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| An (almost) empty restaurant. Photo: Daquella manera, Flickr |
Hanna Raskin's first waitressing job was at a small Greek diner in Michigan. In the 15 years since, she's worked at a chop suey joint in Mississippi, an exclusive Arizonan country club, a vegetarian eatery and an Irish pub. She currently picks up odd shifts at a seafood eatery in the North Carolina mountains, where she cracks crab legs for helpless tourists. This is the fifth in a series of posts.
When a hostess beckons diners into a restaurant, her standard greeting is "Let me show you to your table." But to the chagrin of staffers and customers alike, a seemingly increasing number of eaters are taking the "your table" idiom quite literally. They exercise what some might call a sense of entitlement, threatening to disrupt service and the reservations system.
Traditional restaurant etiquette holds that diners behave as though they were seated at someone else's house: That's why we in the industry call them "guests." But as the cost of eating out has gone up and its novelty has faded, formality has given way to a different model. Diners now comfortably rearrange restaurant furniture, rarely asking permission to push tables together, park chairs in aisles or stick unwanted planters, vases and votives where they don't belong.
Self-appointed interior decorators are a headache for us servers, who have to contend with the diners in our paths. Still, that's an inconvenience most pros can handle. The bigger problem is customers who glibly overstay their welcome, assuming the table belongs to them until they deign to leave it. These campers are responsible for too-long waits at hostess stands and a tremendous amount of aggravation.
It's not just servers who suffer when a pair of iced-tea drinkers stays put: Since restaurants can't sell another entrée until a new party replaces them, such leisurely eaters help inflate menu prices (OK, maybe not by much, but we're all checking our sofa cushions for stray change these days).
Other than subtly scowling in the direction of the offending table, there's very little restaurant workers can do to discourage camping, which is why it's incumbent upon diners to police themselves. An unwritten rule -- at least to many servers -- is that there's a basic equation underlying how long a customer "owns" his or her table, but few diners seem to know it. It goes like this: $1 in food and drink equals one minute at the table. That would mean dinner for two at a mid-range casual chain like Red Lobster would last about 42 minutes (server errors and kitchen foul-ups excepted, of course.)
Not everyone agrees with this, but from this server's perspective, it's an eminently fair model, since it works out to just about minimum wage: Counting prep and clean-up, the hypothetical Red Lobster server will recoup $8 for an hour's worth of work. While we servers understand that diners have a real need to relax after a long day, my co-workers and I figure you're paying for food and service, not a hotel room. That doesn't mean a restaurant isn't a good venue for a leisurely meal: It just means diners shouldn't let an hour or so pass after their plates, silver and -- depending on the busser's aggressiveness -- water glasses have been cleared.
But what do you think? Is this math totally off? Is it unfair for a restaurant to expect diners to give their tables back? Who really suffers when customers refuse to leave?
| Yes | |
|---|---|
| No | |
| Maybe (tell us more in comments) |
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7-23-2009 @11:25PM Consumer007 said... I am so glad I found this article, and now I'm going to sound off.
Years ago I went to a very busy and popular greasy spoon in Denver called Pete's Kitchen (on Colfax). They usually had a line out the door.
We waited our turn and got a table. Well, then, while people ahead of us were getting THEIR food, we had to wait 50 minutes for ours, which was fine, EXCEPT
when little beeyotch waitress comes out with the food after giving us no updates all the while and no apologies, she has the nerve to tell us as she slams the plates on the table that we need to HURRY UP because they need the table for other patrons.
You know what? I don't care how much of a jerk some of your patrons have been, and I'm sorry for that, but that is part of your territory as wait people, you need to learn to deal.
When we pay for a meal we have a RIGHT to stay at that table as long as we are not causing a disturbance, and I mean for 3 hours if necessary.
So anyhow I told her we most certainly WOULD NOT be hurrying up and she could deal with it.
Then she has the NERVE to go get a policeman at the door and come over and ask me if there is a problem. So of course, being smarter than she was, I smiled and said, why no officer, I just advised the waitress that we wouldn't be leaving until we finished our meal. He smiled and walked away, but I wasn't through with that hag yet.
I not only got my friends to agree to stay until close, but I called the manager over and I asked her to confirm if this was the way they conducted business "Here's your Food now Slam it and GET LOST". She said they were busy. I said that wasn't our problem. She tried to back the waiter up.
Well not only haven't we been back, I wrote to every restaurant reporter in local newspapers, called them on shows, wrote them up on websites and lost them a TON of business. Critics and experts couldn't WAIT to chime in on these articles about how stupid they were.
Waitstaff I don't care what you really think DON'T YOU EVER tell me, a paying customer how you need the table and I need to leave unless you want to lose your employer a lot of money and possibly your job.
