Pizza Is Now a Luxury Item - The Economy Is COLLAPSING

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Hey, it's Dan. Welcome back to I Allegedly. I've got a good one for you today because it's hard to believe people are trading down from pizza.

[00:00:11]Hit the like button, subscribe to the channel. We have a sponsor today, Forge Resources, and I will get right into it.

[00:00:18]Todd Penegor is the CEO of Papa John's, and he said, "Listen, our sales are off.

[00:00:25]We know it, but we're seeing a trend with the consumer." And you guys, we talk about this a lot, but you have to look at this. If you read my emails, if you look at the comment section, which you should do, you should go to the comment section to the videos, because you're not alone living through this.

[00:00:41]People right now are looking at pizza as a luxury.

[00:00:47]What? Yes.

[00:00:49]And what the CEO of this company is bringing up is that people cannot afford to have pizza. They are getting rid of sides, they're getting rid of drinks. You know, I'll just order the pizza and I'll have water. That's it.

[00:01:02]>> [snorts] >> So, I'm at Mom Yoga here in Laguna.

[00:01:08]This is a bad sign. Think about this.

[00:01:11]Pizza used to be the second most popular restaurant in the country, pizzerias that is.

[00:01:18]And you can classify all different types, sit down, you know, the small places, but just pizza only, not Italian restaurants, pizza only was number two.

[00:01:27]Now it's number three.

[00:01:30]Number one, coffee houses. Number two, Mexican restaurants in the United States.

[00:01:35]Number three, pizza.

[00:01:37]This is a sign of the times, guys, because we've seen so many things change over the course of the last, you know, year and a half?

[00:01:48]Domino's Pizza, they're not going to have any place to sit down. It's It's funny.

[00:01:53]They're going to have take-out places that are going to be so small, and they're going to encourage you not to pick up. They're just going to encourage delivery, and if you want they'll have a window that they can pass the pie outside of.

[00:02:05]Isn't that crazy?

[00:02:08]It's nuts, but this is the sign of the times. What do they blame it on?

[00:02:13]Expense of the agreement expensive ingredients.

[00:02:16]You've got employee costs. You've got rent. You've got insurances. You've got deliveries. You have all that. That is affecting absolutely every aspect of this industry, but the most important thing that they're having problems with right now is that the average person cannot afford anything extra right now. Nothing.

[00:02:39]Nothing extra.

[00:02:41]So, when pizza becomes a luxury, this is the problem. The Domino's thing is a is a real real you know, story tell right now, and it's also you've got people all these different classes. You've got boxing over here.

[00:02:57]You've got mommy over back here.

[00:03:00]It's just a beautiful part of the montage. It's just nice, but you get all these people that come out and do different things.

[00:03:05]So, you know, average sales fell 6.4%.

[00:03:09]That's a lot, guys. That's just a lot.

[00:03:12]And you're just seeing that people are looking for the discount.

[00:03:17]What can we get?

[00:03:18]You know, Subway, which I can't stand, they're now having these little tiny sandwiches that are under $5. You're seeing more and more combos for things under $5 because that's the price point that people have. When you sit there and you realize that people cannot afford a pizza. Now, my brother was reading a coupon to me out in Riverside County where an Italian restaurant was having, you know, two pizzas, two salads, two drinks, and it was $99. I'm like, who can afford 99 bucks? That is a restaurant.

[00:03:54]And you're going to sit there and have takeout pizza for that.

[00:03:58]It has gotten completely unaffordable.

[00:04:01]And you know, we joked no more pizza a few months ago. But yeah, no more pizza.

[00:04:07]What are these companies going to do to survive this time right now? Who knows?

[00:04:13]Inflation is killing them. Remember the inflation that's gone away? Things have gone up so high that people just can't afford to get through this right now.

[00:04:22]They just can't.

[00:04:25]How do you make pizza less expensive?

[00:04:27]Smaller ingredients, smaller pies.

[00:04:29]That's what's selling when you talk look at the the Wall Street Journal article is that people are going out and they're buying the smallest pie they can. Got to have pizza, got to have something.

[00:04:40]And it's funny.

[00:04:42]We used to get a three-item pizza from Domino's with my kids and my I was as I was driving here, telling my daughter she just what was that? How much did that cost, Dad? And we would pick it up. If you picked it up, you saved money. It was $7.99.

[00:04:57]And those days are done. They're $20 pizzas now, $25 pizzas.

[00:05:02]It's not the same thing. And again, it gets to That was at Domino's, by the way. And it gets to everybody has their choice. Some people hate Pizza Hut. We just found out about 260 uh Wendy's that are closing. You're going to see more of these places go down for the count. They're not going to survive.

[00:05:21]You're going to have the company stores with Domino's, with Pizza Hut, with all these different places that are going to close. In the smaller, in the um rougher communities, they're done.

[00:05:33]They're just done. You're not going to have pizza places.

[00:05:36]So, get ready. Let me know what your thoughts are so far in this. There's a lot more to cover.

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[00:07:28]Now, the next one is Shake Shack.

[00:07:31]Rob Lynch is their CEO. And you'll love this. They lost money.

[00:07:36]They had their earnings call on Thursday, announced everything, and and the stock dropped 20%.

[00:07:43]People don't have faith in these companies anymore. But, Mr. Lynch, who told some truths and a couple of lies, said, "Hey, our sales have declined because of bad weather. People just are not going out to eat." Okay?

[00:07:57]That's a lie. That's not true. People are going out. They don't have any money.

[00:08:01]High beef prices have affected us in a big, big way. That's true. That that we know that that's true. And uh number three, it's just tourism is down.

[00:08:10]Tourism is down. No, people have no money, Rob. That's It's that simple.

