Local LID Levity: Chef Pansear’s Place

This week’s “Locals Only” applies LID logic to dining:

Welcome to the LID Café, an upscale Ocean Shores eatery, with some progressive options and pricings, modeled after the highly successful Ocean Shores Street LID.
Let’s look in:
At table 1, an active young couple orders a “light meal.” He gets a small piece of broiled salmon, and she orders a Caesar’s Salad.
“Excellent choice,” says this table’s waiter, Mack. “Chef Pansear’s speciality.”
At the next table, a family of six orders assorted meals, including child-sized orders of burgers and macaroni and cheese for the kids, broiled salmon for Mom and a 12-ounce steak for Dad. “I’m starving!” he beamed.
“Excellent choices,” says this table’s waitress, Colleen. “Chef Pansear’s specialties.”
The adventurous, middle-aged couple at Table 3 ordered Patch-Fried Razor Clams and “Buried Beef Roll.”
“We know,” the woman cut off the waitress. “Chef’s specialties.”
No one cared much for the water, this being Ocean Shores, but otherwise all went well, with soups, salads and appetizers flying out to tables.
When the main courses starting arriving, things got really interesting . . .
“Excuse me,” the Mom at Table 2 said to her server. “I know we specifically order off the kids menu, but these burgers are gigantic – and her macaroni and cheese alone could serve a family of six!”
The waitress just smiled and said “better too much than not enough, right?”
A muscular young bus boy came over just then, struggling under the weight of the dish as he delivered Dad’s steak. “Holy cow, so to speak,” marveled the diner. “I thought I ordered a 12-ounce steak – this thing has to be 3 pounds!”
“Chef got some extra in, he’ll give you a deal,” the waitress winked, and darted away.
“What do you suppose that means?” the man said to his wife.
“Who knows,” she responded. “But we’re starving, and it’s too late to go somewhere else, let’s eat.”
Over at Table 3, the man said his order didn’t look like Patch-Fried Razor Clams. “Sorry, we had to substitute,” Mack explained. “That’s the Cracked Alligator, with a light, invigorating Chip Seal. “
“Well, smells good,” said the adventurous diner. “As long as it costs the same.”
“Oh, certainly,” the waiter said. Dashing away, he added a mumbled: “More or less . . .”
The broiled salmons turned out to be gigantic, and the Caesar’s Salad also had shrimp, huge chunks of cheese and pasta: “That’s Ravelled Liguini, another of Chef Pansear’s favorites.”
All this was “mild confusion,” compared to the “mad chaos,” when the bills came.
“Hey, why is my salmon on the bill as $16.99? It says $12.99, on the menu.”
“Yeah, and this kids meal that was supposed to be $6.99 on the menu is $11.99, on our bill.”
“That was a mistake,” said Mack and Colleen, in unison. “When we put the menus together, we forgot to factor in the cost of cooking.”
Things really got weird, at the cash register.
Two couples who ordered the exact same thing compared their bills. One came to $35, the other came to $60.
“What gives?” they wondered.
The servers handed out sheets of paper, titled The Mack-Colleen Meal Assessment.
It turns out that the couple with the more expensive bill were sitting by the window, they were hungrier and they were served first. So, even though they had the exact-same meals, they were assessed a higher bill, for the view, having a greater need fulfilled, and the speed of service.
The man with the $60 bill threw his hands up in frustration. “What-ever!” he said, practically tossing his credit card in the direction of Mack and Colleen. “Just ring it up, even though I can’t believe I’m getting charged $60 for a $35 meal!”
“Actually,” said Mack, as he swiped the card, “we won’t know your final bill until tomorrow.”
“So we’ll just hold your credit card information,” Colleen added with a smile, “and if it’s a little teeny-bit more. . . .”

tscanlon@northcoastnews.com