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7-24-2009 @1:02AM stressjean said... Here is the thing, people who are not in this industry don't realize how hard the job of a server is. Most shifts are at least 6-8 hours. In that 6-8 hours they are on thier feet almost at a full run. Think of a basketball game and that is only and hour. They must be pleasent the whole time, and remember an amazing amount of information. They must time courses for sometimes as many as 4 tables that are all on different stages of service. People who camp are stoping this person from turning thier table and making money.
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7-24-2009 @2:12AM jac said... here is the thing. most people outside of this industry have been in this industry before. 6-8 hours a day? try 90 a week in other jobs. i did my time and chose not to make a career out of it because it sucked. maybe this industry just draws complainers...
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7-24-2009 @1:14PM Phil Novara said... While it is not unfair, lets look from a diners perspective.
Eating out has become a social event, the meal is no longer the focus, just a conversation piece. We enjoy friends, family, and relationships out to dinner...which nobody wants to be rushed through.
So the old ways of "move em' in-move em' out" have changed making it harder to turn tables. So what do you do?
In creating a successful restaurant, certianly you dont want to kick patrons out for "staying too long." Then again you want to turn tables. I think the solution here is 2 things:
Just Ask...
1. Because of the social standards, servers are scared to ask patrons to kindly move. When in reality, most reasonable diners will not be offended by this (obviously gauge the situation).
Find another spot...
2. Rather than kick patrons out, relocate them to another area. If there is no more room, than your up a creek.
This is a tough situation in general, and by engaging you can turn tables. Dont be afraid to talk, dont be afraid to ask. People will understand your working if they generally like you.
Phil Novara
www.urbanbacon.com
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7-24-2009 @2:58PM JJ said... Wouldn't it be easier if you just threw an egg timer on the table? That way we'd know just what *you* expect of the dining experience.
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7-24-2009 @4:42PM Amy said... I totally agree with Moose. That's exactly what I was going to say. If the restaraunt is not crowed - i.e. empty tables and no one waiting, my friends and I don't feel bad "camping", otherwise, if it is not empty and we do end up staying (which is almost never, but it has happened) long after we paid the bill and stopped eating, we tend to at least increase the tip. That's why I voted that it was "yes" on self-enforced - the key word being *self*, meaning it's up to us.
And I *really* don't see these posts as anti-customer service, they are just giving another perspective. I am not a waitress and I find it unbelievable how little awareness people have of their environment. Not just in restaraunts, but everywhere. Sometimes I'll bring something up to friends or family and they'll go "Oh, I never thought of that!" I think that's what these posts are like. As some others have mentioned, if you've been waiting to be seated for an hour and you see people with plates cleared and bill paid sitting around and it's been like that for a long time, will you just be like "Oh, that's OK. They can camp til the cows come home. I don't mind waiting another hour."? I don't think so.
Again - this was about SELF enforcement, not wait staff and restaraunts kicking you out. I think some people are taking this way out of proportion.
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7-24-2009 @6:58PM BitterB said... I'm going to have to agree with many of the other commenters that this series is really getting absurd. Every post seems to become even more anti-customer. I join the others who question whether Ms. Raskin should continue in an industry that requires so much direct interaction with consumers. It almost comes off that she's hostile to any patron at her table who is a constant risk for cheating her out of the tips she feels she deserves.
I'm all for tipping generously and demonstrating how pleased you are as a customer through not just a decent tip, but also making things fairly easy on the server. But Ms. Raskin's constant focus on tips is just really over-the-top if you're a regular reader of Slashfood. It's hard to identify where it went from "I agree" to "Okay, we get it, but it's probably still worth saying" to "We've heard this before please stop" to "Jesus, just how much is she expecting in these massive tips, especially is you linger a moment too long?" Point is that it did.
At this point, I find myself hoping this series is over even though I am actually quite fascinated by the business and service side of the food industry. It is a curiosity, and one I suspect more Slashfood readers would be more inclined to read about if there wasn't a healthy dose of either guilt trip on the side, or outright hostility to consumers who don't conform exactly to the writer's standards.
I'm someone who spent a recent lunch pondering how much a table setting cost, trying to get an estimate for how many dinners it would take to pay it off while factoring in for other overhead and then the hopes of a profit at the end. If this column can manage to make someone who spends their meals thinking about these things role their eyes, it really is time to reconsider how these posts are written - whether that includes reconsidering the topic, tone, or author is up to the editors to decide. This series has simply become far too negative.
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7-25-2009 @4:43PM Matt said... A restaurant is a business, and a business exists (in most cases) to create profit. In a restaurant, you do that by serving food that pleases diners in an atmosphere that pleases them at a healthy margin. If you turn the tables over fewer times per service, the prices have to be higher, as our columnist suggests. This stuff is always on the minds of the people owning and running the business.
