City Lunch, where inflation lost.

kEY POINTS

Food costs have climbed 23–24% since 2020, with fast-food combos now averaging $11–15 and restaurants out of reach for many families.
The minimum-wage-to-meal ratio is broken — in 2020, an hour’s work barely covered a Big Mac meal, and prices have only marched higher.
City Lunch in Lincolnton stands out as the exception, holding to near-unchanged pricing and serving dollar-hot dogs while the rest of the country pays triple.

It’s no secret. No one can afford to eat out anymore.

In fact, it’s a hurdle to even keep your fridge stocked these days. Look at what happened with eggs.

Our household somehow miraculously survived 2024 with five kids clearing our fridge daily.

To put it in perspective, this is what feeding our household looked like that year:

Wendy’s ~ $60/family meal + a heaping portion of guilt from feeding them junk.
Restaurants ~ $150 or more depending, now reserved for only occasions.
Groceries ~ $500/week, kids usually picking it clean before the next restock.

Inflation started killing us five years ago.

It snapped into gear with the pandemic in 2020, when supply chains broke and labor became scarce. By the next year, groceries and dining began chewing through wallets.

2021 and 2022 brought global shipping chaos, fertilizer shortages, droughts, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up grain and energy.

By 2022, U.S. food inflation hit its worst since 1979. 11.4% at the grocery store, 7.7% at restaurants.

2023 didn’t give us reprieve. Eggs spiked more than 70% at one point, beef and poultry stayed high, and eating out got steadily pricier.

Overall, from 2020 to 2024, food costs rose about 23 – 24%, outpacing wages for most. Even as inflation slowed in 2024 – 2025, menu prices at fast food and chain restaurants kept climbing.

In 2024, my (guilty pleasure) spicy chicken deluxe combo cost $11.00. The sandwich alone? $8.96.

This was a real what’s going on moment.

The same combo cost $7.25 in 2018.

City Lunch

A wild exception for the residents of Lincoln County, NC.

As a long time resident of Lincolnton, I watched our downtown evolve in many ways over the past thirty-two years. The only thing in the landscape that never changed?

City Lunch.

They’re a town legacy.

City Lunch has been family owned and operated since 1957 and has been an iconic part of Lincolnton culture consistently since opening. Definitely throughout my lifetime. It was presumably opened in 1932, but the exact date was lost in family history.

It’s a hole in the wall. It’s a time capsule. Don’t expect to tap a card or place an online order. Walking in takes you back to the year they opened in form, function, and fashion.

City Lunch is full of gritty charm and nostalgia. Enter from the street through the rickety screen door for handwritten menus on chalkboards, a myriad of mismatched furniture, and walls covered in mementos from serving the community over the years. They have always served in more ways than one. They made every hot dog for every high school football game for decades.

As Lincoln Times put it, “restaurants come, and restaurants go. Not so the little restaurant across from Lincoln County courthouse.”

And there’s a reason.

Home cooking and short orders survived the test of time.

City Lunch is famous for its hot dogs – in fact, they average 700 a day. My standard definition of a hot dog is from City Lunch, all the way (in NC that’s mustard, chili, onions, and slaw).

OG City Lunch Hot Dog - all the way — OG City lunch hot dog (all the way).

Apart from that staple, they offer a solid variety. You’ll find a number of burgers, dogs, barbecue sandwiches, chips, and sodas. They also serve old-time meat and veg plates daily, the most famous being skillet fried chicken on Thursdays. Short order breakfast runs daily on weekdays, with fresh coffee in the hands of 50 year regulars.

The most affordable meal in town.

When I was in high school (in the early 2000’s) a hot dog was $0.50. Back then, the minimum wage was $5.15, making City Lunch an affordable hangout for teens – only a 10 minute bike ride from the school and in the heart of downtown.

That’s a hard to imagine price tag today when vending machines don’t take less than a dollar.

The ratio to minimum wage was unbelievable, and remains that way today.

City Lunch has always beat competitor prices, at least during my lifetime. I would love to know what the price on a hot dog was in 1932.

The only “catch” is that they have remained cash only, which isn’t much of a catch considering.

The prices stayed down despite the pandemic.

Looking at photos posted of their menu, they finished out 2019 with unbelievable pricing:

Short order lunch December 2019

#1 (1 hotdog, 1 cheeseburger, chips & drink) at $3.75
#2 (2 hotdogs, chips & drink) at $3.00
Cheeseburger at $1.60
Hotdog alone still priced below the dollar.
In 2019 that hotdog all the way only cost a whopping $0.86.

