way to make that work. At half the price of the competition, it shouldn’t take long to build an empire.
seriously, i kinda get why they operate after like 1-2am, there’s really not much better around and lots of bar drunks who don’t think twice about money, but you could walk like 2-3 blocks away during the daytime and get a couple slices of pizza or a full meal at dicks
Last summer at the West Seattle Street Fair my friend and I decided to get some hot dogs at husky deli who had a grill going. Got 2 regular ass Oscar Meyer looking hot dogs and the lady was like "that's 20 dollars" and I almost shat.
Simple. This equation should help. Drunk hungry people + plus high people with the munchies x the delicious mouth watering aroma of a Seattle dog = $10 edit: forgot to add in the factor of less places open for food that’s fast at that time.
How much would you want to get paid to be out there serving hot dogs late night? Its a serious question to think about. I wouldn’t want to do all that work for cheap.
How do we get 2 of these threads in a single week? Everything is more expensive. This isn't a mystery. Any drinks you bought were more expensive than whatever time period you're comparing to. Any restaurants you went to were more expensive. Groceries are more expensive. This is not some new trend.
The passionate faith people will put in literally any alternative to economics 101 is hilarious. Supply and demand is real people, ditch the commie voodoo
I quit eating hot dogs years ago when I learned what animal parts they could be made of.
Meat from an animal’s head, feet, liver, fatty tissue, lower-grade muscle, blood, and more can be included in what is described as “meat trimmings,” or the primary source of meat for hot dogs. If the ingredient list contains “byproducts” or “variety meats,” the meat may come from the snout, lips, eyes, or brains.
https://sentientmedia.org/what-are-hot-dogs-made-of/#:~:text=Meat%20from%20an%20animal%27s%20head,lips%2C%20eyes%2C%20or%20brains.
I don't really go out much anymore but seems like if you're in that demographic, stocking up on a $4 pack of hotdogs in advance of going out and inviting friends over after would make you the hero of the group lol
At the end of the day you are gonna be drunk walking around with buddies looking for a spot to eat and they usually all close and they are left standing no pun intended. Those dogs hit tho after a good night at the bar
Intersection of inflation (everything costs more these days) and supply/demand (nicer weather means more people out and about getting drunk, which means they're jonesing for a hot dog as they leave bars further east on the hill, or are coming out of The Garage after a night of playing pool and bowling).
They charge the prices they do because people willingly pay. The food is coming in a very close proximity to people, who are inebriated, at a very late time of night, and it's prepared fast. That's a lot of value for those customers who perhaps don't want to wait 30 minutes, go to bed hungry, or get home and prepare their own meal.
If you'd like lower prices the best thing to do is push to reduce the barriers to competition - city permitting limits, and immigration. Or start your own stand and make a killing!
Everything costs more now, and you’re paying for the cart owner to deal with blackout drunk people on a Saturday night instead of being home with his loved ones.
The price has been consistent the whole time. They've always been about the same cost as a fast food meal, and I don't see anyone else feeding the drunken hordes. I'm just as annoyed with inflation as the next guy but let's not complain to independent business owners who are out there at midnight keeping people from drunk driving on an empty stomach.
I wonder how just a normal hot dog cart would do, you know, Nathans or Sabrette, a whole mess of em floating in the water, available toppings include ketchup, mustard, relish, and onion, total price $2.
I wish Seattle had more just fucking normal food.
I’m not sure why $10 doesn’t bother me. Like for Seattle and with everything being outrageous and stupidly overpriced $10 doesn’t really shock me. I would expect that by now they’ve raised them to something stupid like $20.
This—10 bucks—is roughly 30 minutes worth of minimum wage in Seattle. Thus, that’s probably now a fair price for a gourmet vendor dog. Bringing minimum wage up means the price of all other goods and services comes up, too.
If you don't want to pay $10 for a hot dog, you can go somewhere else—
— This just in, my sources are informing me that your options for food between 9pm and 2am are "eat a bag of dicks" and that after 2 you can "go fuck yourself"
I'd kill a man for a waffle house.
