Last night, I didn’t feel like cooking, and we’re out of charcoal for grilling, so we went to our local pub, which is now allowed to seat diners indoors at half capacity. Yay! The staff was half what it used to be, but the service was just as pleasant and efficient as it always was. We only ordered one appetizer (which is enough to feed a hungry roofer after a hard day’s work), one “early bird” fish & chips special, and two pints apiece. The fish & chips entrée is always on the menu, and always comes with a house salad and coleslaw, but the early bird special also comes with a dessert, for a buck less than it would normally cost, w/o the dessert. Turns out all four pints showed up on the bill as half price, so … damn, was that an inexpensive dinner bill.
The waitress was so apologetic when she had to inform us that the cheesecake dessert she thought they had, that we ordered for take-out, because there was no way we would have had enough stomach capacity left to eat it while we were there. The other dessert they did still have was some sort of chocolate swirled pumpkin (something) with pecans, so we said “sounds good to us.” Turns out it came with an extra 2 oz. container of pecan halves in a nice sticky brown sugar syrup to pour all over it, and it’s a 4″ square, which I could never finish by myself in one sitting. Good for sharing, though.
Of course the waitress got a really good tip. It’s not her fault that some menu items were discounted from their normal prices, and even before all the COVID shutdowns of restaurants, we’d tip based on what the bill would have been. Now, even for pub grub, we chuck in an extra buck or two. Wait staff, bartenders, runners, and even the owners are hurting. I’m doing my part to help keep them afloat.
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