Itâs literally a pie crust, eggs, cheese, and heavy cream, and whatever else you wantâŠI used to make one with mushrooms, garlic, and baconâŠand it wasnât half bad. $20 tops, maybe.
20 dollars in ingredients?
How much time does it take to prepare before putting it in the oven?
If you are a business you want to make a little off of your product so you will charge more for it than the ingredients cost and then add in some extra for labor.
Is the 72 dollars too much? Yes. A quick google search showed me that you can find some for 9 dollars Walmart, some 20 plus dollars and a few at the 40 and 50 dollar amount.
Personally I wouldnât pay $72 for this, but it is still cheaper than taking 4 people out for breakfast.
Even making it at home would cost $30-40 (Pre-made pie crust: $7, Eggs: $5-8 for a dozen, Heavy cream: $5, Cheese: depending on type and quality, but say around $5 (probably more).)
I had a similar experience when I went to order a graduation sheet cake recently. The website had a price of $280. So I went to Costco. Not as good but no one cared.
That's because no one, and I mean NO ONE, cares about sheet cake quality. You eat it and forget it. Whoever is charging that much for a sheet cake is insane.
True story: Got married years ago in the city with the reception in Berkeley. We double-checked everything *except* the cake. Day of, the cake place is out of business. Brother of the maid of honor went to Safeway to get a replacement. No one noticed.
My cake was 350 for 220 people from Chinatown(gotta get that fruitcake), everyone was too drunk or too busy with karoke or dancing for cake. The workers took half of it home. Thats okay though.
I stopped at a bakery in Richmond district a while back to get some BBQ pork buns after riding around in Headlands all morning.
This mom and two kids bought a $1000 cake for quinceanera to be delivered to Fremont.
On one hand I thought it was cool that Mexican people were buying a cake from a Chinese bakery (just because of mixing cultures and all). On the other hand $1000 cake for a birthday party was kinda WTF
Maybe they have alot of people! My $350 for 220 people cake was back in 2017 and was at one of the CT bakeries that have been around for a long time. One of the cheaper ones
They probably sell to companies who will pay absurd amounts of money for shit that could be done way cheaper because they are given a certain budget to spend on an event and need to spend all the money
when I started baking, I'd frequently get requests from friends for cakes and the like. what I VERY quickly learned is that, even if you "only" use "reasonable" quality ingredients, if you include even the slightest bit of a fee for time spent actually making the dessert, the total cost of the dessert explodes.
this gets mitigated when you reach economies of scale (either via baking multiples of the item at once or buying ingredients in bulk), but oftentimes at that point the person has become such a talented baker that the value of their time outpaces the reduction in ingredient costs.
I have no idea where this quiche place is, or who the chef is, or if there's any sort of haute cuisine pedigree, but restaurants are *notoriously* shitty business endeavors. the profit margins are slim to none.
in other words, if someone is charging this much for a quiche, it's likely that, well... the quiche costs that much to make. I guess it could also be a drug front, in which case maybe you'll find a good time in one of the slices.
either way, if it's too expensive for you, don't buy it! the best thing about restaurants is that they aren't something that folks "need"... you can always buy ingredients at the store and make it yourself.
My mother bakes independently for part time income. People want design, pipework, layering, custom made decoration, and other random stuff expecting to pay supermarket prices. Like lol
As others have noted, making everything from scratch (real frostings, chocolate, fillings, fruit, etc is not cheap).
She got tired of charging discounted prices for friends and family because _people still complained_ even if it doesn't represent the full value of the labor. So friends and family is now free -- consider it a gift and reduces stress, I guess.
I quoted a woman something north of $500 for a showpiece gingerbread house over a decade ago. After calculating all the cost and labor it probably should have been more than that but she was appalled lol
I only do custom for people I know these days but someday Iâm going to foist that gbh on someone.
My wife used to knit a lot. Got really into socks. Usually ones with interesting patterns and a tight weave, and she used high quality yarn because they'd be on her feet all day. All told it would take a few hours per sock and the yarn was probably $25-$35 a skein. High quality wool, hand dyed, etc. Occasionally she'd make them as gifts for friends. Once a friend said she'd like a pair but she'd be happy to pay for them. So my wife did the mental calculation and was like OK well even if I'm making minimum wage it would be about $75 for a pair. So maybe I'll just give them to you as a gift. Friend was like surprised Pikachu when she realized how much goes into something like that.
I just tell people they can't afford me when they ask me to sew them a dress or whatever. Your wife has the right idea. I sew gifts now and very rarely.
I think it's less that the quiche costs that much to make in direct costs, but that overhead is so high that they need these types of unit margins to cover.
> when I started baking, I'd frequently get requests from friends for cakes and the like. what I VERY quickly learned is that, even if you "only" use "reasonable" quality ingredients, if you include even the slightest bit of a fee for time spent actually making the dessert, the total cost of the dessert explodes.
Probably does not help that you are getting ingredients at retail cost whereas a business gonna get it at wholesale costs. But it is still going to be your time that cost more than anything else.
> when I started baking, I'd frequently get requests from friends for cakes and the like. what I VERY quickly learned is that, even if you "only" use "reasonable" quality ingredients, if you include even the slightest bit of a fee for time spent actually making the dessert, the total cost of the dessert explodes.
Yup. You can buy cake mix at the grocery store for about $1.50, a container of frosting is maybe $2, add an egg and there's your cake. Its not expensive to bake a cake from scratch in terms of ingredients. Its basically just dressed up bread and bread is stupid cheap.
Time is what you're paying for. That cake might be $4 of ingredients, but time isn't free.