Breakfast in February 2020 was equally unbelievable.

By this time inflation made a stir, but nothing compared to what came after March.

short Order Breakfast February 2020

2 egg breakfast with choice of meat, grits, toast, and coffee at $3.00.
3 egg omelet with choice of meat, cheese, grits or pancake at $3.75.
The “Big Boy” breakfast – 2 eggs + bacon + livermush + sausage + grits + 2 pancakes + toast + coffee? Only $4.50.

Home cooked meals were equally impressive in March of 2020.

Even the meat and vegetable offerings carried the same no-nonsense value.

Home skillet fried chicken with 1 vegetable was only $3.69.
The southern standard “meat and two” was $4.23.

This menu from March 2020, days before the pandemic shut everything down, was City Lunch’s unwavering baseline. Since then, food prices have climbed more than 20% nationwide, while this small town gem barely nudged theirs.

These prices sound less like fact and more like fiction.

It’s startling to see a $4.50 everything breakfast considering the standard pricing of the time.

In February 2020, the average cost of a Big Mac meal was $7.89 while minimum wage held steady at $7.25. That’s 1.28 hours of work for your most famous processed meal after taxes.

The minimum wage to McDonalds ratio was, and still is, an insult to every worker.

City Lunch sidestepped the pandemic, not entirely unaffected.

Though citing the supply chain challenges restaurants faced with Covid shut downs to Lincoln Times, they raised their front windows and continued supporting the community they had for 60 years. City Lunch wasn’t exempt from inflation. Breakfast went up due to the price of eggs along with other menu items, but not to the extreme we saw nationally.

The small Lincolnton staple is well aware of eatery developments around the country, including niche spots and the farm to table trend. Even as kitschy restaurants opened on the same block, like Local Roots and Provisioned which debuted in spring 2021, City Lunch held fast.

They’re just not going anywhere.

City Lunch remains a time capsule today with nearly unmoved pricing.

Today? We’re still struggling with high restaurant pricing, which rose 3.3% over the past year.

Still, the average consumer would find City Lunch pricing astonishing since they reflect averages from decades ago.

Today, the Big Boy breakfast sits at $7.00 while the Waffle House All-Star Special is $13.00. Their classic hotdog is $1.25 while local restaurant Mutzie’s still charges $2.99. The #1 with one cheeseburger, one hotdog, chips, and a drink is only $5.10 when a Cookout tray is $7.39.

And. My home-cooked pork loin with mashed potatoes, slaw, brussel sprouts, and two rolls last week delivered an authentic, southern, American size meal for $5.00 flat.

meat and two veggie plate from city lunch.

Yes, even $0.68 hot dogs in 2025.

City Lunch celebrated their 68th anniversary just 6 days ago.

It’s true, they sold $0.68 cent hot dogs in honor of the big day, ordering 2000 in anticipation of their loyal crowd. We joined in that day, but barely got through the madness just to learn they sold all 2000 hot dogs by 11:30 am.

Honestly, I’m not surprised. City Lunch is a town treasure and staple. You just can’t beat the price, customer service, and nostalgia.

Their model and adherence to tradition saves Lincolnton a dollar at a time.

While the rest of the world still has sticker shock over fast food meals, City Lunch is offering the wallet break we need.

Is it fancy? No. Is it fusion? Also, no.

They don’t abide the standard. City Lunch can afford to do what they need to do because they’ve established community trust and built a legacy. At every opportunity to raise pricing they have always resisted, only doing what was necessary to continue their mission.

I don’t mind checking Facebook posts to see when they’re open or making sure I have cash handy to snag a hot dog. That’s why they’re so successful: people keep showing up. People love it. Even with the boom of new residents from cities like Charlotte, newcomers see the charm and the value.

That creaky screen door is more iron vault when it comes to being affected by modernity, in terms of inflation, in terms of model, and love for Lincoln County.

Sources

Lincoln Times News – City Lunch: 65 years and counting (Lincoln Times)
City Lunch Facebook Page – Images, pricing, timeline (Facebook)
USDA – Food Price Outlook (Summary Findings) (USDA)
BLS – Food prices up 10.8 percent year ended April 2022 (largest since 1980) (BLS)
USDA – Food Price Outlook (Updated mid-2025 data) (USDA)
CBS News – Fast food prices hit record highs (LendingTree analysis) (CBS)
LendingTree – Fast-food workers study (minutes of work per meal) (Lending Tree)
LendingTree – Fast food survey: 78% now see it as a luxury (Lending Tree)
Wikipedia – Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. restaurant industry (Wikipedia)