The $15 Dollar Salad

The following is a transcription of the video above, please excuse any typos:

It would appear that in America there are many industries that are lucky that their consumers are so lazy.

However, as Anthony Bourdain once said, “Luck is not a business model”

…

We’ve all got that friend or coworker who pipes in a familiar, yet grading trope, whenever you order a salad at a restaurant, “you know, you can make that at home for a fraction of the cost.”

Yes. Chuck, I understand that vertically integrating the supply chain amortizes the cost of goods at scale.

However what your model fails to take into account is the value of time, labor and craft. You are abstracting it from the means of production — fetishizing it as simple the sum of it’s parts — when the true value of it is in the mastery of its maker — the worker, the proletariat.

Sure, chuck I could make a salad at home, but I could also carve a table out of a tree trunk with a butter knife but it would probably suck and take me decade to learn.

I’m paying $15 for my time, Chuck. Not a damn kale salad.