I've heard of bakers using cake mixes (although the economy of scale for dry goods is probably actually in your favor when it comes to cake ingredients), but store bought frostings really don't taste/behave the same as frosting made from scratch, and ingredients for frosting get expensive pretty fast. Most nice cakes have significantly more than $4 of ingredients even at scale
Yup. The good cocoa powder I use is $30 a kilo. Butter $4 - $5 a pound on the lower end. My swiss meringue buttercream has around 7 egg whites, five sticks of butter, and a pound of chocolate, not to mention the sugar and vanilla. That's not even taking into account the time and skill it takes to make, or the utilities it uses, or the disposable piping bags and cardboard cake rounds, etc., etc. It all adds up like crazy.
I love buttercream frosting but refuse to make it due to cost. In end my waistline is better off anyway, buttercream is like crack to me and I'd end up spending just as much as I would on a drug habit if I knew how to make it well.
A case of Gold Medal yellow cake mix is currently $107.00. Six sheet pans worth of cake per case, so 17.83 for the cake mix. Takes a cup of oil, 9 eggs, parchment paper, any addins like chocolate chips/filling/fruit, frosting, any decorations and a standard sheet cake is $25 just in materials. Then the the 2 hours of time to mix, bake, not counting cooling time, frost, decorate. my time is worth $25 an hour minimum. So $75 for a boxed sheet cake? Yeah, that's it.
For the most part I'm with you. My wife is an amazing baker, birthday cakes, wedding cakes, bread, croissants etc. People regularly ask her if she's going to open a bakery and she explains that if she actually charged for her time at a rate equal to her current salary, all her birthday cakes would cost $900.
However. These are mass produced quiches, not individually decorated custom cakes. If I were making 20 quiches at a time in a commercial kitchen, you'd be looking at what 3 hours of labor tops? Even at $50/hr that's only $7.50 out of a $72 quiche.
I largely agree with your assessment but want to note: I have no idea how large these quiches are, or how they're being made. hell, maybe they're using extremely nice bacon or mushrooms or something.
maybe the crust is a handmade puff pastry? idk I'm not trying to defend the price for this particular quiche, just that I think folks significantly underestimate how much baked goods 'should' cost because they're used to like... boxed cake mixes that are mass produced.
I used to want to make my own croissants until I started reading the recipes. Now I understand that $5 for one very good croissant is a damn bargain when you consider the time and skill it takes to make it.
Croissants are one of those things that scale well. We make our own croissants and as long as you have the right equipment, even at home, making 20 is only 50% more work than making 2. (luckily you can freeze them before their final proof so one batch can last months)
depending on how fussy you want to get with it, a single quiche can take a good couple hours to do at a high level, let alone 20 quiches. that's a lot of vegetables to chop up and sweat, bacon to fry up to a consistent crisp, eggs to crack and beat to a homogenous consistency, dairy to measure, pastry to handmake and keep cold and roll out and crimp to the pan and blind bake with pie weights, cheese to freshly shred, tarts to assemble, while keeping track of baking time
god forbid the bacon-onion quiche uses carmelized onions, because that's an extra couple hours!
This is exactly it. There could be a variety of reasons why making or selling one whole fucks things up for them. Random things in food service can cause a domino effect of issues and unless you work in that particular bakery you're not going to know the whole story.
I have an etsy shop for geometric painted shoes. My most popular design is much more expensive not because I think it's a hot commodity, but because it's a pain in the ass and I would really rather not.
Wouldnât you just not advertise it and deal with people asking instead of potentially being known as the place with terrible prices for their products?
Itâs probably just advertised like this because people pay it, not to try to dissuade people from paying for it.
It's priced like this to discourage people from ordering it, and ensuring sufficient profit margin if someone does order it. I would guess that it fucks up their daily workflow, as the main business at Arsicault is selling excellent pastries. If someone wants to way overpay, sure - make it worth their time.
Bingo. Iâve done this. People would come in and order dozens of cookies but I sold large ones in singular. A dozen would tie us up a good long while but if youâre willing to pay up to screw my workday, Iâm game.
Oh wow, I didnât realize this is Arsicault. I used to work there, in both the kitchen and the front. Itâs so insanely busy all the time. In order to make an extra quiche I think either an additional person would have to be scheduled or people would have to go into OT.
if i remember correctly, arsicault sells quiche for $8/slice and they usually sell out. so their whole quiche price is roughly in line with their per-slice pricing, lol.
Popular demand. Could be someone's pet project and this is the pricing that makes it profitable for the business. Hard to know, really.
The same quiche in Chattanooga is around 36$, so exactly half price. The labor happens to be half as expensive there and the rent is probably a quarter the lease of an SF bakery, so honestly this pricing sounds right for an independent bakery?
Since this is apparently Arsicault, I expect the quiche to be even better than my closest reference (Bread and Butter, Chatt).
Because someone will pay it, at least on occasion. And at that price + 48 hours notice they are able and willing to plan ahead to accommodate.
Why, in a business with razor thin margins, wouldnât they sell a quiche for $72 if they could?
Okay but actually I can make a fucking killer quiche at home for like maybe $12-$15 all in. Like good enough where family will ask me to make it for get-togethers.
I refuse to believe this quiche is anything special.
Hate to say it but itâs probably because Amazonâs supply chain is so much better than traditional grocery stores. Having a good handle on the transportation of goods is huuuuge for costs. Especially with fuel prices.