[00:08:14]It's not tourism to blame. It's the fact that people don't have extra money, and your combos cost $25. Now, you can sit there and say, "Dan, why would you say that?" Well, because I've been to Shake Shack. You want a bacon avocado burger with cheese on it?

[00:08:30]You got a $25 combo right there. Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's insane. You're not sitting down, you're not having a waitress, you're having somebody You want to catch it.

[00:08:41]Come on. You get that, okay? And that's what I got at the uh Shake Shack in good old Irvine at the Irvine Spectrum. So, this is happening more and more and more. It's cheaper to eat at home. It really is.

[00:08:57]You know, I did a video a couple days ago talking about dating. Now, dating costs $200 to go out on a date. So, one thing I've looked at is every business meal, every meeting, every lunch, everything. I'm looking at what does this cost right now? Whether somebody's taking me to lunch or not, I'm just curious as to what it is.

[00:09:15]And you can't sit down for a lunch and not spend 80 bucks. I mean, it's just crazy. Salads and and drinks, and oh, you'd like, you know, some bread?

[00:09:24]They're charging for bread now.

[00:09:26]I know. I get a kick out of Martha Stewart's place at the uh Paris Hotel, where we joked about it being $9, $13, $20. Now, it's $24 for bread.

[00:09:38]Okay?

[00:09:39]It's still It's artisan. Don't forget.

[00:09:42]Okay?

[00:09:46]More lies, guys. Remember, it's the bad weather.

[00:09:49]Okay? There's a lot of Shake Shacks here in Southern California, but you know, that's why people aren't out there shopping. It's nonsense. It's an absolute lie.

[00:10:06]Do not forget that we have the private channel I allegedly live. It's all the uncensored stuff.

[00:10:13]I love doing that. You sign up at Iallegedly.tv.

[00:10:17]Don't forget to join our email list, which is fantastic. An email's going out early this week.

[00:10:23]And a few things. Dr. Marvin sent me a couple stories that are really good. The first one is about a discount retailer called Primark. Primark is an Irish company.

[00:10:34]And what is a discount uh clothing store.

[00:10:40]3,000 people waited in line to get inside this place on its opening day in Manhattan. Isn't that wild? 3,000 people.

[00:10:47]Now, the woman that they interviewed said, "It's incredible. You've got uh pants for $6. You've got blouses for $8. You've got purses. You can get an entire uh ensemble for under $50 that looks like it's 500 bucks. And women love this. And again, this will take off because everybody wants to save a dollar and everybody wants to look good.

[00:11:12]One woman talked about a job interview and how important it was to look professional and that she got everything out of this one store for $50.

[00:11:20]This will put heat on everybody else.

[00:11:22]There is was a retailer called Forever 21 that had discount clothes. They were in and out of bankruptcy, you know, it seemed like a dozen times, but just finally could not make it and finally had to be shut down entirely.

[00:11:41]Another story is your pets. Right now, a big business is pet longevity.

[00:11:48]And I love my dog. I mean, my dog is the queen of the house. She protects the house. If you get through the alarm system and you get in that house, she's going to eat you. That's the best part about Rosie. Rosie is the sweetest dog.

[00:12:03]Rosie was trained with my late girlfriend to be a service dog. But if you come and you're not welcome and you're not told that it's okay, you have a serious serious problem on your hands.

[00:12:15]Would I do anything to keep her around 5 6 more years?

[00:12:19]Yeah, I would I think I would do that.

[00:12:21]My daughter went to a doggie birthday party last weekend where the dog had survived cancer and was 14 years old and I'm like, "Oh, that's pretty cool." So, Eva, the 14-year-old dog, they had a big celebration for this dog and I think that's that's awesome. Rosie Rosie was originally a rescue with Lisa before she went through a training and we don't know her actual birthday. We we guess and we speculate and things like that and the doctors and the vets and everybody have. But I think people would pay for this.

[00:12:54]So, let me know what you think. Read the article below, but thank you, Dr. Marvin, for those two. You're awesome.

[00:13:00]Rich, final final story and this is Luna C and this is the fact that people are going to get for Disney, which I think is insanity.

[00:13:12]One couple on Disney trips, okay? 70 grand, 70 70,000 dollars on Disney trips. No, they didn't go to Thailand and stay at the most exclusive hotels.

[00:13:24]They stayed at Disney properties.

[00:13:26]Oh my god.

[00:13:28]Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass.

[00:13:31]There is a thing at Disneyland called Club 33.

[00:13:34]That is a very exclusive club and restaurant. The waitlist is supposed to be 10 years for this.

[00:13:41]But the meals are outrageous. They have a thing called the chef's table and I just had a story sent to me about this that the meal is $2,500 a person.

[00:13:50]But it's so worth it.

[00:13:53]Okay. You know what? Come over to my house. I'll cook You guys want to come to dance house? $2,500 bucks a person and I'll cook. It'll be great. We'll have a party. You can swim in the pool.

[00:14:02]It'll be fun. It'll be crazy. Okay?

[00:14:05]Take you to God. I'll take you to a ballgame, too, after that. Anyways.

[00:14:09]Imagine that. I mean, it's just like people don't have the extra money right now. We're talking about how pizza is a luxury, but people are going $70,000 in debt to go to Disneyland, which is insane. Just insane. Again, last story, read it. And then the Club 33 property that people go out and spend all that money for. So, share your thoughts and all that stuff.

[00:14:31]If you want to get a hold of me, it's [email protected].

[00:14:35]We've got the video sharing site, newvideos.com, which is great. The ads are just about to roll out on that. It's fun. Good stuff. Make good choices. Tell me what discount food is good. Tell me what discount shopping is good.

[00:14:50]That's what people want to see right now. I'll see you very soon.