A good Döner in Berlin runs about €5, this restaurant is in Canada where CA$11 = €7.

It's slightly more expensive than dirt-cheap Berlin, but it's hard to compete with dirt-cheap Berlin. Berlin is wonderfully cheap in every aspect. Most of the western world can't compete with that.

Try having a similar Döner in Zürich and you'll be wishing for that $11.

And try any small German town and it will be cheaper.

Zurich being in Switzerland which has one of the highest costs of living in the world is not really a good comparison. It's like saying "beer in X is cheaper than in Norway" - it will nearly always be true ;)

I live near the one of the best Döner and most famous places in Berlin and it is €4.10 including everything.

NYC is 4-7$ usd

Donairs (how we Canadians spell Döner) everywhere are like $8-11 in Canada. And not for a premium one either. Meat here is more expensive than the US or Europe, rents are more expensive than the US or Europe, health and ventilation requirements for restaurants are more stringent than the US or Europe and in Ontario the minimum wage is $14/hr.

I've never been to Germany, but many of my favourite bars and restaurants in France wouldn't even be able to exist in Canada, they would run afoul of all our regulations.

It's about the same here in Sydney too. I'm almost certain most of this is due to rent, some of it minimum wage.

It's not really that accurate to compare costs across markets like this. There are too many variables.

Something like the Big Mac index is a good way to reveal this: https://fxssi.com/big-mac-index

Canada is ~10% more than the Euro area.

That's uncommonly cheap. East Germany somewhere? Those Döner prices are usually found in Berlin itself.

I live in a cheap part of Germany, and our Döners have gone up from 4.50 or 4.70 Euros to about 5 Euros everywhere.

But let's not forget that even 5 Euros is an insane price for that much meat.

It works out because (a) the meat isn't great to begin with and (b) Dönerstuben are hotbeds for tax evasion. Many many Döners never make it into the cash register.

Budapest: 2.2 EUR for a nice Doner.

The best shawarma I was able to find costs 3 EUR in the innermost district.

Niedersachsen. I usually get a falafel tasche which is €3 (same size) but you're right, maybe the equivalent sized döner is 1 or 2€ more. Still, there's a large gap in price I can't get my head around. Maybe your tax evasion point could be it, or maybe the author's business is in an unusually high rent area (shopping centre or big city or something).

To add to this, the Dönnerbude is probably in a part of the city where rents are low (whereas US restaurants are often in designated city center high rent areas), and the Dönnerbude is usually very, very small.

Dönerstuben

What a word.

Yeah in Poland it would be about 10PLN(so also about $3). But the the labour and rent are super cheap, even if the ingredients are high quality - that's where the saving will come from .

And in Stockholm you’d be lucky to get one under €9. These things vary with taxes and living costs (which ironically include the Döner).

Germany also has a huge Turkish community, perhaps competition is just fierce in that category?

It is very competitive in Germany, and most of all in Berlin (where the Döner was actually invented!).

Too bad that there are very few real Turkish restaurants around. We happen to have one in my town and it's very, very good. When Germans think "Turkish" they think "Döner", and that's just unfortunate.

Wolf Down is in Canada. Your currency conversion is incorrect.

Ah, that's starting to explain the difference here. 5 EUR is approximately 8 CAD.

Yea, a döner can be made for far less money.

They're using over-the-top expensive premium ingredients, but if you just use regular supermarket ingredients, you could make a döner for far far less. Let me attempt a prices breakdown:

I'm in the U.S., and the nearby Aldi sells boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $2.49 per pound (a restaurant could probably order in bulk, and get that an even lower price). A pound is 453 grams. There's probably only 100 grams of meat in a döner. So 113g of chicken in a döner should cost around $0.50. (It cost them $2.50, a 5x premium.)

Pre-packaged pita bread (döner wrappers) probably cost far far less than $0.75. I'm not going to analyze, but I'm going to guess it actually costs closer to between $0.05 and $0.10. Then there's the sauce. It too, when bought it bulk, likely costs less than $0.10 per döner.

So that's all to say you can definitely make a good döner in the U.S. for less than $1 per döner in terms of ingredient costs.

In terms of labor cost -- if you pay someone $15/hour, and if they take 1 minute per döner, which is definitely possible if you do things assembly-style, then the labor cost is $0.25 per döner. If you're less efficient, then maybe the labor cost is $0.50 per döner.

So now labor + ingredients is somewhere between $1.25 to $1.50.

Lastly, there's rent/utilities/etc. This totally depends on where you're located, but assumeing you're in a non-super-expensive area, let's guesstimate it costs around $1 total per döner purchased to cover these things.

We've reached a final cost price of $2.50 per döner. I can see how a 3 euro price is totally achievable in Germany.

Food can be cheap in the U.S., even in nice neighborhoods. As an example, I offer "Tara Inn", a tiny old local restaurant in Port Jefferson, NY. (Their menu: https://zmenu.com/tara-inn-port-jefferson-online-menu/) They sell pretty darn good hamburgers for $1.00 each, cheeseburger for $1.50 a piece, a grilled chicken sandwich for $2.00, etc. And the food there is actually good. This, in a neighborhood (North Shore Long Island) where the typical family income is $100k+. (Although the immediate vicinity of Port Jefferson is not considered super-bougey by north shore folks.)

There's another reason why döners can be fairly expensive in the US (even at a places using non-premium ingredients). Turkish cuisine is still somewhat exotic here. The US doesn't have the huge fairly-recent immigrant Turkish population that Germany has, so döners fall under the realm of "exotic mediterranean" foods. Hence their higher-than-typical prices.

That's because Tara Inn is a bar. They likely lose money on the cheap food and make it up on drinks.

At least in California, restaurant and bar licenses are separate. Restaurants have to prove that a certain percentage of their sales are food related; otherwise you can’t allow anyone under 21 into the establishment.

Though you don't want to use chicken breast with a doner, it would come out too dry. I think it's very common to use brown meat from birds, something like turkey thighs, which are gonna be even cheaper than chicken breast.