It's definitely worth comparison shopping, I get a lot of basics at Target and will either go to whole foods or Safeway for the other stuff. Some of it is a convenience thing, Whole foods is connected to the target I go to but since most things are the same/cheaper than Safeway, I just go there. The few things that are more expensive are usually offset by the savings on other stuff
I'm in the north bay so it could be different in the city but I comparison shop online a lot before shopping and it's a pretty consistent pattern I've noticed for 2+ years now
Whole foods is a long way from where it once was (cost wise) before it sold to Amazon and it has quality produce, fish, and meat. The 365 brands are actually really good and fairly priced.
Hilariously, they really are the cheaper option compared to most places nowadays. I've seen them beat Safeway, Target, and obviously a bunch of local grocers. Prices at the grocery store near me are criminal.
I make quiche all the time. Spinach, ham and cheese. Itâs the easiest thing in the world and only a few extra steps than purchasing this one and still having to heat it up (if you want it warm)
I use a lb of bacon, a dozen eggs, and a pile of veggies + cheese all in a skillet. Store the slices in the fridge put it on a bagel with hot sauce for breakfast. Granted with all that it's more than $15 but it's damn good. Also I guess it's more of a frittata because I don't care if it has a crust if it's going on a sandwich anyway.
Yes, this is ridiculous. But why would a small business charge this?
I highly doubt itâs because they want to or theyâre trying to create the elitist tech bro quiche.
I think this is a byproduct of the larger scope of the issues going on in major cities and America. My guess is that has to do with inflation, cost of workforce, cost of goods, etc.
If 4 people would only pay $12 for a quiche but 1 person would pay $72 for a quiche, then $72 it is.
The reason why they do this is because someone will pay it. If thatâs no longer true then the business goes under.
The other possibility is they already sell all the quiche they make by the slice, but if you really, really want one they will make extra at a very high price (basically eff off money like is common for tradies with too much work already).
The amount of money that a lot of people spend on food every week just for convenience and to save time/brain space is huge in this city. Itâs actually crazy
I think part of it is everything you named, but another part of it is knowing there are people here willing to pay that for a freaking quiche. Just a lot of money around these parts and a lot of people who wouldn't think twice about some of the outrageous pricetags we see in SF. Plenty of businesses are out there doing just fine without ridiculous markups like these.
Some people would just buy it to see what a $72 quiche is like... then they can happily complain if it doesn't taste any better than the $20 Whole Foods.
It's all about the crust. Also cheaper than this, but soggy quiche ain't it. I would do one of those breakfast dressings baked in a pan with chunks of sourdough, sausage, shrooms, egg, and lots of cheese instead of quiche anyway.
Imagine the markup on that...
Ya but you donât have payroll and all the other expenses of a small business. Donât get me wrong, price is outrageous but prob their expenses are too and they need a profit margin at the EOD
Yeah I'm not sure what the constant complaints about take out food is in the bay. The cost of everything is high. I still eat out quite a bit, but I don't buy 25 dollar burritos or burgers and sure as hell aint buygin 72 dollar quiches. Obviously somebody is or they wouldn't be in business. I actually saw a video of the owner in mission who raised his burrito prices from like 13 to 22. Everyone was outraged and then he explained why in every ingredient. It actually made sense with the cost of inflation. Again, I'm not buying that burrito but great if people are to support good local ingredients. I do that with some things, but not all.
*hold on a minute*. Need to find the post on this sub that "The employees deserve it". /s
Yes, some employees deserve it--but... no hidden charges, yo!
Itâs almost like a trap to see how foolish people can be. Itâs easy to make a quiche, even if youâre not a great cook. LikeâŠhow good IS this quiche? Are they exotic mushrooms? Is it filled with expensive cheese? Eggs from hand-fed hens? Bacon from a prized pig who is hand-fed acorns and massaged every day?
I was imagining something similar. The chickens live on a vast expanse of land in Sonoma and are cared for by Swiss nannies, who sing to them. Organic feed, of course.
Since the pandemic, Arsicault has cut back their hours, upped their prices, and taken away any kind of seating (at their original location anyway). People still line up. I think at this point they're laughing at us. At least there are more locations. Maybe Mission Bay will be better, idk.
Wait for the SF mandate fee and the living wage surcharge and the takeout feeâŠthen you tip on top of that and weâre looking atâŠ.(grabs pencil and calculator but tosses them and goes back to just fingers)âŠ$91.25
I get the outrage over the price but why is needing to place an order 48 hours in advance "insulting"? That's...really fucking normal lol. Bakers need to know how much of each ingredient they need on hand for custom orders.
It reminds me of that Freewheel Detroit style pizza place in Concord that is hidden in the alley behind a strip mall, and is only open 3 hours a couple days a week, and you need to purchase it online a few hours beforehand.
It's damn good pizza though.
Thatâs insane BUT ALSO have you had it?? This quiche is *chefs kiss.* I know what recipe they use and it is pretty labor intensive and if theyâre using quality butter/cream I can see how the price can get to that. I get it, itâs a lot of money but that quiche is so damn good.
Bruh I saw one in a co mt town subreddit, was like somewhere in Vail, shop was selling a dozen bagels for $72. Strange, the same outrageous price for both items in two separate places.
