HN user
It isn't really though. The article suffers from very small sample size (one restaurant chain that's relatively unknown in the US). At the least, the grand title of the article is not justified
I wish they had used a different Restaurant for comparison. Pret is just not very popular here unlike in Europe and I don't know many people who'd eat there (except maybe to grab something on the go). Outside of Pret, portion sizes are usually much larger in the US so it make sense that lunch in general would be pricier. Plus European imports like Pret are typically located in pricey downtown locations of cities like NY and SF where real estate is very pricey.
My experience is the exact opposite
It is probably a lot easier to do it today than it was 60 years ago when no one had done it. I think it is possible even for a well-funded private company (like Spacex) to at least come close if they thought it was worth it
Any chance you can post the code for your ad-hoc editor? Would be interesting to see.