Feb 19, 2026
On a winter day in Manhattan, a line stretches down the block outside Meadow Lane, a luxury grocer in Tribeca, where $15 bottles of oat milk sit beside $750 tins of caviar.
Inside, leafy greens spill from wicker baskets, green juices line the shelves and prepared foods are styled more like a café than a supermarket. On the West Coast, Erewhon occupies a similar niche, drawing crowds with celebrity sightings and smoothies that regularly exceed $20.
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But for Gen Z, spending at high-end grocery stores has recently drawn scrutiny (1). The Wall Street Journal has suggested that everyday splurges, from rotisserie chickens to bottled green juices, may be limiting young adults’ ability to build wealth amid student debt and persistently high housing costs.
Zoomers have shot back, arguing that rotisserie chickens are a budget-friendly essential, not a luxury. They’ve added the ruffled feathers at the Wall Street Journal, which is akin to the previous avocado toast narrative.
For 26-year-old sales engineer Samantha Pearlstein, browsing $85 flower arrangements and $23 salads is about more than groceries.
“I love an expensive grocery store,” she told the Wall Street Journal (2). “It’s an experience, and it’s food, altogether.”
Do they have a point?
Much of the backlash centered on the idea that a rotisserie chicken, of all things, could be considered a splurge. For many readers, the example felt disconnected from how people actually budget for food. Big-box retailers like Costco have long sold rotisserie chickens for $4.99. Others shared screenshots showing whole cooked chickens available for about $6 on Instacart.
“Rotisserie chicken being a splurge tells you everything you need to know about the economy,” one user wrote in response to the Journal’s framing. Others joked that public discourse had simply moved on from avocado toast, a shorthand for blaming millennials’ spending habits while echoing a similar point: the issue isn’t the chicken or the green juice, it’s the math behind the economy.
“A $7 juice isn't why they can't buy a house,” another user responded. “$80K in student debt and a median home price over $400K is why they can't buy a house. The spending isn't the problem. The math is.”
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That math is hard to ignore. The average outstanding federal student loan debt per borrower is $38,375, according to the Education Data Initiative (3). Data reported to U.S. News and World Report by nearly 1,000 colleges shows that graduates from the class of 2024 borrowed an average of $29,890, higher than borrowers a decade earlier (4).
Housing costs have also climbed. The average U.S. home value now sits at $357,445, according to Zillow (5). Against that backdrop, critics argue that focusing on rotisserie chickens misses the broader forces reshaping how and why younger Americans spend.
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Wellness-driven spending
When Rigor Hill co-owner Ryan Sohn opened the store in 2022, he was betting that Michelin-star diners would pay a premium for well-made takeout. The model has worked. Sales have doubled since 2023, and the business is profitable, thanks to low operating costs and steady demand.
“A lot of people come in for the rotisserie chicken and veggie sides, and that’s their dinner,” Sohn says. “People are busy; they don’t want to cook.”
That demand reflects a broader shift in spending priorities. According to McKinsey and Company’s Future of Wellness research, wellness now represents more than $500 billion in annual spending in the U.S., growing at a rate of roughly 4% to 5% each year (6). Gen Z and millennials, who make up just over a third of the adult population, account for more than 40% of that spending.
Sammy Nussdorf, the 28-year-old founder of Meadow Lane, named after the luxury street in Southampton, sees that shift play out daily inside his airy Tribeca store.
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“Nightclubs in New York kind of died,” Nussdorf said. “The health and wellness sector is moving the needle.”
When a splurge fits your budget
Judging how someone spends on groceries misses the more important question: whether that spending fits within their broader financial picture. A $20 salad isn’t inherently reckless, but it can become an issue if it consistently crowds out savings, debt payments or essential expenses over time.
One framework financial experts often point to is the 50/30/20 rule, which helps put everyday spending, including food, in context. Under the rule, roughly 50% of take-home pay goes toward needs such as rent or mortgage payments, utilities, healthcare and groceries (7).
Another 30% is allocated to wants, including dining out, subscriptions, hobbies and travel. The remaining 20% is reserved for future goals, like building an emergency fund, contributing to retirement accounts, saving for a down payment or paying down debt beyond minimum payments.
The value of that framework is its flexibility. For some people, a night out might mean dinner at a restaurant. For others, it looks like picking up a higher-end takeaway, a luxury salad, prepared mac and cheese, or a smoothie from a favourite neighbourhood market and calling it a night in.
As younger consumers continue to direct more of their spending toward wellness and convenience, the more useful question isn’t the sticker price, but whether those choices still leave room for their long-term goals.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
X (1); Wall Street Journal (2); Education Data (3); U.S. News (4); Zillow (5); McKinsey (6); UNFCU (7).
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Victoria Vesovski is a Toronto-based Staff Reporter at Moneywise, where she covers the intersection of personal finance, lifestyle and trending news. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, a postgraduate certificate in Publishing from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Master’s degree in American Journalism from New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her work has been featured in publications including Apple News, Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Her Campus Media and The Click.
