$5 is the New "It" Word in Fast Food

Photobucket: Minda33

"Five...five dollar foot longs." You've probably had Subway's catchy little ditty stuck in your head--ALL DAY--at least once by now.

Granted, it's not as nagging as Chili's "I want my baby back, baby back, back," but its pretty hard to shake, which might be a good thing.

Turns out, $5 is the latest win-win in fast food gimmicks. Subway raked in $3.8 billion with it, and now other restaurants are giving it a try too.

It started off humbly. Stuart Frankel, a New York native who owns two Subways in Miami, needed to kick start his sluggish weekend sales. So on Saturday and Sunday, he cut the price of footlong sub sandwiches by 1 buck.

And boom! Stuart's sales took off like a shot. He thinks customers like the nice round number. It looks like they do, because "$5 Footlongs" alone generated $3.8 billion in sales nationwide for Subway.

Subway has topped Wendy's and Burger King in market share, and could surpass McDonald's in total locations worldwide early next year.

So now its fast food monkey see, fast food monkey do. Boston Market has offered meals for $5 each, KFC is trying $5 combo meals, and Dominos and T.G.I. Friday's have started selling sandwiches for $4.99.

Judy Cantrell, Boston Market's chief brand officer, calls $5, "A price point that consumers respond to." Makes sense to me, its only one step up from $1, so it sounds cheap.

So what's next? The return of "Momma mia, that's a spicy meatball!"

Via BusinessWeek.

By Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese 

Contributed by Dietblog