David on the Economics of Lunch

My cousin David (who is old enough to remember) has his knickers in a twist remembering prices from the 1950 menu at the FW Woolworth Company (or maybe he has is just from sitting on one of those high stools). "Thanks a lot!" growls David. "Those were the days!"

Sure enough, but it would be important first to play the inflation game. Using the CPI calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (link), I find that the appropriate pricing factor is about niine—in the sense that it would take you $9 today to buy what $1 bought then (actually 9.08, but I’ll round off so I can do the math in my head). So, a ham (or egg, or cheese) sandwich is $2.70 (30 x 9); a slice of cake or pie is $1.35 (15 x 9) and so forth.

But there are problems here. First, what is the right point of comparison? I There are no Woolworth’s any more; maybe the right point of comparison would be Denny’s. One threshold difficulty with this comparison is that the Denny’s website lists ten different menus (link)—almost as if you could say that the range of choices has expanded even faster than the CPI. There is a “kiddies” an “all-night” and, perhaps most relevant for our purposes, the menu for “seniors” (defined as “55 and over”) so you can qualify as a “senior” even if your age in 1950 was negative three.

But if you look at the senior menu at the Denny website, you run head-on into another perplexity: the website listing doesn’t seem to track with the offerings at the 1950s Woolworth. No “ham sandwich;” instead, w e have a “Senior Bacon Cheddar Burger,” defined as “a delicious, juicy hamburger with crisp bacon, Cheddar cheese, lettuce and tomato.” Or a “Senior Club Sandwich,” said to contain “thinly sliced turkey breast, crisp bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on toasted white bread.”

Perhaps the closest comparison is the “Senior Grilled Cheese Deluxe Sandwich,” which turns out to be “melted American cheese with tomato on grilled sourdough bread.” I suppose if you were the patron saint of old geezers, you could get her to leave the tomato off, but it’s a question.

Prices are not listed for these items—apparently the folks in marketing have advised that web shoppers are not price-sensitive. We do, ,however, find a “Flatjack Sizzzlin’ Skillet,” on offer for $5.99, containing “a traditional breakfast delivered sizzlin’ hot on a casts iron skillet. On the side, sit some warm flatjacks. Thin, sweet pancakes ready to be rolled up with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and hash browns. Pour syrup on top, if you know what’s good. It’s up to you to customize every delicious bite.”

Flatjacks? Ah, let it pass. A more puzzling question is—whose “tradition”? Somebody at the bar at Woolworth’s in 1950 would surely have told you that if he asked his wife for the “traditional skillet breakfast,” she would have hurled it at him (idle thought: does Denny serve this Mount Rushmore of breakfast treats with a complimentary chest spreader, for emergency care until the paramedics arrive?).

Still I have to admit I am a bit baffled by all this: on the one hand, the basic “factor of nine” prices sound pretty cheap. On the other, it is not obvious that you can get anything that compares to the 1950 breakfast any more—and if you buy one of the monster specials, you actually get a kind of a bargain.

There is also the problem of quality, and that is almost too depressing to contemplate.. The1950s menu offers “plain bread,” which might not be a selling point today. I’d speculate that the 1950 chicken just might be superior today’s factory specials (and note—relatively speaking, on the 1950 menu, the chicken is the most expensive offering). For sheer ambiance, I don’t think either has much to offer. I don’t suppose anybody ever actually goes to Denny’s, any more than you would have gone to Woolworth’s—if you wind up at either place, then something has gone bad wrong with your day. On the other hand, I don’t suppose anybody ever will duplicate that inimitable Woolworth basement smell.

Perhaps the most interesting comparison, though, would be in terms of earning capacity. Forget about straight CPI numbers, on which I would concede that Woolworth does look fairly cheap. Instead ask: how much of the average weekly paycheck would an Woolworth lunch cost? My suspicion is that even at 1950 prices, lunch out was more of a big deal than it would be today. So even though Denny serves up a lunch fit for an angry rhino, the customer is likely to go home with less of a dent in his wallet than his grandfather at Woolworth’s so long ago.