Seven years after Lebanon’s devastating financial meltdown, a debate over a chicken sandwich has exposed an increasingly stark divide between those who can still spend freely and those struggling to get by.
A trendy health restaurant wanted to offer its calorie-conscious customers a healthier take on the beloved Levantine wrap known as the shish taouk.
So, The Glow Paradise launched the “Chic Taouk”, pricing it at around $13 — nearly double what an un-chic chicken sandwich typically goes for in Beirut.
The pricey pun proved hard to swallow, with outraged critics accusing the restaurant of overcharging in a country where many households struggle to afford basic necessities.
Yet while the debate raged on social media, customers kept buying.
The Glow Paradise sold more than 20,000 Chic Taouk sandwiches in just 11 days, according to managing partner Hrag Jeghalian, who described the online exchanges as “natural marketing”.
The contrasting reactions touched a nerve in Lebanon, where years of financial turmoil, political dysfunction and conflict have reshaped the country’s social landscape, hollowing out much of the middle class while leaving a smaller group of consumers able to sustain an affluent lifestyle.
Sami Nader, an economist at Saint Joseph University of Beirut, said the throngs at The Glow Paradise belied another reality.
“So you see people in the restaurant, but what you don’t see is that 22 restaurants closed last month,” Nader told Reuters.
Lebanon’s Instagram-active community was split between those accusing the restaurant of theft and others saying the sandwich was intended for those who could afford it.
Some questioned whether the dispute itself reflected misplaced priorities in a country grappling with urgent crises, from Israel’s occupation of large swaths of the country’s south to the endemic electricity and water crises.
Lebanon’s 2019 financial collapse was prompted by decades of corruption and profligate spending by the ruling elite, and several rounds of conflict since then have worsened the country’s economic outlook.
GDP has declined by nearly 40% since 2019, and inflation is expected to rise to 17.5% due to rising global energy and shipping prices eating away at people’s purchasing power, according to the World Bank.
The figure is more than quadruple the global headline inflation rate flagged by the International Monetary Fund in July.
Four in five households in Lebanon struggle to afford basic necessities, the UN children’s agency said in September.