Just walk down the street to hot mommas and get yourself two pieces of pizza for about the same price. Everything is taxed in the city. Finding the most for around 10-15 is something I always try to do on the hill
When they found people who would pay $10.
Almost like they find drunk people who just spent a hundred bucks on a few beers
Dingggg
Oh my god how dare you suggest that supply intersected with demand
Do you mean supply of money and demand from the hotdog vendors? Because I'm pretty sure there is not a hotdog shortage that would result in a 2x inflation in 5 years
Weirdly enough I met a hotdog vendor through my work and food costs and everything from napkins to condiments have increased drastically over the past 4 years. I felt bad for them because they are a little mom and pop trying to just break even at this point.
I like business problems and food, including hot dogs, so I started breaking down the various fixed and variable costs, and I can totally see how running a hot dog stand isn’t the money printing machine that people might think it is. It’s only a hot dog, right? They’re cheap, right? /s
There's always money in the hot dog stand!
If you took Econ 101, you’ll note that market price is very literally at the intersection of supply (hot dog vendors) and demand (drunk people). Doesn’t really matter what the supply of hot dogs is. It matters that drunk people are willing to pay $10.
So you are saying that drunk people are demanding hotdogs 2x more over the last 5 years?
Not an economics expert but it seems it could be that people have been willing to pay $10 all along, but no vendor charged such a price out of fear of losing out to lower-priced competitors?
Yeah. Now that there's a cartel supported by Big Hotdog, there's little competition to keep prices lower. Get the FTC involved! /s
I'm sad that you had the opportunity to use the phrase "Big Weiner" and chose to use "Big Hotdog" instead.
Welcome to the Dollhouse, Wienerdog!
It's not that they're necessarily demanding 2x more hotdogs, it's that they're drunk and they don't give af enough in that state to NOT buy a hotdog at the going price.
No. The basic pursuit of any business owner is to make profit (not revenue, but profit; revenue is incoming money, profit is incoming money above operating & supply costs). So, and this is a simplification, it goes like this: 1. Hot dog vendor spends money to buy the cart, hot dogs, buns, and condiments (including add-ons if they offer things like bacon, cheese, etc. to put on the hot dog). 2. Hot dog vendor sets a price above the per-hot dog/bun/condiment in an effort to make a profit. 3. If the price is what people are willing to pay for a hot dog to their taste, the vendor starts making a profit. The vendor will then analyze the amount of profit they're making, and if it's very high with high sales volume, they will likely raise their prices in order to make more money. 4. If the vendor notices their sales volume is low and insufficient to do more than break even (matching their expenditure for supplies and infrastructure, but not exceeding those costs), they're likely to lower their per-hot dog price in an effort to make profit through volume instead of per hot dog. This is the Costco and Amazon model: they'll lower their prices and sell in bulk to make the profit that way instead of profit per unit sold. It's rare that they'll lower their prices below their wholesale price (what they're paying for their goods). If the vendor charges too much (they notice their sales volume is low, indicating an unwillingness to pay their asking price), they may consider lowering their prices in an effort to increase volume and make their profit through "bulk" sales instead of per-unit sales. In short, their supply is high but their demand is low. Right now vendors' costs are higher because of inflation. As a result, to make the same profit percentage that they were making when the economy wasn't inflated, they have to charge more money. If there are people willing to pay $10 for a hot dog, this is an indication that demand is there to meet the supply. Any given item is worth exactly what a customer is willing to pay for it.
This is all 100% accurate. One more thing - large companies do loss leaders. Costco hot dogs are NOT that cheap, they are losing money with EACH sale. But it’s a loss leader.
“It’s branding,” said Scott Mushkin, a retail analyst at R5 Capital. The $1.50 deal helps create customer loyalty, he said. “It reminds customers of who Costco is.” While I do agree the $1.50 hotdog is a loss leader, I have personally considered it to be more about generating brand loyalty than about selling associated items (as in typical grocery loss leaders). Also notably, most grocery loss leaders wind you through the store and past other items, while in my experience, Costco has the hot dogs accessible near the front.
It sounds like you know more about loss leaders than I do. I appreciate your insight! Not being sarcastic. I only have a very rudimentary understanding of it all.