The problem is that these issues are FURTHEST from the mind of the patrons, who usually simply want good food and a friendly atmosphere (defined in context: an upscale white-cloth dining room isn't the right place for 15 rowdy football fans, just like T.G.I. Friday's isn't where most folks headed to the opera would go).
What grates about this series is that our columnist is not just advising us about the restaurant's priorities, but implying that they should be OUR priorities as well. Customers who undertip are resource drains who have to be cut off to staunch losses. Table campers are resource drains who need to get out so the table can be turned. Free refills take the employees' time and typically do not lead to more revenue for server or restaurant. Properly preparing the plates for diners with stated food allergies "a time-consuming task that can feel more like nursing than serving -- and one that often goes unacknowledged when it comes time to leave a tip." In other words, it costs too much.
In a cold capitalistic sense, the proper remedy in those cases is to tell the diner, "No, we cannot accommodate your allergy needs," but of course then the diner and his or her party will leave the restaurant, and the business loses even more revenue. And there's the rub: these techniques that restaurants want to use to increase profits only work if the customers either don't mind or don't notice. When customers want to spend more time at a table, or have special dietary needs, they'll come back again and again if they had a great experience and were treated well, and they won't if they get the sense (all too present in Ms. Raskin's column) that they're merely resource drains who are not sufficiently contributing to the bottom line.
They're not THERE to contribute to the bottom line. They're there to eat. The more we're told that we have to behave certain ways to maximize your profit, the less likely we are to bother at all.
The industry has itself to blame in part, at least, because it adopted unprofitable incentives to bring in more diners (free refills, agreement to accommodate special diets or allergy requirements) that it might now like to take back, but can't since competing restaurants will maintain those amenities. They don't want to raise prices or wages in this economy, and they need table turnover in busy locations. I understand all of that and I sympathize because I enjoy eating out occasionally.
But I don't do it to inflate your bottom line. I do it to have a nice meal. I don't have an answer, but I do know that being made to feel like a resource drain instead of a valued customer and guest (not one who "didn't rate" because I took 5 minutes too long, or didn't tip by your secret unwritten formula, or who required a special plate because my doctor says it's what I need to breathe properly). If other people feel as I do and stay away because we're not ready to be cogs in the industrial food machine, the situation's only going to get worse.
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7-25-2009 @5:46PM HonorAWish said...
I prefer the "seating times" of better restaurants. Not only are they very exclusive, & service oriented, (THE WHOLE PURPOSE of DINING vs eating OUT)but they allow easier scheduling & variety of other evening functions, with your social group. It is rare that one even encounters the likes of this particular blogger, in such an environment. If you expect your clients to be greeted, seated, order, chat, be served, relax, and enjoy more than one course; all within 45 minutes; please open a McDonald's.
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7-26-2009 @3:09AM Fredric Williams said... The problem discussed here is one which is endemic to the American society. Instead of focusing on the customer, the focus is on price, cost, and profit. The result is a constant deterioration in service. Whether this is a consequence of the dreadful stupidity of business schools or simply the low intelligence of business owners, their managers and employees is difficult to determine.
But it appears we have turned into a nation of lazy time-servers who expect to be paid generously, something that occurs regularly at the upper levels of large bureaucracies (the big banks are a case in point), and in unionized environments (the failed auto companies are a case in point), in the government (political appointees are the best example), and, come to think of it, nearly everywhere corporations and government and non-profits have gained control. Welcome to communism, American style.
As Polish workers used to say during the communist era "If we lie down or stand erect, a thousand zlotys we expect.
We see it everywhere -- not only or especially in restaurants. When we call a business, we either get an endless series of computer choices (push one for Spanish) or are put on endless hold with a message that "please hold, your business is important to us" or someone whose English is nearly unintelligible. The reason is that business wants to shift costs to us -- they value their time, not ours. Clearly they don't want to maximize service. Only the lack of competition permits this travesty.
I never saw this so clearly until I moved to South Korea. When I needed fuel oil, a plumber, repair to a camera, an internet connection, delivery of a bookcase, or a moving company able to pack and ship my things to the US, the response was immediate, polite, and reasonably priced. The plumber and fuel oil were delivered in 30 minutes, the camera fixed and the bookcase delivered the next day. The internet was installed and the moving company came, packed, and took things away the same day.
When I returned to the US, it took nine days to get an internet connection. I was appalled. What happened to the country that was once the world's richest and most productive?
In Korea, there is no tipping anywhere. This does much to prevent conflict between servers and customers. Restaurants are often very small and no one is rushed. It is invariably a pleasant experience, often at a very modest price.
