must say, people were right about getting an immediate stench of the syrup when opening the packaging, tbh i feel that it overpowered it that i couldn’t taste the bacon or egg!
happy i gave it a go, but yeah, give me a mighty mcmuffin anyday (and really, just give me a big breakfast from an independent cafe at that lmao)
Oporto caught out running dark kitchens
Dark kitchens have been operating out of dozens of Oporto stores across Australia for several years, selling food under another name at higher prices.
The major Portuguese-style chicken chain confirmed to news.com.au its “virtual-only food concept” Basted Wings & Burgers was launched during Covid as a “chance to experiment, test, and adapt quickly, with the opportunity to trial bold new flavours and formats”.
Dark kitchens – also sometimes called a virtual restaurant or ghost kitchen – are businesses that sell their food exclusively through delivery. A spokesperson for Oporto said the Basted brand was being “phased out” over the past 12 months, and would officially close in August.
I don’t mind dark kitchens as long as they have to undergo the same regulations as a normal restaurant would before they open.
Well, the interesting thing in this case is that the restaurants were actually existing Oporto restaurants and used the same ingredients. So, they were charging up to double the prices for the same or similar products.
An inspection of menu pictures for all three of Basted’s burgers – the Schnitt Faced and Cheeky Cheese & BBQ burgers and their “legendary spicy burger” the Red Eye – show they appear to be made using Oporto’s crispy chicken strips.
Prices for the latter two burgers alone are each set at $20.25 on food delivery apps, whereas customers could buy a regular double Bondi burger meal from Oporto on Uber Eats for $22. The Schnitt Faced Burger has a marked price of $16.95.
Basted’s spicy popcorn chicken, sold for $11.95, also appears to be a similar product as Oporto’s chicken bolas. Customers can buy a regular size bolas pack for $7.80 on Uber Eats.
Maccas released the big arch burger today
mcdonalds.com.au/newsroom/got-big-maccas-hunger-meet-big-arch
The restaurant and takeaway surcharges are the ones that annoy me the most. The credit card surcharges will be gone in 2026 but we need law changes on these other surcharges too.
I believe restaurants and takeaways shouldn’t be allowed to advertise prices or have menus with lower prices to the actual cost. They shouldn’t be allowed to have a surcharge added up to 25%.
My local takeaway applies a 10% discount for customers who pay cash. Another restaurant has a sign that says 10% off on Tue and Wed (their slowest days). This is how businesses should do it. The menus and price boards should have the maximum price you pay. Then, if they wish to charge less on weekdays, offer the discount.
Do we even need cash anymore? Would save a fortune on mints and ATMs etc and that money could go into fraud prevention and keeping branches open. Would help taxation and might help catch drug dealers etc who operate on cash.
Not every business that deals with cash are frauds (some, yes, but not all).
I still carry cash (call me old style). But obviously pay for those annoying bigger bills with cards or online. Good to have a balance between the two.
And the very rare occasion i’ve seen a cafe or restaurant that offers a discount for cash options is a good idea.
I agree with that. If we got rid of the surcharge on using credit cards, then everyone would tap and go. I only reverted to using cash again when all the cafes put on these outrageous surcharges.
I’ve also stopped going to a few cafes on weekends which charge me a 10% or 20% weekend surcharge.
We’re certainly close to being able to reasonably have this discussion, but I suspect there will still be some considerable pushback to being completely cashless.
There are good reasons for it, but there are also some problems - being able to track money has some benefits, but at the same time, it also makes it hard for people who have legitimate reasons for not wanting to be tracked for safety reasons (DV for one).
There are a couple of practical elements that need to be resolved, too:
That could be one of the offsets for banks removing ATMs, that would save them a lot of money, so they could be asked to reduce charges/keeping branches open etc in return for being able to forgo that expense.
Removing the big bank ATMs, and adding more independent ATMs that have higher surcharges to take money out hasn’t helped either.
Reducing the cost of having card payment options in cafes and restaurants would be ideal. But obviously banks do need to make money too.
There needs cash too for the odd phone outages (for those who pay from their phones) or glitches from the banks themselves etc.
Most of which comes from the lending side of their business. I think they make enough money.
They make way more than enough. Their profits are in the billions every year. But they’re greedy and want more. That’s why they introduced surcharges on credit card payments.
You’d think it would be in their best interest to drop cash transactions because handling cash actually costs them a lot more to process.
Do you want entities monitoring what you spend your money on though?
I’m not that paranoid to worry about it.
I think cash is still important because look at the Crowdstrike incident.
If systems die, card becomes useless, and quickly.
I tried the McGriddle this morning. I was sceptical but tried it and was pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t sure about the mixing of pancakes with bacon and eggs. But as somebody who is and always will be firming in the pineapple belongs on pizza camp who am i to judge?
Red Rooster vs Chargrill Charlie’s vs El Jannah.
Frango is the 4th largest chain.
