BARAD-DÛR — The lunch rush at The Snaga Café used to be the loudest hour in the Gorgoroth Industrial District. Line cooks barked orders over sizzling flat-tops, servers slung steaming plates of slow-roasted shoulder, and line-of-sight Uruk-hai regularly fought over the last order of marrow bones.
Today, the dining room is dead silent, save for the low, depressing crunch of a goblin chewing on a dry piece of stale hardtack.
“We were so back,” sighed chef and co-owner Grishnákh, wiping down the greasy counter of his small, family-operated eatery. “We had fresh legs, braised flanks, actual rosemary, not just that watery maggoty bread. Now? We’re taking meat right back off the menu. I can’t afford it.”
The sudden menu change comes on the heels of Dark Lord Sauron’s new “Mordor First” trade agenda, which slapped a crippling 140% protectionist tariff on all imported Gondorian mutton, Ithilien lamb, and livestock originating from the Free Peoples of the West.
For independent restaurant owners like Grishnákh and his brother Shagrat, the protectionist tax has turned their dream of running a neighborhood diner into a financial nightmare.
“The Dark Lord says he’s protecting domestic producers,” Shagrat said, gesturing wildly out the front window to a desolate, ash-covered wasteland. “What domestic producers?! Look out there! There are zero sheep in Gorgoroth! It’s all volcanic rock, sulfur pits, and four-foot-wide giant spiders. We don’t have pastures. We have magma!”
According to a public statement issued by the Mouth of Sauron, the tariffs are designed to end Mordor’s reliance on foreign supply chains. “For too long, lazy Gondorian herders have dumped subsidized mutton into our trench networks,” the press release read. “Why buy sheep from the West when Mordor’s independent diners can serve locally forged iron-ration biscuits and high-protein ash-crust? One does not simply walk into Mordor without paying a 140% ad valorem import tax.”
While corporate commissaries in the Barad-dûr citadel can absorb the price hikes, small mom-and-pop operations like The Snaga Café are getting crushed.
Before the trade war, a crate of choice Gondorian mutton cost 15 Silver Pieces. Under the new tariff structure, that same crate costs upwards of 36 Silver—a price bump Grishnákh says he simply can’t pass on to his working-class Uruk clientele.
“Our regulars are grunt infantry and tower guards,” Grishnákh explained, adjusting his stained apron. “They make eight copper bits a week. If I raise the price of a mutton sandwich, they’ll burn the building down. If I keep it on the menu at cost, we go bankrupt by the end of the month. We’re getting squeezed from both sides.”
To make matters worse, Mordor Customs agents, under strict oversight from the Nazgûl, have clamped down on local black-market trade. Last Thursday, a midnight delivery of un-tariffed Rohirrim lamb was seized at the Black Gate and incinerated on the spot.
Desperate to keep the doors open, the brothers attempted to pivot to local, tax-free ingredients, but the feedback from diners was swift and brutal.
“They told us to improvise with regional fauna,” Shagrat muttered, holding up a charred, unappetizing skewer. “We tried serving Shelob-web-wrapped cave-rat last Tuesday. It tasted like despair and burnt hair. Two Uruks threw their chairs through the front window, and an off-duty berserker threatened to put us on the menu. Don’t even ask about dwarf meat, the wholesale prices are out of control and it takes three hours to tenderize.”
With profit margins completely obliterated and supply lines frozen, The Snaga Café has been forced to slash staff hours and temporarily suspend its popular Sunday carvery.
“I didn’t open a restaurant to get dragged into macroeconomic trade disputes,” Grishnákh said softly, looking out over his empty tables as the Eye of Sauron swept back and forth across the horizon. “I just wanted to feed hungry Orcs a honest, hot meal. He may be the Great Eye, but honestly? He’s completely blind to what it takes to run a small business on the ground.”
