Famous Halal Guys Have Raised Their Prices!
We got a tip a few weeks ago from Luncher Chris who noticed the prices at The Famous Halal Guys have increased from $6 to $7. Sure enough, all of their carts in the vicinity of 53rd and 6th now have menus that read $7 for any rice dish. One of the guys at the cart on the SE corner told me it has been that way for about two weeks now.
No matter because the price increase has not seemed to affect the lunch line – even the days after New Year’s. I guess they didn’t see much money when they sued the Imposter Cart last year. Either that or they need more capital now that they’ve gone national...
Posted by brianhoffman at 10:13 am, January 5th, 2015 under Famous Halal Guys on 53rd & 6th.
12 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
12 Comments
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The last time I went (was still $6), I asked for an “extra hot sauce”, the guy gives me the evil eye, then says, “its in the bag”. I repeat, no, can I have an “EXTRA hot sauce”. He again looks at me with an evil eye and repeats- “ITS IN THE BAG”. Fine. I get to my desk and what do I find? One hot sauce.
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Proper response:
Whatever is in the bag, I need more …. to cover the shite taste of your food
So many other more worthy purveyors out there
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About a month ago, I passed by and there was no spit, so I left. I’m hoping that was just an off day and from the photo above, assuming it’s recent, it looks like it came back…
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They’re basically banking on the hype. Their street meat is overrated and some of the blandest street meat I have ever had.
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It wouldn’t be a Halal Guys thread without your stock response.
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I agree—I only had it once and i thought it was absolutely terrible. The mincing of the meat was terrible, and it tasted like it was dunked in lipton soup mix! I want chunks of chicken and strips of lamb like gussy’s does! To me, Gussy’s is the gold standard of street meat platters, and all others are imposters!
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Gotta agree with M_E, Goats, Humbuck. Their sauce is good, but meat is definitely below-average. They chop it to the consistency of pablum and let piles of it sit steaming under foil on the griddle. Give me even Rafiqis over the Famous guys any day.
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I also agree with Midtown_Eater. I think it used to be better, but it isn’t worth the money or calorie intake now.
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It used to be better because they didn’t have as many competitors. And it’s not that their quality has gone down significantly. Been eating there for 10+ years and they’ve been relatively the same for as long as I can remember.
Food just happens to taste differently depending on the environment you’re having it in. It’s well known that people’s memories of taste are very unreliable.
Tangentially related: I’ve heard junkies risk overdosing on the same quantity and purity of heroin they normally take just by changing their location (e.g. doing it in your own bedroom vs in an alley or hotel).
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I think it’s definitely changed. The meat used to have some flavor on it’s own, but now it’s so bland without the sauce.
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I think the problem with some of the carts is that they’re not able to brown the meat sufficiently before the food has to be served. It’s just left there in a giant pile to steam. I’ve been to the cart on 7th ave a couple of times last year (by Chase bank), which is a lot slower, and have never had an issue with flavorless meat.
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I figure they hadn’t raised prices in around 4 years, so raising it a buck right before the tourist hordes descended on Midtown probably yielded a nice five-figure revenue bump over the past few weeks.
They also stopped putting on the sauce themselves, which saves time. Though if you ask for excessive amounts of hot sauce, they still add that via bottle rather than load the bag with containers.