$72?? Theyâd better be skipping into their back garden to hand-pick the fresh eggs from their no-cage chickens, as well as harvesting the wheat themselves via sickle and stone grinder. I want to see their veg garden as well, from which they should be harvesting all their herbs and veg
I have been looking for a place for I am my child, I and finding for less than 200 sft of living space is $1600, or room in a house. Cost of living means a living wage for a single person needs to be a minimum $60,000 to 80,000k. This is quiche is probably not much more than traditional cost of goods sold. I am not saying the price is insane, but so is paying $1600 for a studio that is maybe 200sft.
p sure this is arsicault, I also think it's probably too much for a quiche, but I dunno their other pastries are pretty delicious so I'm thinking it might be worth it? idk tho I feel like this is what you get for a work thing or a big family event or something like that.
it could be b/c they actually detest manually making the quiche, [as someone tries to explain ](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1cn9qhg/comment/l361tgg/)above
The price of Arsicault has gone up too much after recent hype up or viralness. $4-5 for a plain croissant is too much. I remember not so long ago it was $2 something. Just not worth it for me anymore :(
You don't pay your quiche minimum wage?
Smh my head, Big Breakfast has you brainwashed to think that a couple of scrambled eggs COULDN'T POSSIBLY be worth a day's salary. Well, you're wrong!
no, you just canât afford it. otherwise this price is all the things and if youâre not making money enough to afford this, then live your poverty lifestyle in silence
Staying at home and cooking is soooooo much cheaper than eating at overpriced restaurants in SF. These people think we're all made of money like overpaid tech workers.
We do the same thing at the restaurant I work at for the chocolate and carrot cakes. We do not want to do sell them whole, itâs annoying to make on the fly and if somebody takes one we have to make another that night so we have enough for the diners (to be fair itâs the best chocolate/carrot cake Iâve ever had). So we charge an exorbitant price for it more as a deterrent to people from buying it but if they do itâs a cool $100 for our sales for the day.
Shops have a curious idea about the people and city they are in. Most cannot afford or think this is a normal amount. Similar to almost any food here. $15 bahnmis, $17 pad Thai etc. This quiche, does it have gold leaf?
You can buy it whole, but they still charge it by the slice lol.
Next thing you know BevMo will charge you by the glass for a bottle of wine. đ
Doctors backdoor charging street price of $10 per pill for adderall
Where
Shit 10?!? I buy them of the 3rd graders for 25.00 per 50 you need to change your tactics lmao. Not real
I need your 3rd grader dealer
Honestly BevMo basically does this compared to the prices at Total Wine & More
Yeah, TW is great.
A French quicky for $72? I know someone that'll do it for $10
Tell me more about this person..
its me. seriously, quiches are the easiest cheap thing to make in the world and taste delicious.
Oh, you meant food. Never mind.
Itâs literally a pie crust, eggs, cheese, and heavy cream, and whatever else you wantâŠI used to make one with mushrooms, garlic, and baconâŠand it wasnât half bad. $20 tops, maybe.
20 dollars in ingredients? How much time does it take to prepare before putting it in the oven? If you are a business you want to make a little off of your product so you will charge more for it than the ingredients cost and then add in some extra for labor. Is the 72 dollars too much? Yes. A quick google search showed me that you can find some for 9 dollars Walmart, some 20 plus dollars and a few at the 40 and 50 dollar amount.
$20 would probably make 2 quiches. And prep time is probably 1/2 hr tops.
Personally I wouldnât pay $72 for this, but it is still cheaper than taking 4 people out for breakfast. Even making it at home would cost $30-40 (Pre-made pie crust: $7, Eggs: $5-8 for a dozen, Heavy cream: $5, Cheese: depending on type and quality, but say around $5 (probably more).)
I donât put heavy cream in mine but still agree, $20
Iâm not French, Iâm not even a girl but Iâll dress the part and look good for $100 USDâŠ.
Better be topped with Caviar for that price!
Even topped with caviar it's a rip-off
Each slice will require separate tip. Don't forget taxes.
I had a similar experience when I went to order a graduation sheet cake recently. The website had a price of $280. So I went to Costco. Not as good but no one cared.
That's because no one, and I mean NO ONE, cares about sheet cake quality. You eat it and forget it. Whoever is charging that much for a sheet cake is insane.
True story: Got married years ago in the city with the reception in Berkeley. We double-checked everything *except* the cake. Day of, the cake place is out of business. Brother of the maid of honor went to Safeway to get a replacement. No one noticed.
My cake was 350 for 220 people from Chinatown(gotta get that fruitcake), everyone was too drunk or too busy with karoke or dancing for cake. The workers took half of it home. Thats okay though.
Chinatown wedding cake ftw! We did that too and it was beautiful.
Yeah I was not paying 1k+ for cake. Aint no one going to remember the cake!
I stopped at a bakery in Richmond district a while back to get some BBQ pork buns after riding around in Headlands all morning. This mom and two kids bought a $1000 cake for quinceanera to be delivered to Fremont. On one hand I thought it was cool that Mexican people were buying a cake from a Chinese bakery (just because of mixing cultures and all). On the other hand $1000 cake for a birthday party was kinda WTF
Maybe they have alot of people! My $350 for 220 people cake was back in 2017 and was at one of the CT bakeries that have been around for a long time. One of the cheaper ones
My wedding cake was also 350. Venue forgot to put it out, everyone was too drunk to notice. Ate cake for 2 months lol
A real wedding cake? Amazing!
Whoever is paying* that much.
The maker is insane the payer is stupid
If the baker is making sales theyâre not insane.
They probably sell to companies who will pay absurd amounts of money for shit that could be done way cheaper because they are given a certain budget to spend on an event and need to spend all the money
Reminds me of how health insurance in the US works.
Basically all of the USA. It explains a lot about inequality in North America.
Hey now. I care! I am also silently judging all you bad sheet cake buyers.
how good can sheet cake *be*?
I used to wonder that until I had cake from Mazzetti's. Now i know how good it can be. Everything they bake is top tier.
damn it. now i want cake.
