What Is Ghetto latte or bootleg latte?

Well, I never knew that there could be such a technical discussion on coffee, but apparently there’s a whole new set of terminology that I’ve just discovered about coffee, or in relation to coffee joints like Starbucks, for instance.

Ghetto latte or bootleg latte refers to a latte where the customer has used the complimentary milk and other condiments to convert a less expensive drink into an approximate copy of a more expensive one. This practice can be regarded as a form of arbitrage. Similar forms of arbitrage have existed in the past for other products including hamburgers.

Apparently, sometime in the past, Burger King sold Whopper Jr.’s for around $1.60, and hamburgers for $0.80. Since a Whopper, Jr. is just a hamburger with different toppings, people actually figured that they could order a hamburger without the mustard and ketchup, and ask for the mayo, lettuce, and tomato. The end result was the equivalent of a Whopper, Jr.

Burger King dealt with the arbitrage by charging 15 cents for the tomatoes and 5 cents for the lettuce. Thus, the total came up to a dollar. It wasn’t a pure loss from BK’s perspective because BK does save some because the heavily-modded hamburger was served in cheaper paper wrappers instead of the cardboard box of a Whopper Jr.

Interesting.

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