A neighbourhood restaurant has introduced a modest surcharge for customers arriving with unrealistic expectations about the cost of an evening out.
The optimism charge joins the service charge, optional contribution and small amount required to keep the small amounts administratively viable. Diners may remove the charge by explaining their disappointment directly to somebody carrying hot plates.
Owner Daniel Pruce says his business is doing everything possible to balance rising overheads with the public’s belief that prices should remain somewhere around their memory of 2011.
The new menu offers a reassuringly affordable main course accompanied by vegetables priced individually, as if the carrots have recently received professional qualifications. Water is complimentary, although the bottle it arrives in suggests a complicated backstory.
Customers have responded by ordering one starter between two and using the phrase “we had a late lunch”, a statement which has never survived contact with the dessert menu.
Pruce insists the restaurant remains accessible to everyone. Its most popular experience is now standing outside, reading the menu and telling your partner it looks lovely before going home to make toast with the ceremonial care of a tasting course.
