Have you ever experienced sticker shock while ordering lunch? Then you’re not alone. Recently a TikToker went viral when she posted about paying $31 dollars for a salad.
New Yorker TenickaB (@tenickab) posted the short clip to express her disappointment about rising costs. The video was viewed over 214,000 times as of publication.
Tenicka begins her video with a text overlay that reads: “I’m calling the police.”
“I’ve just paid $31 dollars for a salad because I got shrimp,” she said while holding a disposable bowl that wasn’t even full. “And a quarter of an avocado cost me $5 dollars.”
Users were shocked by the price, and wondered why she paid for it.
“Now Ms Tenicka but you the one who handed them the card though,” a user said.
Tenicka responded: “I was so ashamed…I didn’t even realize until the machine asked for a tip.”
“I keep playing it back and fainting at the price,” another added.
A third shared a similar experience: “I just walked out of my salon where normally I pay $150. The price went to $350 and I didn’t notice until she was done. I went and cried in my car.”
Others chalked it up as a life lesson: “That was an expensive lesson to learn.”
Restaurant prices aren’t expected to go down any time soon. Food prices are expected to increase by 8.2% in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Due to increased cost of supply, restaurants have been raising prices to offset cost. In 2022, menu prices on average rose by 7.9%, and they are expected to increase by an additional 5.8%. Even McDonald’s raised their prices by 10%.
Another cost multiplier is avocado. They are a costly crop to produce. Notoriously expensive to grow, avocados also require massive water usage. For example, growing 100,000 pounds of avocados per acre would require around a million gallons of water.
The Daily Dot reached out to Tenicka via email for further comment.
