MIAMISBURG, Ohio — Beef prices continue to rise across the nation, and it’s impacting businesses right here in the Miami Valley.
News Center 7’s Kylie Bridgeman learned how one small shop in Miamisburg is keeping prices down.
Right now, one of these hamburgers at Hamburger Wagon will cost you just $1.75, and with the price of beef on the rise, keeping these prices low comes at a cost.
“Where are you going to get a burger after what has come to order? Something like that,” said Bodo Carroll, longtime patron.
Carroll has been coming to the Wagon for lunch since he was in the third grade. It’s the quality, nostalgia and the low prices that keep him coming back.
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“It’s been here for years, you know, and the people just keep coming back, and so they’re just keep selling the burgers,” he said.
The Hamburger Wagon has been in business for more than a century.
They started serving meat sandwiches after the flood in 1913, and all these decades later, their biggest competitor is inflation.
“I also think it embodies a lot of tradition,” said Jack Sperry, owner. “And we’ve been here on this same square for 113 years. So, I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said, I remember when my grandfather took me down to Miamisburg.”
That’s why Sperry hates to raise prices, and he hasn’t since 2024.
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“It’s been over two years since we raised prices,” he said. “I don’t want to do it. I’m not going to say I’m not going to do it because you know we want to stay in business.
Sperry told us in 1973, a burger rang up for just $0.30, before the last price increase, it was $1.25 and now it’s costing customers $1.75.
“There’s a whole other thing called meat inflation,” Sperry said. “I’ve talked to any restaurant owners that sell beef. It’s way outpaced in the cost of the rate of replacement that we’ve experienced over the last five years.”
He doesn’t want the price of a single to hit $2, but what he spends on beef is up 57% in 2 years.
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