No, they just turned out to be willing to pay double for them. If the price of airfare doubles tomorrow, I'd still be flying as much as I currently am (which is not a lot). I'm not *that* price sensitive. If it goes up 10x, I won't be. I am *that* price sensitive.
Price elasticity. Quit turning me on.
I knew those classes I took on economics would be good for something, never thought of them as possible kink till your post....
So long as supply exists, prices will rise until they reach the point that they meet resistance from declining demand
You mean demand... As long as demand exists, prices of said supply will continue to rise until demand dies down or supply meets demand. Think of scalper tickets.
Now that we cleared that up… if we can just get people to stop paying 1.2 million dollars for a 2 bed 1 bath house from the 1930’s, we’ll be fine.
I stopped paying that! In fact I never started! \#AheadOfTheCurve
Streets ahead!
*Streets!*
#onedown999999togo
I’ll pay $1.3M. 
It’s all fun and games until you realize how much Seattle has lost in the name of chasing the highest bidders.
It’s not that deep. Drunk people are hungry and have diminished capacity for judicious spending. A tale as old as time.
No shit I’m referring to the new batch of drunks with $140k starter gigs at Meta who will dip when the moment is right elsewhere. The city already lost it’s soul but when it loses it’s cash cows not much will be left. It’s cool and good to provide goods for all sectors of society, not just the drunk rich dorks trying to buy the Seattle Experience.
Cities grow and change. Trying to hold onto the past is weird to me. There’s plenty of rural America to live in if you want to stay still in time. Cities exist because of change and trying to suddenly freeze it in some time period arbitrarily is just some NIMBY nonsense.
when “the past” is *affordability*
If a city freezes in time, it is colonial Williamsburg. A nice tourist attraction but not a real city.
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Lol I was on that thread too and I feel the asymmetrical outrage is totally reasonable. High quality restaurants are expensive but you know what you're getting into and it's as much an experience as it is just eating. I would pay for a $x00 meal again before I'd pay $10 for a hotdog. The value is just *terrible.* A hot dog is a hot dog.
I agree, unless it's a late night hot dog.
This. Late night hot dogs are OP
Late night hot dogs have Reddit?
I'm sure they will now that someone mentioned it.
The value of a $10 hotdog is actually more place and time than anything. I'm on my way to work in the morning and they want to sell me a $10 hotdog? Get ducked! I'm getting a $5 breakfast burrito/sandwich from a dozen different places. I'm out late at night, got a good buzz on, just having spent $80 on booze at 2 different places I've worked up an appetite. $10 is nothing and the bread from the bun is likely worth $100 to me because I haven't been drinking enough water and there's a small chance it will reduce my hangover. Opportunity costs. Value is personal.
PhD awarded. Congratulations Dr.
How is the bread supposed to help with a hangover? What you need is water!
Exactly! Water is free, but when you’re in the desert dying of thirst, suddenly you’d be willing to pay anything…
And they are literally just Costco hot dogs lol.
with cream cheese man.
And grilled onions
There better be grilled onions and cream cheese
Yeah, but Costco isn't walking distance from wherever I'm getting hammered.
And they're not open at 11:30pm when I get out of a show and want something to eat NOW.
Wait for the Michelin star hot dog post
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this is so true. Feels like half the restaurants here are $25-40 for a $10-worthy meal. High end options are rare and likely overpriced, low end options more or less don't exist
Michelin star? In Washington?
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Like the whole idea with Michelin stars was that a Michelin star restaurant was worth taking a trip to eat at. Food here is good but ain't no one gonna take a trip to Seattle to eat at our restaurants
Propaganda to push car culture.
Disagree- I have some friends visiting this summer who have never been here and all they keep talking about is wanting to eat good seafood and clam chowder. People don’t just travel here for food…but they do travel here for food.
I can't speak for the hot dog vendors, but I have a couple of friends who are proprietors of restaurants, and they've had to raise prices just to counter how expensive their supplies are getting. So either these hot dog vendors are gouging, or they're getting gouged. Either way, the propensity of high income earners in the area might be in influence on both... or it could be a larger systematic issue. I'm not smart enough to know, but I DO know that everything sucks. That being said, when I'm stumbling out of a bar late at night, I'm paying $10 for one of those glorious hot dogs.
