The sticker on the menu

The summer menus go up in the middle of May, and on a fair number of them the season is a sticker.

The card underneath is last winter's. Same dishes in the same order, same photographs, same list of sides. Over each price there is a small white rectangle, applied straight, and at the right angle the old number is still readable through it.

Nothing else has moved. No dish has left the page and none has arrived.

The operator would not call it a price rise, and would have a case. Costs are up, a cold chain in a Gulf May is not a cold chain in February, and reprinting costs money and a fortnight. The sticker was available on a Thursday.

Then the regular reads it in about four seconds. They have ordered the same plate every other week for a year, they know the number, and the number they know is under a piece of paper.

What they take from that has little to do with the price. Prices go up, and most customers are more forgiving about it than operators expect. What they take from it is that the change was made in a way that hoped they would not look.

A season is meant to give something back. Two dishes that only make sense in the heat. A smaller portion at lunch, because nobody wants the winter one. A restaurant that raises a price and puts a new plate beside it is having a conversation with its regulars. One that raises the price and covers the old one has had that conversation on their behalf.

A summer menu that changes nothing but the number is not a season, it is a price rise in a costume, and the customer who can read the sticker has just been told what the operator thinks of them.