Where Have All the French Fries Gone?
Some of my best memories growing up revolve around food. I still remember my first fast-food hamburger at Burger land, on the corner of Southampton and Jefferson—long before McDonald’s came to Buffalo. A hamburger cost just 15 cents, and fries were 12 cents. It wasn’t fancy, but to a kid it was a hitten every time. Another neighborhood favorite was Tony’s Texas Hots on Jefferson Avenue. You could enjoy a delicious Texas Hot for a dollar or buy five for four dollars. Those were the good old days. Those days are long gone.
Last week I ordered a Quarter Pounder meal from McDonald’s through Uber Eats. The bill came to nearly $15. For that price, you’d expect a decent-sized meal. Instead, I got what looked like a quarter-pound burger that had gone on a diet and a small handful of fries that barely deserved the name. What really got my attention wasn’t the price—it was the fries. There was a time when McDonald’s fries were long, hot, and overflowing from the carton. Today, most of them are little more than potato nubs, barely two inches long. Even my nonverbal four year-old grandson looked into the bag with a face that seemed to say: “What happened?”
Recently I thought about treating myself to a Texas Hot, something I hadn’t eaten in years. Then I saw the price—$4.35 for one hot dog. For that amount, I could buy an entire package of hot dogs at the grocery store. Food prices everywhere have gotten out of control. I used to shop without paying much attention to prices. Those days are over. Now I check the price of almost everything I put in my cart because I don’t want the embarrassment of reaching the checkout only to realize I can’t afford what I’ve selected.
The frustrating part is that ordinary people are expected to tighten their belts, cut back, and simply accept higher prices while many large corporations continue posting enormous profits. McDonald’s is a perfect example. CEO Christopher Kempczinski received a compensation package worth more than $20.5 million in 2025. Meanwhile, McDonald’s reported nearly $27 billion in annual revenue and more than $8.5 billion in net profit. Yet somehow, they can’t seem to serve a full order of French fries anymore.
That’s what bothers me most. Americans understand that prices rise over time. What we don’t understand is paying more while getting less. Smaller portions, higher prices, and record corporate profits have become the new business model. Maybe economists have a fancy name for it. I just call it what it feels like: greed. When a company can make billions of dollars, pay its top executive more than $20 million a year, and still cut the size of a serving of fries, something is out of balance.
Maybe it’s not just inflation we’re paying for. Maybe it’s corporate greed—served with a side of short French fries.
This version is suitable for publication as an opinion column. If you’d like, I can also make it sharper and funnier, more in the style of a local newspaper columnist such as Jimmy Breslin or Mike Royko, while keeping your personal storytelling.