A San Francisco Bay area restaurateur said she shut down both of her sandwich shops after Reddit users ripped her menu prices — including $34 for a steak and eggs and $22 for a grilled cheese sandwich.
Kendra Kolling, founder of the artisanal sandwich shop The Farmer’s Wife in Marin County, told SFGATE that a challenging economic climate was made worse by a viral Reddit post from last year.
A Redditor took to the subreddit r/bayarea and posted an item titled “Sandwich prices made me lol.”
The post prominently featured a large photo of the menu items and prices at one of the two Farmer’s Wife locations just north of San Francisco.
The author of the post added a caption which read: “We are doomed,” and the comment section quickly devolved into outright mockery, zeroing in on the $22 grilled cheese.
“It’s $10 for a slice of cheese, and $10 for a slice of bread. $2 tip included. Sounds reasonable for a sandwich shop in 21st-century dystopia,” one wrote.
Another added: “I could start my own grilled cheese stand right outside for 22 bucks.”
Reddit users also zeroed in on a slew of jaw-dropping prices beyond the grilled cheese, including a $34 “Steak + Eggs” sandwich made with beef filet, braised greens, a farm egg and aged cheddar.
Another menu standout was the $32 hot pastrami, piled with Swiss, cheddar, pickles and house dressing.
As the thread grew, jokes turned darker. “Is financing avail?” one user asked, prompting another to quip, “Klarna gives you a pay in 4 option,” followed by, “Three more payments and this reuben is gonna be all mine!”
One commenter summed it up bluntly: “Haha you’d never financially recover after ordering the pastrami.”
Kolling told SFGATE the viral Reddit post triggered a cascade of fallout online, with users flooding Yelp and Google with one-star reviews in what she described as review-bombing that sharply dragged down the shop’s ratings.
She said the sudden surge of negative reviews hurt visibility and customer traffic, compounding existing financial pressures and making it harder for the business to recover in the months that followed.
“They were calling me the most vile things, that it was beyond sandwiches,” Kolling told SFGATE. “It was so hurtful and personal.”
Kolling first shuttered The Farmer’s Wife’s Sebastopol outpost at The Barlow in September, quietly closing the Wine Country location after years of operating as one of the shop’s two brick-and-mortar stores.
The closure came months after the viral Reddit backlash, as rising costs and declining foot traffic weighed on the business.
The remaining Point Reyes location stayed open longer but ultimately met the same fate, with Kolling closing the shop earlier this month, marking the end of The Farmer’s Wife’s physical presence altogether.
She told SFGATE the decision was unavoidable, citing the cumulative toll of online backlash, economic pressure and burnout after years running the business.
Bay Area small businesses face some of the highest commercial rents and labor costs in the country.
While The Farmer’s Wife was not classified as fast food, California’s $20-an-hour minimum wage for fast-food workers helped push wages higher across the entire food service industry, squeezing already thin margins.
At the same time, the shop’s farm-forward model came with steep input costs.
Grocery prices in the Bay Area climbed nearly 27% over the past five years, even as restaurant profit margins typically hover in the single digits.
Still, even simpler items carried luxury-level price tags. The shop charged $30 for a smashburger, $30 for shepherd’s pie and $28 for a tuna melt while a ham and cheese sandwich dubbed the “Ham + Tam” rang up at $30.
Salads weren’t spared either.
A basic seasonal salad cost $20, while the “farm market salad” topped with vegetables, goat cheese and toasted almonds climbed to $26, pushing the total well past $30 once tax and tip were added.
The Post has sought comment from Kolling.
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