LIke Rip Van Swindle...

So, fellow Pilgrims, I, The Chuckmeister, your Scribe Without Portfolio, your Roving Reporter, decided today to venture out into the "wide world" of almost-post-pandemic Taxifornia and get me some of my favorite victuals.

That's an "olde timey" word for food.

But you already knew that...

So I headed out to "Islands Burgers and Brews."  These folks have always provided their clientele with a decent mid-range burger and fries, plus a nice bar, for a fair price, so I decided to throw my business their way.

So for the very first time in more than a year, I went in and tried to sit down and have a meal.  I'd been looking forward to this day, and I was drooling at the thought.  I say "tried" to sit down, as I was preceded by a tiny teenage girl covered in a mask and gloves and Saran wrap with a rag and a bottle of sanitizer who "spritzed" all the way to my seat.  And then "spritzed" the table top and both boothes (didn't know that was the plural of "booth," didja?), even though it was fairly apparent I was dining alone.  I was concerned she might "spritz" me.  Overkill?  Ummm, yes...

The table top was bare.  Absolutely bare.  A sea of Formica.  And in place of the pictures of surfers we used to enjoy, there was a yuuuuge URL.  Right there in the middle, staring at me.  I asked where the ketchup and mustard and salt and pepper and napkins and menu were.  She said they are no more, as everything now is single-serve packages.  The kind you get in a fast food joint.  Which this place didn't used to be.

But apparently now is...

So the nice wait-person popped up and asked if I'd care to take a picture of the URL in the middle of the table top, or would I care for a menu.  Ummm, yeah, what, I said?  Take a picture?  I think I'll take a menu.  She asked if I was sure, as the menus are now single-use, like that's a bad thing.  And oh, they're also 4-color, tri-fold and expensive, so if I could just take a picture with my phone, nomsayin,' it would be all the better for them. (Jeeesh!  Gimme' the friggin' menu, and make it snappy!)  I asked for the menu.  

And my favorite Mai Tai.  Yummm!

So she arrived with the menu and my drink.  I gave the menu a quick check, and yes, they still had the basic, "Big Wave" cheeseburger.  Alarmed at the major bump in price, I asked if it still came with fries, ashamed of myself for having asked, knowing full well that it certainly would.  I mean, what burger in a mid-rangey burger joint doesn't come with fries?  Hello!!!  

Except it didn't.  No longer. 

I looked at the menu, did a quick tabulation in my mental adding machine, and determined that the $8.79 "Big Wave" burger and fries from a year ago...was now offered up for a tidy $10.59.  For the burger.  Without the fries.  And the fries now cost a tidy $6.75.  Together they bust the budget at $17.34.  

The price of a basic burger and fries at Islands has...wait for it...DOUBLED!

I made mention of that fact to the wait-person (a nice young lady, if I can still say that), and she said, matter-of-factly, that it was due to an "increase in the minimum wage."  Well okay, then.  That makes everything alright, I guess.  You double the price of your basic burger and fries, and state to your customers that it's okay, since your costs have gone up.  Like it's their fault.  

"I'm sorry your new Honda is $78,000, Mrs. Jones, but we had to give our staff a raise, you know..."

And I guess everyone's income has gone up, too, so we'll all be able to pay for it, right?  RIGHT?

I have a daughter in the restaurant industry.  I predicted to her when this whole thing started a year or so ago that there might be 30-40% fewer restaurants remaining in our Fair Land when the dust finally settled.  I had not considered that after that dust settled, your ordinary customer might not be able to afford the food offered up by the remaining few restaurants.  At least in California, and in many other "Blue" states, which closed down tight, and then apparently gave the store to their employees in wage increases as an inducement for them to come back to work.  

Notice, that didn't happen in Florida.  And a quick check with their website shows the meals at Islands there are still priced the way they were a year ago.

I'm thinking that if someone decided to dump major money on a meal, he/she/it just might choose other than a mid-range burger joint.  Put simply, the "Big Wave" cheeseburger and fries, plus a Mai Tai, and a tip, used to cost me a $20.00, with tip, out-the-door.  Now?  $40.00!  Forty Bucks!  For a cheeseburger, fries and a drink.  Same deal, almost doubled in price. 

You may disagree here, but $40 gets you a seat at a white tablecloth restaurant.  Or has everything changed that much during my enforced "Rip Van Winkle" incarceration, I wondered?   

My appetite having thus been ruined at Islands, I paid for my Mai Tai, left a nice tip, and politely made my way out the door.  I went next door to Romano's Margarita Grill, a nice, sit-down, white-tablecloth-ey restaurant.  I ordered up my favorite "Pasta Rustico," a side salad and a glass of claret.  My bill, out the door, with healthy tip, was $42.00.  Lemme's see here; dining in North Korea, fries extra, or a nice sit-down meal in ??? 

Nothing against Islands, or any other restaurant finding itself in this same bind, but do you think their recent decisions to try and off-load their problems on their long-suffering clients might have an impact on their future business?????  

(EPILOGUE:  I told the wait-person at Islands that I'd be writing in my blog about my experience there.  She was so excited to learn that she'd be famous (!).  She asked to read it.  Of course, I said.  What do you think, Tina?  Happy with your new increase in pay?)