“Dear PoPville,

The $2 to-go fee post reminded me of the following story that I wanted to forget… but here it goes…

The obvious benefit of living off U Street allows for a unique opportunity to explore an abundance of new places/new dishes.

Sadly, a while back I got to experience a new way of being charged. :-/

Have you ever heard of a $1 surcharge for being served a drink “Neat?”

Three drinks we ordered and three times were charged a buck!

So I asked as to why and the waitress who was lovely and did a fine job told me that she would ask her manager.

There were a few of us at the table and we decided that we’ll pay the $3, if only to find out a logical answer.

We were curious and there must be one, right?

Our waitress returned and to our collective chagrin, there wasn’t.

And so our embarrassed waitress explained…

Because of the lack of ice to our order, the bartender supposedly added some extra booze to each drink.

Hmmmm, okay…

What if we ordered our Macallan on the rocks then? (A cardinal sin in my book, but for the sake of argument)…

Well, because of the addition of ice, the bartender actually adds even more alcohol to his drink order, thus our surcharge would have been $1.50 per each beverage.

“Oh. [beat]. Okay. Thank you. Happy to pay… Have a good night… It’s cool, really… Thanks for asking on our behalf.”

iPhones were out 10 seconds later to snap an image of our receipt — which I now pass on to you.

My point in writing is to learn — have you or your colleagues ever heard of/experienced such a thing?

Have I simply had the pleasure of missing out on such obnoxiousness?

It’s the principle of said thing that I want to know more about.

Nothing was advertising concerning any type of surcharge on drinks.

What’s next? A fee for serving food hot?”