Price tags · Puzzle #40 · Sunday, November 8
Price tags: the answers
Four questions, each with one true number. Here they are with their answers, how to reason each one out, and where the number comes from. Play today's Price tags.
1. A week at Shake Shack: How much did an average company-run Shake Shack sell in a week in 2025?
Photo: Missvain, CC0 - Counts
- Company-run Shacks
The answer: about $76,000. Shake Shack's average weekly sales were flat in 2025, as higher menu prices offset fewer guests.
Napkin math - 400customers a day
- ×$20each
- ×7days a week
≈$56k
The answer comes to about $76,000 (Shake Shack Inc.). On a napkin, take 400 customers a day, times $20 each, times 7 days a week, and you get about $56,000. The estimate is 1.4 times too low, close enough to score 8.7 out of 10. Any guess from $38,000 to $150,000 scores 7.0 or better, because the game only counts how many times off you are.
Source: Shake Shack Inc. (SEC Form 10-K), Shake Shack Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025
2. Valentine's Day: How much were Americans expected to spend on Valentine's Day in total in 2026, according to the National Retail Federation?
Photo: Rose Abrams, CC BY 4.0 - Planning to celebrate
- 55% of consumers
- Biggest category
- Jewelry
The answer: about $29.1 billion. It beat 2025's record of $27.5 billion, and gifts for romantic partners made up $14.5 billion of it.
Napkin math - 165Mpeople who celebrate (about half of us)
- ×$150each on gifts and a night out
≈$24.8B
The answer comes to about $29.1 billion (National Retail Federation). To reason it out, take 165 million people who celebrate (about half of us), times $150 each on gifts and a night out, and you get about $25 billion. That comes out 1.2 times too low, and a guess that far off still scores 9.3 out of 10. Because only the ratio counts, anything between $15 billion and $58 billion was worth 7.0 or more.
Source: National Retail Federation, Valentine’s Day Spending Expected to Reach New Records
3. A week at Texas Roadhouse: How much did one company-run Texas Roadhouse take in during an average week in 2025?
- Counts
- Dine-in and to-go
- Open
- Dinner every day, lunch on weekends at most
The answer: about $162,000. About $22,000 of an average Texas Roadhouse's weekly sales in 2025 were to-go orders.
Napkin math - 800guests a day
- ×$25a meal each
- ×7days a week
≈$140k
The answer comes to about $162,000 (Texas Roadhouse, Inc.). On a napkin, take 800 guests a day, times $25 a meal each, times 7 days a week, and you get about $140,000. It's 1.2 times too low, which as a guess would still have scored 9.4 out of 10. Because only the ratio counts, anything between $81,000 and $320,000 was worth 7.0 or more.
4. NYC street-cleaning tickets: New York City wrote about 1.8 million tickets for parking on street-cleaning days in its 2025 fiscal year. What were those tickets worth in fines?
Photo: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Public domain - The rule
- Move your car for the street sweeper, on the days the sign says
The answer: about $119 million. Street cleaning was the city's most common parking ticket, second only to school-zone speed cameras among all violations.
Napkin math - 1.8Mtickets written
- ×$65a ticket
≈$117M
The answer comes to about $119 million (New York City Department of Finance). Without looking anything up, take 1.8 million tickets written, times $65 a ticket, and you get about $120 million. That is almost exactly the real number, and a guess like it scores 9.9 out of 10. The target is wider than it looks: every guess between $59 million and $240 million scores at least 7.0.