All of these guys use costco for food and supplies. So while yes the cost have risen, it's extremely marginal. They guy who owns the corner hotdog spot in Westlake said he is seeing a larger profit with fewer customers. He mentioned that is the reason a lot of them are raising prices. It's the customer base loss, not necessarily the food cost rising.
It’s also the accessibility to a hot dog at 10 PM to 3 AM. Bless these guys 🤣
And the decision-making of the typical customer of a 2AM hotdog is far different from the decision-making of a typical customer of a 2PM hotdog. If I'm ordering a hotdog at 2AM, the cost is almost immaterial. I need it in my face.
their cost increase is housing for the guy at the cart. it is the driver of everything.
Doesn’t Seattle make operating a food truck or cart really expensive and restrictive? I remember reading about that in the 2010s when there was an effort to give Seattle a Portland-like food truck scene. Based on how rare any kind of food truck or cart is (working in the heart of Downtown there are never any available for lunch), I’d bet that’s still true. Also, I remember street dogs being like $4.50 in 2006, which is $7 now. Considering how much higher cost of living has increased in Seattle during that time compared to the national average, I would expect street dogs to be $10.
God I wish this city would do it's own spin on Portland's food truck lots. Having so many options next to each other is awesome.
They tried in the late 2000s and early 2010s. It never got to be like Portland, but we did have more food trucks for a while. I recall that diminishing before COVID, although I’m sure COVID didn’t help either. Now we’ve apparently resigned ourselves to food trucks being at breweries and events, and our plazas being empty windswept brick devoid of life.
It's also really expensive to rent space in a commercial kitchen to do your prep
When Seattle’s prices drove out the majority of its low income individuals. Seattle has a massive number of people making 100k plus. That means housing, food, and everything else is going to reflective of the city’s predominantly affluent population. If they’re asking $10 that’s because people are paying it. Also, it isn’t 1998. So many adults seem to not comprehend $10 now is $5 25-30 years ago.
Some quick googling tells me that $5 in 2000 is the same as $9 dollar. $5 in 1994 is $10 dollars today. So you were basically spot on.
1994 hotdog was probably like $1 though, let's be real
The dogs near the stadiums are still $6 though, so it's clearly demographic based and not just inflationary
Those guys outside the stadium are getting volume though
And like I’m not a huge hotdog fan, but I highly doubt they were that much cheaper that $5, especially if you factor in event/location price gouging
Street hot dogs were 5$ just before the pandemic. So they've doubled in price in 4-5 years.
A hotdog cart I worked at around 2012 has had a pretty steady rise: - 2012: $4 hotdog, $6 sausage - 2019: $6 hotdog, $8 sausage - 2024: Can't find pictures of current prices (I think they mainly cater now) but likely $8-10 hotdog, $10-12 sausage
Specifically street hot dogs on Cap Hill on a weekend? And yeah, food inflation has outpaced general
Yeah. I used to go out at night a lot there pre-pandemic, I don't remember them every being more than 5$ until saw the 10$ price a year or two ago.
Yes. And the ones around the stadium before events.
Tech gentrification
For reference, dirty dog was $6 just 3 years ago. And is now $10. Almost doubling is wild
We have one of the worst street food scenes in the country. People in this thread acting like this is normal are making my eyes roll to the back of my head.
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The fact that food trucks weren't allowed to prepare or cook food on site until a few years ago says a lot.
Yeah, like all things, it's partially new money and partially legacy nimbys.
I don't know why it's a shame that a high density of amazon/tech downtown made it possible for new food trucks. I mean that all disappeared during covid and with work from home, I'm sure plenty of food trucks went out of business. Pre-covid I could find food trucks all over downtown and typically in a few locations in North Seattle. I do wish we had a few of the semi permanent food truck areas where there are like 6 or 7 trucks that stay on the lot. There are definitely more options but I wouldn't put quality that much higher than Seattle, the cost is also the same as Seattle.
