The Brooklyn Coffee Shop’s Clever Blend Outside Sign offers a $6 gelato and espresso “Recession Special.”
Lisa Kailai Han | CNBC
Fearing that slowing the economy will lurk in the background, some companies have noticed and are regaining what is called a recession special.
Find out the term “recession special” through Google’s search engine. The list of results includes entries from the Great Recession nearly 20 years ago.
Consider this 2008 Grub Street article. Or, this 2009 story from The New York Times offers a food recession special restaurant across New York as an act of survival.
Fast forward to 2025, and the facility’s crops hint at a looming economic downturn once again.
When “recession” returns as a selling point
The fears of the recession were escalating this spring as President Donald Trump deployed a tariff slate in early April. The term “recession indicator” has entered a dedicated law for social media users as a tongue-like method to measure potential economic slowdowns.
Nowadays, businesses are making jokes. For example, Clever Blend, a coffee shop in Brooklyn, New York, promotes a $6 gelato and espresso “Recession Special.”
Manhattan bar Wicked Willy’s offered a “pop party of the recession” earlier this month, offering one caption for an Instagram post, saying, “The recession is back! Dance all night and get ready for the party!”
Market Hotel, a Brooklyn concert venue, promoted a similar event. “From fame to animals, circus, and ratings, we play financial insecurity on the aspects of Electro-Pop, Bloghaus and Auto-Tuned Glam,” the Instagram caption read. “You’re dressed like rent, and you’re dancing through it.”
But this trend doesn’t just stop in New York. Super Duper, a burger chain located in the San Francisco Bay Area, was tapped earlier this year with its seasonal special, “Recession Burgers,” in the summer.
“One thing I didn’t get inflation memos was a new season special, Recession Combo Meet the Recession Combo,” and a Super Duper’s Instagram post. The meal includes a “recession burger,” fries and a $10 drink.
Super Duper Burgers’ Instagram post promotes the summer “recession combo” special.
Courtesy: Super Duper Burger via Instagram
Ed Onas, Vice President of Operations at Super Duper, said the idea for the burger name wasn’t necessarily derived from a desire to cash out with buzzwords. Instead, he said the moniker came from the depression-era origins of Oklahoma-style smash burgers.
However, once Super Duper established the burger’s name, the chain decided to offer a “recession combo” that was discounted for $10. This would save customers $5 from the regular price of the add-on, Onas said.
“It’s like the place where the burger name unfolds, and we call it a ‘reptile combo’. Onas told CNBC in an interview. “Inflation is ongoing and we thought it was a great offer for our guests for a short time.”
This valuable combo meal was an exception for Super Duper, who normally doesn’t offer such a deal. The burger went viral on the local San Francisco subreddit, earning 1,400 upboats and 170 comments.
“Obviously we were happy about it. We didn’t realize it would attract as much attention as it was,” Onas said. “We were happy, our guests were happy. At the end of the day, that’s all.”
As a testament to the overwhelming success of the burger, Onas told CNBC that Super Duper will be adding it to the menu as a permanent fixture for the future.
Shedding light on weakening consumer sentiment
Participating in this trend for these small businesses could be a broader response to waning consumer trust. Consider that the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index arrived at 58.6 in August, reflecting a 13.7% change from its 61.7 reading in July.
Joanne Hussou, director of consumer research at the University of Michigan, said the sourness in this sentiment is driven primarily by concerns about trade policy.
“What’s very clear from consumer sentiment data is that consumers are significantly more prepared for not only slowing and worsening the economy, but also expecting inflation to worsen, but we also hope for the situation to get worse for businesses,” she said. “They expect the labor market to weaken and unemployment rates will rise, and what they see in these businesses might be a response to that.”
A lack of consumer trust and trust in income reliability ultimately leads to a reversal of spending, HSU added.
“Young people feel as bad about the economy as older people, and in a few months they feel even worse than older people,” she said. “Beyond age distribution, people agree that the economic trajectory has deteriorated.”
