Why are you deliberately taking me to a bad table?

Perhaps this falls under the category of "world class asses #2," but whatever bucket you put it in, consider me fed up to here.

The situation is surely common to us all. It's a Tuesday night, it's 9pm, the restaurant is more than half empty, and you're shown to the absolute worst table in the joint--a two-top that barely has room for one, within olfactory proximity of the restrooms, and with a view that's blocked by a server's station, column, or other obstruction.

What's the deal with this?

Are these people holding on to the better tables in the event Jack Nicholson might be in Chicago and decide to drop by?

Just as bad, when I reject the table, they look at me like I'm crazy for not liking what's offered, and then invariably say "sit wherever you like." This suggests they didn't really need to hold onto any of the tables in the restaurant in the first place, and had long given up on Jack showing up. So wouldn't the more hospitable action be to give up a "good" table in the first place, or just ask if I had a particular spot I'd like to occupy?

Before people come to the defense of the asses who do this, I am well aware that hosts/hostesses/seaters need to do things like spread out the customer load for the waitstaff or cordon off whole sections when it's slow. My point is not about being enraged at not getting a primo table. But I cannot understand if it's ignorance or attitude or a power trip that causes these people to choose one that--by any objective measure--is just plain lousy.

I feel you. I posted something along these lines not long after I joined LTH, and was met with replies along the lines of:

"How is the seater supposed to read your mind to know what you consider a bad table?"

"Maybe there are people who prefer dining in the middle of the mens' room."

"Any table where they bring me food is a good table."

And such like as that.

riddlemay wrote:I feel you. I posted something along these lines not long after I joined LTH

The post to which Riddlemay refers.
Peeve: Being Shown a "Bad" Table

now you know what it's like to bring kids into a restaurant.

It drives me nuts as well, though usually when I see where they are taking me I ask if I can have "that table over there".

Avenues is the absolute worst offender of this to me. They sat us in that damn table right by the kitchen entrance even when the place was half full. They very graciously reseated us, but I couldn't figure out why they even bothered- the restaurant was barely half full and there were plenty more intimate tables. The food was excellent and sometimes the service was too (many times it wasn't) but I can't fault them for having a hotel staff style servers to work with.

When dining in a restaurant where the tables are crowded together, but there's only a couple other diners in there, I invariably get seated right next to someone else. I also get the crazy look when I ask to move. "

I think I've asked for a different table maybe once ever (same situation, almost completely empty restaurant and they wanted to seat us right next to the hostess stand). It didn't really bother me, I actually thought it was kind of funny.

Oh well, I guess my view is that life is too short to get really peeved about something like this.

jesteinf wrote:Oh well, I guess my view is that life is too short to get really peeved about something like this.

This is maybe a little harsh. The same could be said for three quarters of the things posted on this website. But we shouldn't hold each other to such a high standard. Life's too short to worry about most of the food-related issues we banter about here, but the bantering is fun.

Darren72 wrote:

jesteinf wrote:Oh well, I guess my view is that life is too short to get really peeved about something like this.

This is maybe a little harsh. The same could be said for three quarters of the things posted on this website. But we shouldn't hold each other to such a high standard. Life's too short to worry about most of the food-related issues we banter about here, but the bantering is fun.

Excellent point. And since the experience of eating out has at least as much to do with how a restaurant treats its customers as with the food it prepares (after all, if food is all that matters, one can dine well at home more cheaply), life has just enough length to get peeved about failures in both departments!

Darren72 wrote:

jesteinf wrote:Oh well, I guess my view is that life is too short to get really peeved about something like this.

This is maybe a little harsh. The same could be said for three quarters of the things posted on this website. But we shouldn't hold each other to such a high standard. Life's too short to worry about most of the food-related issues we banter about here, but the bantering is fun.

If someone wants to get worked up about it, clearly it's their right. I was just saying that, personally, I don't.

ETA - I really don't mean for my viewpoint to be interpreted as harsh or misunderstanding. My view makes a lot more sense to those who know me in real life...I'm a pretty easy-going guy in general.

riddlemay wrote:Excellent point. And since the experience of eating out has at least as much to do with how a restaurant treats its customers as with the food it prepares

To you, perhaps.

For me, these factors are not weighted anywhere near equally. I consider myself part of the Trillan school of dining out: If they make the best food around, I'll happily eat it sitting on the floor of a dark closet.

eatchicago wrote:

riddlemay wrote:Excellent point. And since the experience of eating out has at least as much to do with how a restaurant treats its customers as with the food it prepares

To you, perhaps.

For me, these factors are not weighted anywhere near equally. I consider myself part of the Trillan school of dining out: If they make the best food around, I'll happily eat it sitting on the floor of a dark closet.

