It's also Switzerland. Everything there is stupidly expensive.

Yes, especially food.

I just walked by Dunkin’ here in Barcelona. I’ll go by tomorrow and see how much a donut is. We can price compare. Also Lucerne is crazy expensive, even more than other areas of Switzerland. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is cheaper in Zurich for example.

Wife and I went to Thailand. Part of the trip was to go remote hiking to hill tribe villages.

Boston-Tokyo-Bangkok by plane and then an overnight train to Chiang-mai. 36 hour journey or so. Stepped off the train and saw a Dunks in the station.

Can’t have high inflation if everything is overpriced to begin with.

Yes and no. I guess to put it in perspective, you can get Berliner or Krapfen, which are basically the local versions of donuts, for between 1.00 to 3.00 apiece depending on where you get them from.

However, the Dunks donuts in Switzerland obviously have a bit more effort put into decorating them than what you usually see in Boston and the flavors are pretty different. Dunkin's in Switzerland is priced more like Blackbird or Union Square donuts are in Boston.

Wow shipping from Boston must be expensive for it to be $4

Dunks isn't a local chain anymore. It just started in the area before the vast majority of people reading this were born, including myself. It's just fast food. You might as well shit your pants that you saw Burger King.

Dunkin isn’t a local chain, but it is a local religion

CH is the best... If I ever have to leave the US, I'm heading straight there. Bern though, Luzern is just a bit too touristy for my taste.

Groceries are on par or cheaper than here.

Yeah, eating out is expensive, but your waiter also makes enough money to own a home.

The only people I know who still worship Dunks are townies who've switched to ice coffee years ago because they recognized that it's hard to fuck up iced coffee with milk and sugar.

Cheap fast casual basically doesn’t exist (maybe a Döner) but for mid priced casual dining to fine dining I find it to be basically the same as Boston especially when you add tax and tip to the US side.

It’s not really close. A flatbread at a casual restaurant here is like $18 and probably about 30 CHF in Switzerland. There’s no tip, but it’s definitely more expensive. Their VAT is also 3% higher.

You definitely can find cheap street food, like pizza by the slice or diner, but anything sit down is more expensive

honestly it's not that far apart… yes VAT is higher but it's included in the price not added on at the end.

personally my experience is that what we would think of as cheap food is EXPENSIVE and sit-down is on par. A steak burrito will run you 18CHF at Zapote in Zurich, almost $19.50!

Comparing "flatbreads" A Margherita form Copa in the Southend is $17 + $1.06 in Tax + $3.40 in Tip = $21.46 and a Margherita from Santo Bevitore in Zurich is 21.50CHF or $23.29 and 18CHF at Santa Lucia (also Zurich) not that far off.

Continuing onto Pastas and Mains... a Bolognese form Porto in the Back Bay is $28 + $1.75 + $5.60 = $35.50 or NEBO $30 + $1.88 + $6 = $37.88 and from the same Santo Bevitore is 34.50CHF or $37.35 or 23CHF at Santa Lucia. Lamb Chops from Porto $42 + $2.63 + $8.40 = $53.03 and Lamb Chops at Santo hits at 44.50CHF or $48.12

edit: i should say that i'm not arguing against your original point that that it's expensive to eat out in switzerland, just that it's _also_ expensive in boston and we're at a point where prices in switzerland aren't all that far off and most people don't realize it.

They are made tasty though. There is one in Vienna and all the donuts are way more artisan anything from Dunkin USA

Fuck Switzerland: I’ll go to dunks in southie

I want to bring my Bernese Mountain Dog to Bern so she can see her ancestral homeland

Thats fair.

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There is absolutely no way a server in switzerland can own a home on their salary alone

Same with my Bernstein Bear. =)

I mean its one donut, Michael. What could it cost? Four dollars?

I liked it better when they included ‘Donuts’ in their name.

I’m in Boston. The Boston. A DD donut is about $1.40 USD. Based on quality I would feel overcharged if it was 50¢.

I am curious what the coffee prices are - they probably are like 6 CHF ($6+) or more for even a "medium," if they have an equivalent size to that.

Did they take Dunkin rewards cards?

Yeah, that’s a huge minus to living in Switzerland. On the other hand-

Their flag is a huge plus 🇨🇭

…I’ll see myself out

Their donuts probably have at least 1 natural ingredient and don’t taste like ground-up linoleum and stevia

I worked in fairly northern Thailand, 20 min out of Chiang Mai maybe, 20 years ago. A guy with a sort of dunkin's tricycle - in dunks uniform with hat - would pedal through the village once in a while selling donuts out of a big wooden box.

I agree, I was in Zurich last week. Spent $13 on a cocktail and $23 on green curry. Seemed on expensive side of reasonable for what it was but nothing tooooo crazy

You sure about that dude?

https://ch.talent.com/en/salary?job=waiter/waitress

Coverted to USD = $63,367 annually

However, you are correct about owning a house in SWZ but not because of the salary but availability of houses. It’s more common for the Swiss to buy an apartment than a house. Plus Switzerland has a high amount of company owned houses that are given to employees than most other nations.

The COL in Switzerland is ridiculous - especially in the populous cities (Zurich, Lausanne, Basel, etc). The waiter is definitely not living in the nice parts on their own salary...lol.

That's the gimmick of Tipping, at least for full-service restaurants: the actual cost of the food is obscured by the fact that the menu lists only the pre-tip price.

$20 steak? No, really it's $24. If you don't tip that extra $4, honestly you're being a jerk, to the server and maybe the kitchen staff as well. Meanwhile, the owner gets to pay the server a lower hourly wage, because theoretically everyone leaves that extra 20%.

If Massachusetts abolished tipping, and the lower tipped minimum wage, instead (somehow!) mandating that the tip be included right in the menu price ... you'd see those menu prices go up between 20% and 25% literally overnight.

Bet you don't see fat cops as a result

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It’s better than the crap you get here when they are using low-cost ingredients.

Source: my wife has is a cordon bleu trained chef (trained in europe) with a business degree (trained in the United States) and used both successfully for 20+ years, including marketing for companies that sell food products to stores like Starbucks

If you are buying a food item for a dollar … the price they must have spent on the ingredients (not even counting labor) to afford selling you that item means there is a lot of cheap stuff that fakes the taste you are expecting.

>Döner

We need these in Boston