Financing your fried chicken? Buy Now, Pay Later creeps into fast food

Would you take out a loan for a pad thai? With Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) creeping into fast food, the cost of convenience is starting to look a lot like a debt cycle.

There are many things you can buy on credit. Cars, homes, even plastic surgery. But fast food? Come on now.

The food delivery service DoorDash has offered a BNPL – buy now, pay later – option on items exceeding $35. So that’s a 16-piece bucket of chicken nuggets financed over six weeks.

Four instalments of $8.75 is a great deal, as it’s zero interest – but only if it’s a one-off purchase.

Some users took to social media to focus on the economic implications of this new service. “A single BNPL contract for a burrito is incredibly risky. Anyone willing to pay for a burrito in installments can't be trusted to pay their debt,” commented one user on X.

Why stop here? Hear me out. A single BNPL contract for a burrito is incredibly risky. Anyone willing to pay for a burrito in installments can't be trusted to pay their debt. But what if...we pooled the payments together? The risk would go away. https://t.co/0fN23GfaSW

undefined BuccoCapital Bloke (@buccocapital) March 20, 2025

It’s a fair point, especially as someone who is addicted to ordering burrito after burrito might face as the debts pile up.

Other users were more casual however: “It's all good man, I just used BNPL for a Mucho burrito from doordash and they sent me a link to do deliveries for them. It's like free food.”

Its all good man, I just used bnpl for a much burrito from doordash and they sent me a link to do deliveries for them. Its like free food.

undefined RougueCow (@CowRougue) March 23, 2025

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, in a gig economy, it’s not just the vendors for whom a transaction is like a shallow commitment, but also the customer too.

This is a normalization of micro-credit from big tech companies. First, it was gadgets like iPhones, then subscriptions like Netflix, and now it’s burritos.

BNPL started to seriously peak in 2021, driven by income uncertainty and the risk of layoffs.

Huge sales days like Black Friday normally see BNPL spike by a whopping 400%, as consumers purchase things like electronics and furniture.

And now, BNPL has crept into many aspects of digital purchases, like buying video game skins, digital art, and concert tickets.

The psychology of making split payments makes spending painless, just as rampant online shopping did during the pandemic.

Kicking the payment can down the road may be an attractive option, but sooner or later, you’re bound to trip over it.