I don't think restaurants are particularly bad in the US, and perhaps it is the fact that the wait staff earns money directly from the customer that makes them so sensitive to table turns. One solution -- common around the world -- is to automatically add a "service charge" of 15-20% to the bill.
Perhaps restaurants will follow the practice of one of the worst managed of all US businesses: the airlines. The airlines charge extra for baggage, charge extra for baggage over 50 pounds (it used to be 70), charge extra for paper tickets. Perhaps we will see restaurants charge extra for table time when the bill does not exceed $1 a minute. It looks like we are headed that way.
But, for me, I'd rather see businesses built on providing the best service at the lowest cost -- something that requires real management skill -- not just increasing profits (or server's tips) by reducing service or increasing prices.
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7-27-2009 @12:27PM May said... As a European, I am somewhat bemused about American dining habits. We once went out to dinner in a really nice restaurant in Las Vegas with an American couple. A good dinner with friends is a full-evening happening wherever I have been in Europe, so that was what we were expecting. After dessert, just as I was thinking of coffee, one of our American friends looked at her watch and exclaimed: "Oh my gosh! We have been here for almost two hours - I have never spent so much time having dinner before!" We burst out laughing, thinking she was joking. Sadly, she wasn't.
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7-29-2009 @2:02AM n brown said... This is a response to jac's comment. Apparently you have never waited a table. Serving is not an easy job. Bear in mind I am not complaining just enlightening. A servers shift can be anywhere from 4 to 12 hours during which the server has to greet, beverage, app,salad, main course, dessert, drop a check, take a check, make change and or run a credit card, and so on. All this on possibly up to 6 tables. In the process of coordinating all this the server may be making salads,drinks, desserts, waiting at the bar for alcoholic beverages,clearing tables, refilling drinks, mopping messes,making small talk with the guests,standing in line to pick up food at the cooks discretion all the while standing, running, squatting,lifting heaving trays and avoiding small children which guests deem to allow to run free.I for one would like Jac to attempt this for one shift and then tell me that this job is not all that hard!!!!
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7-30-2009 @12:21PM doubtful said... If your consumer base is changing, you can either do nothing and complain or change your business model to accommodate their new behavior, as has been suggested. Doing nothing and complaining, however, is a lot like trying to stop a tidal wave with harsh words.
The chorus of disgruntled wait staff is naive if they think they can mold customers' behavior. They're only setting themselves up for an unhappy career.
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7-30-2009 @1:41PM Gobo said... "Karen" -- you want to cut back on tips at restaurants because you read this article and disagree with its opinions? I hope I never serve you at a restaurant or share a meal with you.
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8-20-2009 @5:44PM Sarah said... The irony being on the whining of minimum wage? Move to a state where wait staff is paid the same as other workers. Here in Washington State for example, wait staff must be paid the same as a retail clerk. There is no lower wage.
Then again as I pointed out often to the many baristas I trained over a decade "Tips are NOT to be expected. They are a gift and should be treated as such. You do NOT deserve anything from anyone. The only thing guaranteed is your paycheck. Learn to be polite, genuine and real to the customers. Treat them well and most will be nice back."
The sense of entitlement is a big issue here. A customer does NOT have to give you ANYTHING outside of the bill owed unless your eatery has a mandatory tip rule on the menu.
I base the tip we leave on many things but the biggest is the waiters attitude. That is right, your attitude. Grumpy, ill mannered? Pissy? Not my issue. When I was 18 I got some sage advice from a boss - I was being paid to be a smiling face to customers. Leave personal issues at home. I don't care if you hate your job, or if you have some sob story. Suck it up or get a different job.
Be polite, smile nicely and treat your customers as if your job relied on it. Listen to them, take their orders correctly and don't forget the table.
Bonus if you come by to check on us and refill my ice tea glass without being asked.
Lately with the cruddy economy I have noticed that waitstaff has gotten better - the sense of entitlement is going down. Instead they are doing the job they signed up for and doing it well. And I appreciate that.
We eat out 2-3 times a week and I must say I had very excellent service this past weekend. We were not rushed (kid free dinner!). I would say from sit down to salad to dinner to paying we were there at least an hour. Our waitress checked on us often. Rather, she encouraged us to be leisurely in our dinner!
Serve me well and you might find a 25% tip. Serve me badly/ignore me and well, I may well leave nothing.
Again, that tip is not a right. You have to earn it. Get over yourself if you think it is your right.
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9-23-2009 @3:47PM C.Moore said... Consumer007 said, "When we pay for a meal we have a RIGHT to stay at that table as long as we are not causing a disturbance, and I mean for 3 hours if necessary."
No ya don't. And that attitude just makes servers more irritable. The table belongs to the owner of the establishment. Buying a meal does not confer any legal entitlement to lease, rent, or own the table.
You are a guest in his establishment. Act like it.
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