I always love news items like this. According to Reuters, there exists a $175 hamburger. You can find it in New York at a place called The Wall Street Burger Shoppe. Presumably, big traders would be the only ones able to afford it.
Well, for those who would even think to complain about the prices at McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Burger King (NYSE: BKC) and Wendy's (NYSE: WEN), this $175 burger should put things in perspective. It doesn't sell a lot; the news piece states that the place moves about two dozen in any given thirty-day period. The Wall Street Burger Shoppe mostly sells $4 burgers.
But, really, this $175 burger is nothing more than genius marketing. The owners are obviously not under any illusion whatsoever that they can make a great return on capital by investing in such a pricey offering. All it's meant to do is to bring publicity to the establishment. It's obviously worked. As a way of branding, this goofy pricing scheme immediately differentiates the restaurant's brand from others. In fact, it was the stated intent of the owners to have the most expensive burger in the area. It's also a great differentiator between personalities. I mean, I think you can tell a lot about a person who is actually willing to buy this thing (and, you can certainly infer a lot about the person's net worth).
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