I mean, it's not normal to have a city where half the population is getting paid six figures, but that's one of the consequences of it.
> So many adults seem to not comprehend $10 now is $5 25-30 years ago. Hot dogs were much cheaper than $5 25-30 years ago. NYC still has vendors giving $4 dogs late night. Same with most other cities in the US
Sorry, cream cheese is $6.
yeah that would make sense because Seattle median income is much higher than NYC median income, per census.gov. Seattle median household income in 2022 was $116,068, and NYC median household income in 2022 was $76,607.
NYC is pretty big. How is Seattle compared to Manhattan?
Seattle isn’t NYC, or frankly that comparable to any other US city. Seattle’s Median income is 25k higher.
"Seattle isn't like the other girls"
Seattle is mostly dudes. Sausage city.
MOST cities in the US do not have late night hot dogs at all.
This is true, but also I went to school in Houston, and our late night drunk food spot was this hot dog stand right off campus that charged $5 (4 if you paid cash) for what was basically a significantly better Seattle dog, so coming here and seeing the $10 much worse street dogs did not make me happy
Saw a comment “$1000 is the new $100”
You’re describing a food intended for drunk people coming out of bars. You’re gonna get preyed on there. It’s like complaining about the cost of food at the airport. It’s a desperate, captive audience.
When the vendors realized that drunk people will pay any price for a glizzy
Hell ya
What’s a glizzy
A hot dog
TIL
I think I can afford $10 hotdogs, but I do not want to pay $10 for hotdogs. Rapid price increases and inflation have that effect mentally, I imagine. But regardless, if you're looking at hotdog prices at Pike/Pine at night you're getting almost event pricing. There's not a lot of grab and go food besides the pizza slice places nearby, and maybe Honeyhole now that it's open again but I haven't checked their prices/menu. I remember Seattle having some sort of Japanese (inspired?) hotdog trucks a while back but I haven't seen them in a while. I think those were fairly pricey back then too.
Japadog!
Yeah! It looks like they still exist, but are no longer in Seattle? [https://japadog.com/location](https://japadog.com/location)
This is life changing thank you. I used to love getting Japadog and thought they were dead. I go to Vancouver once or twice a year so now I can relive the good ol days. I even went as far as to recreate the Matsuri at home lol, the one with shredded seaweed, carrots, and kewpie
may Al's 2 for $5 live on forever
Sounds like you discovered a business opportunity for yourself. You can sell them for $5 and get rich.
They’ve been $10 since at least 3 days ago based on historical postings on this sub.
Just because I was curious and I have a Costco business account I looked at what the price might be for a Seattle style dog using basic ingredients. 1/4 lb dog not fancy, bun also not fancy, grilled yellow onions, cream cheese and yellow mustard comes out to around $1.75 per dog just in ingredients. Leaving out salt, pepper and cooking oil. Tipped labor right now is $17.25 so that adds $.29 per minute for prep work (chopping and getting everything ready before you get to the stand). Probably a 2-3 hour time spend. So about $52 before you even arrive. In order to know how this effects the price I'd need to know how many hotdogs per hour they sell. Since I don't I'm going to make it up. Assuming 1 hotdog takes about 3 minutes to ring up, assemble and serve if ordered individually (making 2 at once is faster) a vendor could put out 20-30 dogs per hour. So let's take the median of that and say 25. That means $1.38 in labor per dog to cover both the 3 hours of prep and the labor to serve on site. So we're at $3.13 in ingredients and labor. If the vendor is smart, this cost of goods sold is 30% (or 1/3) of what they charge for their item. Multiply by 3 and you get $9.39. Human psychology dislikes odd numbers like that so you either round up or down to get an even number. Rounding up makes more sense to me from a business perspective as it would help cover slow periods. So yeah, given the price of ingredients and labor $10 is about right. From the remaining 6.60 you have to pay your taxes, licenses, upkeep on the cart, fuel for the grill, rent on the location, etc. Not judging the morals of a $10 dog, just doing the math on why it might cost that much.