Even if there are other good seats available?

eatchicago wrote:

riddlemay wrote:Excellent point. And since the experience of eating out has at least as much to do with how a restaurant treats its customers as with the food it prepares

To you, perhaps.

For me, these factors are not weighted anywhere near equally. I consider myself part of the Trillan school of dining out: If they make the best food around, I'll happily eat it sitting on the floor of a dark closet.

There certainly is variation in what people expect from restaurants and in what proportion. But restaurants are widely considered part of the "hospitality industry" for a reason. And what little I know of the history of restauranting is that it began with waystations for weary travelers to spend the night or have a rest and a nourishing meal on their journeys, so the idea of hospitality has been built into our culture's idea of restaurants for centuries. When restaurants don't live up to the hospitality part of the mission (as when they try to fob off an undesirable table on a customer), bad feelings are an expectable (though obviously not certain) consequence.

Excellent thread. My wife, who waitressed in college, says servers were encouraged to fill up the least desirable tables first. I presume that's because it's easier to reseat a party who wants to move when the restaurant is less full.

I know that's the explanation, but it still makes no sense to me.

In a full restaurant, people will be more understanding of taking what they can get. But in a half-full restaurant... that means everyone's sitting at the least desirable 50% of the tables, making them less likely to some degree to return. Genius.

Mike G wrote:But in a half-full restaurant... that means everyone's sitting at the least desirable 50% of the tables, making them less likely to some degree to return. Genius.

That's my analysis as well. I always seat people in the "best" seats I can e.g. booth, under the bookcase (yes those are nice seats at my restaurant), the back corner 2 top for couples. I've never had the boss complain about it, nor the servers.

jesteinf wrote:

Darren72 wrote:

jesteinf wrote:Oh well, I guess my view is that life is too short to get really peeved about something like this.

This is maybe a little harsh. The same could be said for three quarters of the things posted on this website. But we shouldn't hold each other to such a high standard. Life's too short to worry about most of the food-related issues we banter about here, but the bantering is fun.

If someone wants to get worked up about it, clearly it's their right. I was just saying that, personally, I don't.

ETA - I really don't mean for my viewpoint to be interpreted as harsh or misunderstanding. My view makes a lot more sense to those who know me in real life...I'm a pretty easy-going guy in general.

I understood where you were coming from, Josh. You are indeed one mellow fellow and I admire you for it. I personally get worked up over just about anything . . .

=R=

Mike G wrote:I know that's the explanation, but it still makes no sense to me.

Me either, but I've seen it happen over and over.

What I hate is when I'm taken on the magical mystery tour of empty tables. Without fail, we can pass many, many empty tables and get seated near the back of the restaurant. Not necessarily at a "bad" table but in a strange place. Like we need to be separated from the rest of humanity (which might not be a bad thing.... . 99% of the time we're fine with the table.

I stopped taking it personally and we make a game out of it. "Guess how many empty tables we'll pass tonight?"

Paul SL wrote:My wife, who waitressed in college, says servers were encouraged to fill up the least desirable tables first. I presume that's because it's easier to reseat a party who wants to move when the restaurant is less full.

First of all, it's great to have this confirmed as being actual restaurant policy. (It's better than thinking we must be crazy, or "oversensitive.") Thank you.

Second of all, my speculation about the reasoning behind it is very similar to your speculation. My only difference with it is in a shading of meaning. "Easier to reseat a party who wants to move" sounds like it's about making the customer happy. I think the objective is much more host-centric, or management-centric, than it is customer-centric.

Let's simplify things to say that the restaurant has just one bad table, which we'll call Table X. Every night, the restaurant fills up, so somebody always has to sit there. The only question is who. Now let's posit that there are two kinds of customer: the Customer Who Won't Accept Table X, and the Customer Who Will Accept Table X. The necessary game for the host every night therefore becomes, Find the Customer Who Will Accept Table X. If the host can achieve this objective before the restaurant fills up, he makes his life easier by solving a problem for the restaurant before it becomes an unsolvable one. (If he waits until Table X is the only table left, he risks that the next customer who comes in will be Customer Who Won't Accept Table X, and with nowhere else to seat this customer, now the restaurant has an issue on its hands that it would rather not deal with.) With each new customer who comes into the restaurant (or if the host himself is new), there is no way for the host to know in advance which kind of customer he is dealing with. Since there is a possibility this customer is Customer Who Will Accept Table X, the host figures nothing ventured nothing gained, and he attempts to fob off Table X on this customer. Who knows, maybe his gamble will pay off, and then he won't have to worry about who to seat at Table X for the rest of the evening. And all customers will be happy, arguably--because Customer Who Will Accept Table X is insensitive to the awfulness of his table, while Customer Who Won't Accept Table X is sitting at a nice table.

