I guess I was just comparing things like an elder care aid which also tends to require hard work / labor (possibly worse than fast food, lifting and turning 200lbs+ patients), dealing with literal shit every day (changing adult diapers etc), and similar being treated like crap. But doing that for $4 less an hour seems surprising to me.
That said, the closest I ever came to fast food work was a dining hall in college, and it wasn’t busy all day or particularly hard work. Nor was instant memorization needed, we had slips people filled out with their order. Which is basically what the fast food places do now with the kiosk / app / or counter ordering. Maybe it’s also location dependent, but around me fast food is just slow now, so I do wonder if the “unable to hire” is more “I don’t actually want to pay for 5 people on shift anymore”. McDonalds seems to be moving that direction by just eliminating order takers in favor of kiosks and using their app.