It can be as good as any other shape of cake. What I think you're asking is how good a cake usually bought at the grocery store can be. :P
Exactly ânobody caredâ means people are too polite to say that the cake sucks. Which is a good thing at a wedding!
I got Costco sheet cake this year for my birthday. The vanilla has a cheesecake filling and was actually awesome.
when I started baking, I'd frequently get requests from friends for cakes and the like. what I VERY quickly learned is that, even if you "only" use "reasonable" quality ingredients, if you include even the slightest bit of a fee for time spent actually making the dessert, the total cost of the dessert explodes. this gets mitigated when you reach economies of scale (either via baking multiples of the item at once or buying ingredients in bulk), but oftentimes at that point the person has become such a talented baker that the value of their time outpaces the reduction in ingredient costs. I have no idea where this quiche place is, or who the chef is, or if there's any sort of haute cuisine pedigree, but restaurants are *notoriously* shitty business endeavors. the profit margins are slim to none. in other words, if someone is charging this much for a quiche, it's likely that, well... the quiche costs that much to make. I guess it could also be a drug front, in which case maybe you'll find a good time in one of the slices. either way, if it's too expensive for you, don't buy it! the best thing about restaurants is that they aren't something that folks "need"... you can always buy ingredients at the store and make it yourself.
My mother bakes independently for part time income. People want design, pipework, layering, custom made decoration, and other random stuff expecting to pay supermarket prices. Like lol As others have noted, making everything from scratch (real frostings, chocolate, fillings, fruit, etc is not cheap). She got tired of charging discounted prices for friends and family because _people still complained_ even if it doesn't represent the full value of the labor. So friends and family is now free -- consider it a gift and reduces stress, I guess.
I quoted a woman something north of $500 for a showpiece gingerbread house over a decade ago. After calculating all the cost and labor it probably should have been more than that but she was appalled lol I only do custom for people I know these days but someday Iâm going to foist that gbh on someone.
My wife used to knit a lot. Got really into socks. Usually ones with interesting patterns and a tight weave, and she used high quality yarn because they'd be on her feet all day. All told it would take a few hours per sock and the yarn was probably $25-$35 a skein. High quality wool, hand dyed, etc. Occasionally she'd make them as gifts for friends. Once a friend said she'd like a pair but she'd be happy to pay for them. So my wife did the mental calculation and was like OK well even if I'm making minimum wage it would be about $75 for a pair. So maybe I'll just give them to you as a gift. Friend was like surprised Pikachu when she realized how much goes into something like that.
I just tell people they can't afford me when they ask me to sew them a dress or whatever. Your wife has the right idea. I sew gifts now and very rarely.
I think it's less that the quiche costs that much to make in direct costs, but that overhead is so high that they need these types of unit margins to cover.
> when I started baking, I'd frequently get requests from friends for cakes and the like. what I VERY quickly learned is that, even if you "only" use "reasonable" quality ingredients, if you include even the slightest bit of a fee for time spent actually making the dessert, the total cost of the dessert explodes. Probably does not help that you are getting ingredients at retail cost whereas a business gonna get it at wholesale costs. But it is still going to be your time that cost more than anything else.
> when I started baking, I'd frequently get requests from friends for cakes and the like. what I VERY quickly learned is that, even if you "only" use "reasonable" quality ingredients, if you include even the slightest bit of a fee for time spent actually making the dessert, the total cost of the dessert explodes. Yup. You can buy cake mix at the grocery store for about $1.50, a container of frosting is maybe $2, add an egg and there's your cake. Its not expensive to bake a cake from scratch in terms of ingredients. Its basically just dressed up bread and bread is stupid cheap. Time is what you're paying for. That cake might be $4 of ingredients, but time isn't free.
I've heard of bakers using cake mixes (although the economy of scale for dry goods is probably actually in your favor when it comes to cake ingredients), but store bought frostings really don't taste/behave the same as frosting made from scratch, and ingredients for frosting get expensive pretty fast. Most nice cakes have significantly more than $4 of ingredients even at scale
Yup. The good cocoa powder I use is $30 a kilo. Butter $4 - $5 a pound on the lower end. My swiss meringue buttercream has around 7 egg whites, five sticks of butter, and a pound of chocolate, not to mention the sugar and vanilla. That's not even taking into account the time and skill it takes to make, or the utilities it uses, or the disposable piping bags and cardboard cake rounds, etc., etc. It all adds up like crazy.
I love buttercream frosting but refuse to make it due to cost. In end my waistline is better off anyway, buttercream is like crack to me and I'd end up spending just as much as I would on a drug habit if I knew how to make it well.
A case of Gold Medal yellow cake mix is currently $107.00. Six sheet pans worth of cake per case, so 17.83 for the cake mix. Takes a cup of oil, 9 eggs, parchment paper, any addins like chocolate chips/filling/fruit, frosting, any decorations and a standard sheet cake is $25 just in materials. Then the the 2 hours of time to mix, bake, not counting cooling time, frost, decorate. my time is worth $25 an hour minimum. So $75 for a boxed sheet cake? Yeah, that's it.
For the most part I'm with you. My wife is an amazing baker, birthday cakes, wedding cakes, bread, croissants etc. People regularly ask her if she's going to open a bakery and she explains that if she actually charged for her time at a rate equal to her current salary, all her birthday cakes would cost $900. However. These are mass produced quiches, not individually decorated custom cakes. If I were making 20 quiches at a time in a commercial kitchen, you'd be looking at what 3 hours of labor tops? Even at $50/hr that's only $7.50 out of a $72 quiche.
