Should It Be Illegal For Mexican Restaurants To Charge For Chips And Salsa And Why Is The Answer Yes?

This week, my fiancée and I found ourselves with an evening free, so we decided to go out and do something.

My first couple of suggestions — drive go-karts or go to Guitar Center so she can watch me test out some guitars I can't afford — were promptly shot down, so I went with Plan C.

"Alright, I guess we could go try out that new Mexican place," I said.

This was met with a stamp of approval, and so the plan to try this new Mexican joint was penciled into our schedule.

Now, I'm the kind of person who does a little menu reconnaissance before going to a restaurant. I like to go in with a game plan, and this is especially true at a Mexican place.

I love Mexican food and am in awe of how the Mexican people took about 8 to 10 ingredients and remixed them in a bunch of different ways, all of them fantastic. I just like the ingenuity of it all. Like how someone plunked a burrito in the deep-fryer and — boom — the chimchanga was born.

So, I pulled up this new place's menu and began digging into it, and what I saw in the appetizer section of it horrified me:

Chips and Salsa - $5

I rubbed my eyes like a cartoon hobo lying in the gutter who just saw something he couldn't believe, but, no, it was true. This place wants to charge me for chips and salsa, something I always thought was a non-negotiable goodwill gesture on behalf of the restaurant.

We haven't already gone yet, and already this place is going to have to put on one hell of a performance to win me back.

There's a disturbing trend of Mexican restaurants charging customers for formerly complimentary chips and salsa, and it needs to stop. (Getty Images)

I've been seeing this kind of thing more and more and I don't like it. I get that the restaurant biz is tough, but making paying customers pay more for things that are often free like bread or chips and sales is bush league.

Frankly, it should be illegal. I might even call my congressman about this… once I figure out who my congressman is.

I mean, I'm waiting for the day a Chinese place asks me to pony up some cash for fortune cookies (which I might skip because the last time we got Chinese, my fiancée's cookie told her to keep a journal, which is more of a homework assignment than it is a fortune).

How much more does it cost to put one of those weird, red plastic baskets full of chips on my table with a little bowl of salsa for me to ruin my appetite with? A couple of bucks, and the restaurant will get it back when I order a burrito so large that you win a t-shirt if you can finish it.

The times they are a-changing, as Bob Dylan once whined, and he's right, but I hate to see them change like that.

But aside from the chips and salsa thing, this place looks pretty damn good, and I'm excited to try it.