John Boal is a coauthor of "Chicken Soup for the Volunteer’s Soul" and was the managing director in the West for the New York-based Ad Council for 20 years. He lives in Burbank, and his Bluesky handle is @jboal.bsky.social.
TO: Valued customers of COMA LA where our dishes are to die for
SUBJECT: Additional fees & surcharges to combat minimum wage hike
As many of our valued customers know – and have been chatting about in between nibbles of buckwheat noodle lightly dusted on a bed of fennel pollen with pickled peewee potatoes snuggled next to a crispy rack of spot prawn roe – the minimum wage for the city of Los Angeles increases every year, and as of July 1 is $18.42 per hour.
While the esteemed owners of COMA LA have struggled to keep our $995 price for our 13-course dinner paired with five wines and imported kombucha from Kazakhstan, we are still a bargain compared to a certain pop-up cuisine cult started by a ballyhooed cluster of chefs from a European country known more for bobsledding than Bolognese.
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Although our outrageously priced competition closed on June 26, rest assured that senior management at COMA LA will never close or depersonalize our customer experience that adds so much enjoyment to our one-of-a-kind specialties such as Drizzling Avocado Toast, Tartare Toast, Dubai Toast or our very latest, Toast Toast.
To thwart this anti-gastronomical, astronomical, governmental wage increase, we are obliged to implement a few additional fees and surcharges to our base to sustain our sustainability.
The add-ons may include:
- Dishwater Recycling Fee: $2.02
- Knife Sharpening Fee: $1.04
- Salt & Pepper Refill Fee: $3.31
- Parking Lot Carjacking Protection Fee: $2.05
- Farmers Market Mileage Fee: $1.75
- Tableside Candle Lighting Fee: $1.02
- Humanoid Napkin Folding Fee: $ .98
- Cupping Therapy Fee for Wait staff: $2.25
- Choir Practice Fee for Birthday Singing: $4.27
- Anger Management Fee for Celebrity Chef: $2.22
- Maintenance Fee for Rooftop Bee Colony: $1.89
- Complicated Order Fee: $3.55
A copy of the receipt itemizing the surcharges to your bill will be emailed to you to view at your leisure once you have fully digested your COMA LA cornucopia of peak perfection.
Paul Thornton
In addition to these minuscule charges that increase your bill by $26.35 per dinner, we will also implement a tiered seating surcharge to offset unforeseen staff snafus that crop up from shift-to-shift.
Diners arriving between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. will pay an “Early Bird” surcharge of $15 per person; diners arriving between 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. will pay a “Rush Hour” surcharge of $20 per person; and diners arriving after 7:30 p.m. will pay a “Peak Prima Donna” surcharge of $30 per person. Diners not arriving during their assigned reservation time will be provided a choice of a special assessment of $150 or a free Uber to Pink’s.
To assuage any concerns over these new fees – and to enhance our overall guest engagement – we have implemented an innovative digital concierge phone agent that we’ve named “Roma at COMA." Roma has advanced accent recognition and an ability to speak in conversational language to seamlessly interact with customers of all ages with a personal touch.
As a sign of good faith, management at COMA LA will not add a surcharge to cover the exorbitant cost of our AI agent. Thank you for your loyal patronage!
Jim Newton