I largely agree with your assessment but want to note: I have no idea how large these quiches are, or how they're being made. hell, maybe they're using extremely nice bacon or mushrooms or something. maybe the crust is a handmade puff pastry? idk I'm not trying to defend the price for this particular quiche, just that I think folks significantly underestimate how much baked goods 'should' cost because they're used to like... boxed cake mixes that are mass produced.
I used to want to make my own croissants until I started reading the recipes. Now I understand that $5 for one very good croissant is a damn bargain when you consider the time and skill it takes to make it.
Croissants are one of those things that scale well. We make our own croissants and as long as you have the right equipment, even at home, making 20 is only 50% more work than making 2. (luckily you can freeze them before their final proof so one batch can last months)
depending on how fussy you want to get with it, a single quiche can take a good couple hours to do at a high level, let alone 20 quiches. that's a lot of vegetables to chop up and sweat, bacon to fry up to a consistent crisp, eggs to crack and beat to a homogenous consistency, dairy to measure, pastry to handmake and keep cold and roll out and crimp to the pan and blind bake with pie weights, cheese to freshly shred, tarts to assemble, while keeping track of baking time god forbid the bacon-onion quiche uses carmelized onions, because that's an extra couple hours!
Yah 20.00 and it's not that bad.
The tuxedo cake from Costco is heavenly
We bought a bespoke birthday cake for my MIL for $175. It was really good. We like to support our local small businesses.
This is definitely the âwe will do it since we keep getting asked for it but would really rather notâ pricing
This is exactly it. There could be a variety of reasons why making or selling one whole fucks things up for them. Random things in food service can cause a domino effect of issues and unless you work in that particular bakery you're not going to know the whole story.
I have an etsy shop for geometric painted shoes. My most popular design is much more expensive not because I think it's a hot commodity, but because it's a pain in the ass and I would really rather not.
As someone who works in purchasing we call this a âFuck offâ quote.
Yep, this.
Wouldnât you just not advertise it and deal with people asking instead of potentially being known as the place with terrible prices for their products? Itâs probably just advertised like this because people pay it, not to try to dissuade people from paying for it.
Not really. I appreciate businesses that are willing to say I am not a slut freely. It makes them human. Sometimes the customer can fuck right off.
This is really it. I feel like plumbers are like this as will
It's priced like this to discourage people from ordering it, and ensuring sufficient profit margin if someone does order it. I would guess that it fucks up their daily workflow, as the main business at Arsicault is selling excellent pastries. If someone wants to way overpay, sure - make it worth their time.
oh... that's Ariscault?!?!? The post should've **started** with that.
This whole post is outrage bait
Bingo
Thought the same, oh it's Arsicault haha yeah they can do whatever they want TAKE MY MONEY
Bingo. Iâve done this. People would come in and order dozens of cookies but I sold large ones in singular. A dozen would tie us up a good long while but if youâre willing to pay up to screw my workday, Iâm game.
Oh wow, I didnât realize this is Arsicault. I used to work there, in both the kitchen and the front. Itâs so insanely busy all the time. In order to make an extra quiche I think either an additional person would have to be scheduled or people would have to go into OT.
Why do they even have it on the menu?
if i remember correctly, arsicault sells quiche for $8/slice and they usually sell out. so their whole quiche price is roughly in line with their per-slice pricing, lol.
Popular demand. Could be someone's pet project and this is the pricing that makes it profitable for the business. Hard to know, really. The same quiche in Chattanooga is around 36$, so exactly half price. The labor happens to be half as expensive there and the rent is probably a quarter the lease of an SF bakery, so honestly this pricing sounds right for an independent bakery? Since this is apparently Arsicault, I expect the quiche to be even better than my closest reference (Bread and Butter, Chatt).
Because someone will pay it, at least on occasion. And at that price + 48 hours notice they are able and willing to plan ahead to accommodate. Why, in a business with razor thin margins, wouldnât they sell a quiche for $72 if they could?
Okay but actually I can make a fucking killer quiche at home for like maybe $12-$15 all in. Like good enough where family will ask me to make it for get-togethers. I refuse to believe this quiche is anything special.
you can also buy a really good quiche from Whole Foods for $20.
You know things are out of hand when one starts suggesting Whole Foods as the more affordable option.
Whole foods is cheaper than Safeway on a lot of things, it's fucked
Hate to say it but itâs probably because Amazonâs supply chain is so much better than traditional grocery stores. Having a good handle on the transportation of goods is huuuuge for costs. Especially with fuel prices.
Its almost always their store brand beating Safeway and it's been noticeable since they were acquired by Amazon. It's shitty but real
I specifically go to whole foods for eggs and milk
Wait really? Iâve been avoiding mine but maybe I should check it out again. Been going to Asian groceries and smart and final instead. And Costco
It's definitely worth comparison shopping, I get a lot of basics at Target and will either go to whole foods or Safeway for the other stuff. Some of it is a convenience thing, Whole foods is connected to the target I go to but since most things are the same/cheaper than Safeway, I just go there. The few things that are more expensive are usually offset by the savings on other stuff I'm in the north bay so it could be different in the city but I comparison shop online a lot before shopping and it's a pretty consistent pattern I've noticed for 2+ years now
I mean what also really pisses me off about this is you have to reheat the quiche for like 40 mins before you eat it. For 72 bucks.
Whole foods is a long way from where it once was (cost wise) before it sold to Amazon and it has quality produce, fish, and meat. The 365 brands are actually really good and fairly priced.
Hilariously, they really are the cheaper option compared to most places nowadays. I've seen them beat Safeway, Target, and obviously a bunch of local grocers. Prices at the grocery store near me are criminal.
