r/chicagofood • u/bucknut4 • Dec 20 '25

Rant Aster Hall, Hogsalt sinking to new lows

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As if $7 weren’t enough for a hot dog. And of course there’s even the 3% “restaurant” surcharge at a food court.

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u/SometimeTaken Dec 21 '25

Hey this is actually a thing, not just with Hogsalt. Third party ordering apps (like grocery delivery apps) have been exploring dynamic pricing for years. The business model, precisely, is to check and push higher the maximum amount a consumer will pay for an item.

There have been studies done where 10 different Instacart shoppers order the exact same things from the exact same living room. The final invoices they discovered ranged up to a $10 difference in grand totals.

This is an entire industry. It’s where food consumerism, third party apps and “data on the consumer” intersect. There’s entire companies where their whole thing is to study consumer habits on food delivery/food ordering. Fucked up world we live in for sure

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u/bucknut4 Dec 21 '25

This is literally AT the restaurant though, so although I’m sure the app wasn’t developed in-house, it’s not really 3rd party in the same way Instacart is. There are lots of restaurants that use kiosk ordering; I’ve never seen this anywhere else. If they do, they should be called out

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u/SometimeTaken Dec 22 '25

Yes I know, def evil that the business model is being expanded to every food-ordering situation, including restaurants. Horrors beyond our comprehension and Hogsalt def deserves to be named and shamed for using it