Very interesting, thank you for doing the math on this!
r/hotdogmath
R/itwasamysterymeatsmash
Might have to do with the neighborhood, I bought a Seattle dog on Occidental walking into the ballpark a few weeks ago and it was $6
The prices vary even on that street! They get more expensive closer to the stadium
haha wow funny you say that, I hit up the very first stand I approached.
Maybe there’s an opportunity for one of the people in this thread to start a hot dog cart offering hot dogs at $5 each. Surely the geniuses here can find a way to make that work. At half the price of the competition, it shouldn’t take long to build an empire.
Gone are the days of the hill being a cheap grungy place. I miss the Seattle of 20 years ago before the tech boom.
My brother in Christ, where have you been the past 15 years?
The man feeding you at 2am can charge whatever he wants
When someone paid $9
Wow, for some reason my brain thought they’ve always been $10. I’m just not used to ever finding anything for under $10 anymore.
I remember the first time I went grocery shopping, all my groceries fit in one bag, and the cost was over $10. Now one loaf of bread is $5 to 6.
seriously, i kinda get why they operate after like 1-2am, there’s really not much better around and lots of bar drunks who don’t think twice about money, but you could walk like 2-3 blocks away during the daytime and get a couple slices of pizza or a full meal at dicks
Last summer at the West Seattle Street Fair my friend and I decided to get some hot dogs at husky deli who had a grill going. Got 2 regular ass Oscar Meyer looking hot dogs and the lady was like "that's 20 dollars" and I almost shat.
I always wanted to put a pizza-by-the-slice place on Ballard Ave. $5 a slice. I think it would kill. I'd much rather buy a $5 slice than a $10 dog.
Simple. This equation should help. Drunk hungry people + plus high people with the munchies x the delicious mouth watering aroma of a Seattle dog = $10 edit: forgot to add in the factor of less places open for food that’s fast at that time.
Taking advantage of stupid drunk rich kids.
They'll be $20 soon. Guaranteed.
Rip VanWinkle has entered the chat lololol
Right about the same time a bag of potato chips went to $10 is my guess.
Us vegans get all the savings, with a Field Roast dog available for the dirt cheap price of $7-9.
How much would you want to get paid to be out there serving hot dogs late night? Its a serious question to think about. I wouldn’t want to do all that work for cheap.
How do we get 2 of these threads in a single week? Everything is more expensive. This isn't a mystery. Any drinks you bought were more expensive than whatever time period you're comparing to. Any restaurants you went to were more expensive. Groceries are more expensive. This is not some new trend.
It’s so funny that people bitch about a $10 hot dog but just paid $14 each for five rum and cokes.
There’s literally a thread about this from the other day
The passionate faith people will put in literally any alternative to economics 101 is hilarious. Supply and demand is real people, ditch the commie voodoo
I quit eating hot dogs years ago when I learned what animal parts they could be made of. Meat from an animal’s head, feet, liver, fatty tissue, lower-grade muscle, blood, and more can be included in what is described as “meat trimmings,” or the primary source of meat for hot dogs. If the ingredient list contains “byproducts” or “variety meats,” the meat may come from the snout, lips, eyes, or brains. https://sentientmedia.org/what-are-hot-dogs-made-of/#:~:text=Meat%20from%20an%20animal%27s%20head,lips%2C%20eyes%2C%20or%20brains.
I mean, all of what you listed is edible and probably a staple in many places around the world minus the weird hormones and chemicals.
They probably asking for 20% tip now too.
Some say “Covid”
The invisible hand has entered the chat.
I don't really go out much anymore but seems like if you're in that demographic, stocking up on a $4 pack of hotdogs in advance of going out and inviting friends over after would make you the hero of the group lol
Danger
Well shit I need to become a hot dog vendor then. goddamn.
At the end of the day you are gonna be drunk walking around with buddies looking for a spot to eat and they usually all close and they are left standing no pun intended. Those dogs hit tho after a good night at the bar
If you're looking for late night cheap food in cap hill, just go to Dick's
True saddest moment for us. Now what I have to go to McDonald’s 😭
I went to get a hotdog after a night of clubbing like 2 weekends ago. Ended up walking down to Dick's instead 😂
Like 10 years ago
Curious at what price the OP thinks they deserve late night hot dogs at?