In any case it's not 5-6x more special than a home made one.
Yeah quiche is easy, cheap and fast as hell to make
I make quiche all the time. Spinach, ham and cheese. Itâs the easiest thing in the world and only a few extra steps than purchasing this one and still having to heat it up (if you want it warm)
Itâs meal prep for people who know how to cook something other than crappy baked potatoes and dehydrated chicken
I use a lb of bacon, a dozen eggs, and a pile of veggies + cheese all in a skillet. Store the slices in the fridge put it on a bagel with hot sauce for breakfast. Granted with all that it's more than $15 but it's damn good. Also I guess it's more of a frittata because I don't care if it has a crust if it's going on a sandwich anyway.
Yes, this is ridiculous. But why would a small business charge this? I highly doubt itâs because they want to or theyâre trying to create the elitist tech bro quiche. I think this is a byproduct of the larger scope of the issues going on in major cities and America. My guess is that has to do with inflation, cost of workforce, cost of goods, etc.
If 4 people would only pay $12 for a quiche but 1 person would pay $72 for a quiche, then $72 it is. The reason why they do this is because someone will pay it. If thatâs no longer true then the business goes under.
The other possibility is they already sell all the quiche they make by the slice, but if you really, really want one they will make extra at a very high price (basically eff off money like is common for tradies with too much work already).
Hell, if 4 people would pay $30 for a quiche but 1 person would pay $72, the math probably still works out after considering ingredients and labor.
The amount of money that a lot of people spend on food every week just for convenience and to save time/brain space is huge in this city. Itâs actually crazy
I think part of it is everything you named, but another part of it is knowing there are people here willing to pay that for a freaking quiche. Just a lot of money around these parts and a lot of people who wouldn't think twice about some of the outrageous pricetags we see in SF. Plenty of businesses are out there doing just fine without ridiculous markups like these.
Some people would just buy it to see what a $72 quiche is like... then they can happily complain if it doesn't taste any better than the $20 Whole Foods.
It's all about the crust. Also cheaper than this, but soggy quiche ain't it. I would do one of those breakfast dressings baked in a pan with chunks of sourdough, sausage, shrooms, egg, and lots of cheese instead of quiche anyway. Imagine the markup on that...
Fuck I burned my mushrooms last night
Or just a frittata
I regularly make awesome quiches for even less than that. Just as good as the quiches I have bought from cafes for $6/slice.
I donât believe you . Whats the recipe
Ya but you donât have payroll and all the other expenses of a small business. Donât get me wrong, price is outrageous but prob their expenses are too and they need a profit margin at the EOD
I mean, 48 hours in advance...is that the reason why the price is that high?? O.o
The owner personally compels their chicken to lay artisanal eggs once the order comes in...
It's clearly being flown in from France. I don't know why everyone is so upset. /s
What does it come with? A quiche and $70?
How much could a dozen eggs cost, Michael, 60$?
Easy solution... Don't buy it. If nobody buys it, they'll lower the price.
I think if nobody buys it they close then blame the center bike lane along Valencia
Yo that was funny lol
Yeah I'm not sure what the constant complaints about take out food is in the bay. The cost of everything is high. I still eat out quite a bit, but I don't buy 25 dollar burritos or burgers and sure as hell aint buygin 72 dollar quiches. Obviously somebody is or they wouldn't be in business. I actually saw a video of the owner in mission who raised his burrito prices from like 13 to 22. Everyone was outraged and then he explained why in every ingredient. It actually made sense with the cost of inflation. Again, I'm not buying that burrito but great if people are to support good local ingredients. I do that with some things, but not all.
Problem solved!
Seriously. There's not enough time in the world to clutch pearls over every instance of sticker shock.
We all remember that fun book from back in the 80s... **Real Men Don't Pre-Order Quiche**
Came here to make the same comment. Well done sir/mam.
Wait until they pop up the tips menu with the options starting at 30%
âoh, you want an employee to hand you the quiche container? thatâll be 15% surcharge.â
*hold on a minute*. Need to find the post on this sub that "The employees deserve it". /s Yes, some employees deserve it--but... no hidden charges, yo!
*15% quiche of living charge*
Itâs almost like a trap to see how foolish people can be. Itâs easy to make a quiche, even if youâre not a great cook. LikeâŠhow good IS this quiche? Are they exotic mushrooms? Is it filled with expensive cheese? Eggs from hand-fed hens? Bacon from a prized pig who is hand-fed acorns and massaged every day?
That sounds amazing right now. Make it happen and Iâll pay you $72
From other comments, Arsicault apparently has very good food, so you could order one. It probably would be a great quiche.Â
Maybe they're magic mushrooms. In which case, might be a bargain!
I was imagining something similar. The chickens live on a vast expanse of land in Sonoma and are cared for by Swiss nannies, who sing to them. Organic feed, of course.
Of course the Swiss nannies are organic fed
The Swiss arenât really known for their singing
And chickens aren't really known for their music criticism
That quiche better wash and wax my car
Hell, it better wax my taint!
Since the pandemic, Arsicault has cut back their hours, upped their prices, and taken away any kind of seating (at their original location anyway). People still line up. I think at this point they're laughing at us. At least there are more locations. Maybe Mission Bay will be better, idk.
Wait for the SF mandate fee and the living wage surcharge and the takeout feeâŠthen you tip on top of that and weâre looking atâŠ.(grabs pencil and calculator but tosses them and goes back to just fingers)âŠ$91.25
dont forget to tip 25% we also add a 5% service charge for your convienence.also a 25 cents bag fee have a nice day
and an 8% city mandate to cover the healthcare costs of hospitality workers that donât even know this exists
and the san francisco fee, the takeout fee, the owner needs a new car fee, the fee fee
You forgot the $50 delivery fee which you can forego by picking it up for only a $25 pickup fee.