It's a stupid policy, because it ends up insulting and pissing off one Customer Who Won't Accept Table X after another as each is shown to Table X and refuses. And also, because Customer Who Will Accept Table X may not be insensitive to the awfulness of the table--he may accept Table X only because because he is too meek to protest, or afraid of the "crazy look," or afraid of being thought "one of those people who always ask for a different table".

riddlemay wrote:First of all, it's great to have this confirmed as being actual restaurant policy. (It's better than thinking we must be crazy, or "oversensitive.") Thank you.

One restaurant, or one hundred for that matter, out of many does not an industry policy make.

Why am I compelled to type, not mutually exclusive.

G Wiv wrote:Why am I compelled to type, not mutually exclusive.

Gary, you must be that Customer Who Will Accept Table X that hosts are so relieved to see.

Thank you for leaving the nice table for me.

riddlemay wrote:Gary, you must be that Customer Who Will Accept Table X that hosts are so relieved to see.

RM,

I come from a long line of Table Switchers, of which the ne plus ultra is my mother. To illustrate, a decade or so ago a dozen family members were walking into a restaurant, I noticed my sisters two daughters lingering in the foyer. When I gave them an quizzical look they responded "we're waiting until grandma settles on a table."

Yes, I occasionally will ask to switch a table, but it has to be extreme circumstances as I've been privy to more switches than a railroad lineman.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:I come from a long line of Table Switchers, of which the ne plus ultra is my mother. To illustrate, a decade or so ago a dozen family members were walking into a restaurant, I noticed my sisters two daughters lingering in the foyer. When I gave them an quizzical look they responded "we're waiting until grandma settles on a table."

Did we have the same mother?

And I know exactly what you mean about how this can make one "table-switch-shy." Every time I'm shown a bad table when a better one is available, I have a voice inside saying "Don't be like your mother...don't be like your mother..." Which has caused me to accept some bad tables, and then to be unhappy I did. The lesson being that I should have just surrendered to my hereditary destiny. I'm gradually learning to do that.

Hi,

I'm a table switcher.

I often drop my Mom off, while I hunt a parking space. She is usually led like a lamb to an undesirable location or is seated smiling at a booth*. I will find the hostess to relocate our table to a quieter location (Mom is a magnet to large boisterous parties) or to a table. Usually it is my Mom who is more unhappy by my table shifting than the hostess.

*I find booths as appealing as the middle seat in an airplane or the backseat of a two-door car. You always have to coordinate with others to get in and out. When I was tiny and could crawl under the table, then I didn't care. The absolute worst booths are those shaped like clamshells that can accommodate 8-9 people.

Regards,

Hi, I usually like to read this forum and only occasionally write(I'm sorry but often I don't have much to add). But I think I can shed some light on this subject.

I am a hostess/server on and off during the year(usually during summer break). Honestly, usually nothing is ever personal. Reservations are linked pretty arbitrarily to a table that can accomadate the party size. Regulars, friends of owners, celebrities etc. might garner a better table, but typically everyone is just a random phone number/surname combo when we fill out the seating chart.

As far as asking for a different table, this is something that will be done gladly if possible. Let's say you enter a restaurant and it's about half full. So naturally you're annoyed when you're placed at the worst spot in the house. It doesnt seem to be a big deal to move to the other two top in the back.

The thing is, it is. Alot of restaurants only have tables that seat two or four ppl. For a party of eight they would have to push a 4-top and two 2-tops together, in order to seat all the guests. So that empty 2-top will be shoved together with the two other tables in about thirty minutes time.
If the hostess did "just" seat you at the better table, she would have to find some area to move that party of eight, basically reshuffling everything (finding free tables next to each other for eight ppl at 7:30-9:30 pm is difficult); since it is not a simple 2 for 2 switch (its not like you can chop up the 8-top into a 6-top and 2-top at opposite ends of the restaurant).

Since it gets complicated, the hostess may need to check the book or go ask the manager before promising you anything. My managers used to semi-work the front on the weekends and definitely wanted to be aware of any big switches in the reservation layout. Also, as stated in previous posts, headcount should remain as equal as possible...it wouldn't be much fair if the 8-top went to a server who's had a few tables already, instead of to the intially assigned server, who might have had to skip a few rotations in order to match the anticipated headcount.

These are only a few answers to the seating problem, there are definitely many more. I'm not really sure what the deal is if the restaurant is totally dead. Usually any moving around is possible when the restaurant is slow.

If you know the layout of the restaurant and the exact table you want, i.e. the second booth from the back, tell the hostess when making your future reservations. Most likely they will seat you at that table, and if not, they'll at least try to seat you in the vicinity.