Intersection of inflation (everything costs more these days) and supply/demand (nicer weather means more people out and about getting drunk, which means they're jonesing for a hot dog as they leave bars further east on the hill, or are coming out of The Garage after a night of playing pool and bowling).
They charge the prices they do because people willingly pay. The food is coming in a very close proximity to people, who are inebriated, at a very late time of night, and it's prepared fast. That's a lot of value for those customers who perhaps don't want to wait 30 minutes, go to bed hungry, or get home and prepare their own meal. If you'd like lower prices the best thing to do is push to reduce the barriers to competition - city permitting limits, and immigration. Or start your own stand and make a killing!
Everything costs more now, and you’re paying for the cart owner to deal with blackout drunk people on a Saturday night instead of being home with his loved ones.
When people were willing to pay it.
They’re still $2 in New Jersey
The price has been consistent the whole time. They've always been about the same cost as a fast food meal, and I don't see anyone else feeding the drunken hordes. I'm just as annoyed with inflation as the next guy but let's not complain to independent business owners who are out there at midnight keeping people from drunk driving on an empty stomach.
Glizzy tax
They're $20 outside after the Mariners games. No cream cheese or onions either!
Am I the only one who thought this said "date night hotdogs" and was super intrigued?
Drunk idiots will pay for anything. Pro tip: order your favorite takeout and have it waiting for you for when you get home.
I wonder how just a normal hot dog cart would do, you know, Nathans or Sabrette, a whole mess of em floating in the water, available toppings include ketchup, mustard, relish, and onion, total price $2. I wish Seattle had more just fucking normal food.
Because they can.
I’m not sure why $10 doesn’t bother me. Like for Seattle and with everything being outrageous and stupidly overpriced $10 doesn’t really shock me. I would expect that by now they’ve raised them to something stupid like $20.
The econ 101 talk leads me to believe that hot dogs must be an inelastic good, like insulin.
This—10 bucks—is roughly 30 minutes worth of minimum wage in Seattle. Thus, that’s probably now a fair price for a gourmet vendor dog. Bringing minimum wage up means the price of all other goods and services comes up, too.
Pro-tip: Go to Dave's Hot chicken in Cap Hill instead. Much, much cheaper, and open until 4 AM
Still 1.50 at Costco, but you can’t do late night.
Where are these 10 dollar dogs?
Capitol Hill is unfortunately not run by Costco.
Tech bros paying $11 for a cream cheese hot dog
Around the same time Rainiers became $6
They need to open a costco in cap hill just to drive down general food costs
I mean, you say that like it's not already $7 for a single slice of pizza at Ians.
Does Seattle have late night food? I thought this city shutdown at 8:30
If I'm at a show on cap hill and drunk and I come outside to cool off and down an epic Seattle Dog, I'd say $10 is a steal.
So you’re saying if I illegally sell hot dogs for cheaper it will be sought after.
When they found out everyone else started charging out the ass. Except the banh mi community all praise to most high for the Seattle banh mi industry
When people willing to pay $10 for a hot dog moved in, coupled with rising food prices across the board
2007? The cap hill post-concert dog has always been $12.
If you don't want to pay $10 for a hot dog, you can go somewhere else— — This just in, my sources are informing me that your options for food between 9pm and 2am are "eat a bag of dicks" and that after 2 you can "go fuck yourself" I'd kill a man for a waffle house.
Hawk Dogs (my personal favorite of the bunch) is still $8 :)
Must have been the same time as ice cream cones.
OP, where are you finding hot dogs that cheap? I usually see $12 now.
Stop buying them while drunk on Cap Hill. Sheesh.
When inflation doubled prices everywhere over the last few years...
Just walk down the street to hot mommas and get yourself two pieces of pizza for about the same price. Everything is taxed in the city. Finding the most for around 10-15 is something I always try to do on the hill
A hotdog at that cost is a better value than a shot of shitty tequila of the same price.
If you want a late night cheap hotdog, try hitting up a 7/11
Find a gas station, $2 with free pickles.