The Riyadh I knew twenty years ago was not looking for answers in the ledgers of the International Monetary Fund or in the charts of the central bank.

The Saudi street had its own indicator. You paid three riyals, ate a warm shawarma sandwich with a light wrap of hot sauce, and left the shop reassured that the world was in order—and that the riyal in your pocket still carried enough weight and purchasing power to satisfy you.

Today, that same sandwich sits on the shelves at 9 riyals.

The story of this silent increase, captured by Dr. Sultan bin Jreis in a concise post, is not merely a lament for an era of cheap prices gone by. It is a political and economic dissection of what happened beneath the roof of Saudi society over two decades.

Dr. bin Jreis tells us that overall inflation in Saudi Arabia rose by 84% over two decades. Had shawarma followed the same path, its price today would be no more than five and a half riyals.

But it chose to move in harsh leaps, recording an increase of 200%.

This is where the observer pauses: what happened inside this little flatbread for it to outpace the official inflation figures and run faster than them?

The answer is that a shawarma sandwich is not merely a meal; it is an “economic document” wrapped in bread.

Several parties sit inside this sandwich, invisible to the eye:

The chicken and oil imported from overseas sit amid global supply-chain crises.

The property owner sits there, having raised the shop’s rent on Riyadh’s overheated streets. The worker sits there too, along with his salary and recruitment costs.

Regulatory costs, value-added tax, electricity, and water also take their seats. Finally, a third party joined you—one that did not exist a decade ago:

Digital delivery apps, which take their share before the meal reaches your hand.

All of them sit with you at the table with every bite, taking their value from the very same banknote.

Here lies the intellectual tragedy that bin Jreis explains so deftly:

The gap between the “language of official figures” and the “memory of the street.”

When official bulletins announce that inflation has fallen to 1.8%, citizens smile bitterly and ask: “Why, then, aren’t prices falling?”

Bin Jreis compares it to a car that was traveling at 120 kilometers per hour and then slowed to 20.

The car has not begun moving backward; it is simply continuing forward more slowly.

Inflation does not mean that rising prices have ended. It means only that the rate at which your pocket is being consumed has become less severe.

The 100 riyals that bought 33 sandwiches in 2002 now—using the same banknote with the same number printed on it—buy only 11 sandwiches.

Purchasing power has eroded because we do not live inside complex indicators; we live among the things we buy and eat every day.

Perhaps twenty years from now, a father will sit showing his children a picture of a 9-riyal sandwich, and the children will laugh in amazement at how cheap things were in those days.

But the real lesson left by bin Jreis’s analysis is this: economics is not merely a set of dry equations in graduate-school classrooms; it is a story told slowly over a shawarma platter.