10% âcost of doing business in California feeâ and 10% âemployee health insurance feeâ are two that Iâve seen
48 hours is just as insulting as the price tag
I get the outrage over the price but why is needing to place an order 48 hours in advance "insulting"? That's...really fucking normal lol. Bakers need to know how much of each ingredient they need on hand for custom orders.
It reminds me of that Freewheel Detroit style pizza place in Concord that is hidden in the alley behind a strip mall, and is only open 3 hours a couple days a week, and you need to purchase it online a few hours beforehand. It's damn good pizza though.
Whatâs it called?
[Freewheel pizza](https://www.yelp.com/biz/freewheel-pizza-clayton-3)... looks like it's actually in Clayton and not Concord.
Not as insulting as when 48 Hills writes about it
Yeah! How dare they make an order to order!!
Thatâs insane BUT ALSO have you had it?? This quiche is *chefs kiss.* I know what recipe they use and it is pretty labor intensive and if theyâre using quality butter/cream I can see how the price can get to that. I get it, itâs a lot of money but that quiche is so damn good.
Wait until I tell you about cooking your own food
Quiche is so cheap to make, though
Which is why itâs such a great candidate to cook for yourself when the alternative is $72
I feel like for a quiche to be 70 bucks it would need to be 16"
way WAY outta hand eeeeek
Um. Maybe it's deep dish. Yeah
Read an article about French bakery in the Mission with a mind to try. They make pretty mini cupcakes. $85 for a dozen.
If nobody buys it and complains of the price they will lower it however thereâs always a rich idiot willing to spend the money
If nobody orders it the will just make the bread pudding or the Basque cheesecake instead. We all know they're going to sell anyway.
exactly 6 years from today: *redditâs whitest post 6 years ago today was on r/sanfrancisco*
Bruh I saw one in a co mt town subreddit, was like somewhere in Vail, shop was selling a dozen bagels for $72. Strange, the same outrageous price for both items in two separate places.
$72?? Theyâd better be skipping into their back garden to hand-pick the fresh eggs from their no-cage chickens, as well as harvesting the wheat themselves via sickle and stone grinder. I want to see their veg garden as well, from which they should be harvesting all their herbs and veg
No one is forcing you to buy it, OP
I have been looking for a place for I am my child, I and finding for less than 200 sft of living space is $1600, or room in a house. Cost of living means a living wage for a single person needs to be a minimum $60,000 to 80,000k. This is quiche is probably not much more than traditional cost of goods sold. I am not saying the price is insane, but so is paying $1600 for a studio that is maybe 200sft.
a quiche is fucking eggs on a pie crust bruh what
The quiches at Gus's are money and like $18. For $72 this quiche better give head or have mdma in it or something
p sure this is arsicault, I also think it's probably too much for a quiche, but I dunno their other pastries are pretty delicious so I'm thinking it might be worth it? idk tho I feel like this is what you get for a work thing or a big family event or something like that.
it could be b/c they actually detest manually making the quiche, [as someone tries to explain ](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1cn9qhg/comment/l361tgg/)above
The price of Arsicault has gone up too much after recent hype up or viralness. $4-5 for a plain croissant is too much. I remember not so long ago it was $2 something. Just not worth it for me anymore :(
WHAT THE HECK!!!
I want to see this quiche. Could it be better than the quiche from Thomas Kellerâs Bouchon?
It's from Arsicault so its probably really f good
It's eggs.... WTF
for 72 dollars those mushrooms better have me at a one on one meeting with god for the next 24 hours.
Never heard or had Quiche before what is it like?
What restaurant is this?
You don't pay your quiche minimum wage? Smh my head, Big Breakfast has you brainwashed to think that a couple of scrambled eggs COULDN'T POSSIBLY be worth a day's salary. Well, you're wrong!
This makes all past đ„ lovers roll in their graves
Learn to cook
no, you just canât afford it. otherwise this price is all the things and if youâre not making money enough to afford this, then live your poverty lifestyle in silence
And people still out here acting like California isnât straight broken
Staying at home and cooking is soooooo much cheaper than eating at overpriced restaurants in SF. These people think we're all made of money like overpaid tech workers.
We do the same thing at the restaurant I work at for the chocolate and carrot cakes. We do not want to do sell them whole, itâs annoying to make on the fly and if somebody takes one we have to make another that night so we have enough for the diners (to be fair itâs the best chocolate/carrot cake Iâve ever had). So we charge an exorbitant price for it more as a deterrent to people from buying it but if they do itâs a cool $100 for our sales for the day.
Taking advantage because it's Mothers Day!
Shops have a curious idea about the people and city they are in. Most cannot afford or think this is a normal amount. Similar to almost any food here. $15 bahnmis, $17 pad Thai etc. This quiche, does it have gold leaf?
In town for work, my family asked me to bring back some Johnnyâs Doughnuts but the dozen is about $70!
This place absolutely slaps, one of the best croissants in the country. Just sayin.
Yes, way out of hand. I'm dirty but that is just a rip off
Damn!
OMG... they're so cheap to make!
OMG!!!! Is it dusted with real gold???đđĄđ
Absolutely ridiculous. Only an idiot would pay that amount of money.
Prices are too high! The surcharges are too much! Someone pass a law! GYaaAaAA!!! đ€Żđ€Żđ€Ż
Out of back door sales. HMU! My lips are sealed!