Peeve: Being Shown a "Bad" Table

Went to Custom House last night. Excellent food, good service. (The sturgeon appetizer is to die for.) And, to hearken back to a recent thread: even though I wouldn't think of going there without a sportjacket, I have to admit that there were lots of jacketless men wearing "only" expensive shirts and/or sweaters, and they looked fine and appropriate. Anyway, all of that is neither here nor there for this topic, which concerns seating.

Our party of four was greeted warmly, and then shown to a table that I think most people would agree was less than optimal. It was right next to the open end of a bussing alcove, so that whoever sat there would be exposed to the clatter of tableware and the traffic of restaurant staff; moreover, it was the first table one came to after passing through the bar, so that whoever sat there would also be exposed to a higher level of the bustle of patrons going in and out than those sitting at other tables.

I'm not one of those people that "has to" reject the first table shown to me before finding one that's acceptable. There's a presumption in that behavior that the restaurant is playing games with you: that the restaurant knows you're going to reject the first table, so it deliberately shows you to a bad table in order to be able to "upgrade" you to a better one when you complain (after all, if they show to you a good table right away, they'll have nowhere to go with you from there); and that therefore, the only way for a customer to preserve his self-respect is to play the game right back at the restaurant and reject the first table no matter where it is. It's like buying a car from a salesman who you know won't give you the best price right off the bat, but a higher price so that he'll have "wiggle room" when he goes through the charade of "asking his sales manager" for permission to lower the price to where it ought to have been in the first place. Since everyone knows how the game is played, everyone has no choice but to play the game. As I say, I hate playing this seating game in restaurants, and I never do, and am sometimes mortified when I'm in the company of someone who does play it. But I have to wonder whether those customers are sometimes right. If the sub-optimal table we were shown to were the only one unoccupied, we would have accepted it gratefully. But there were many tables still vacant at the time (7:00 on Saturday), practically all of which were perfectly fine--raising the question of why we were shown this one.

We remarked to the hostess that the table was undesirable, and that any number of still-empty tables would do just fine for us. She handled it OK, though not perfectly. Perfectly would have meant her saying, "You know, I see what you mean, I think we have a table you'll like better, let me take you to it." Instead, she appeared a bit flustered, and said, "Let me talk to my manager and see what he says." (Which of course raised the possibility, perhaps unintentionally, that switching was not going to be OK with the manager--in which case, things would definitely have not been OK with us!) In any event, she returned in about a minute, and said what she should have said in the first place, which was that she had a table she thought we'd be pleased with, and to follow her. Which we did--and she was right. We were perfectly pleased with the new table.

Which of course raises the question: why weren't we shown to that table in the first place?

My guess is that the restaurant knows that somebody is going to have to sit at that undesirable table eventually, that many customers will balk at it, and that therefore it's incumbent on the restaurant to find a party who will accept it. They were guessing that "somebody" was us. As it turned out, that guess was wrong, but I can see why they think they need to do it. (And in the most benign scenario, perhaps there is a party of 4 that will genuinely see nothing wrong with that table, and will be as delighted to sit there as anywhere else, as David points out just below.) But it would be much better (in my opinion) if the restaurant didn't try to fill that table until every other table in the restaurant was filled. To try to seat a party at that table when there are many better tables available sends all the wrong signals, signals like: 1) We're saving the good tables for people that are better than you; and 2) We're hoping to find a party of suckers that don't know the difference between a good table and a bad one, or a party of meek lambs who are afraid to complain, and we're hoping that party is you. Either way, it's not a good feeling, and it's annoying, and I wish that restaurants like The Custom House would realize it's no way to treat a customer.

I think sometimes restaurants place you at tables that make it easier for waitstaff to serve you (i.e., the tables may be close to the kitchen or a high traffic area), and it's also possible that some people just don't care that much about where they sit, so restaurants seat them wherever they please. I do care about where I sit, and although I hadn't thought of it in the gaming terms you describe (though you may very well be right), I tend to scope out the table I want the moment I walk into a room, and if I'm not offered it, I ask for it.

Interesting issue,

Hammond

riddlemay wrote:Either way, it's not a good feeling, and it's annoying, and I wish that restaurants like The Custom House would realize it's no way to treat a customer.

I'm not sure what Custom House was guilty of besides offering you a table that wasn't one you preferred. It seems to me like they gave you the table that you asked for, no harm done.

David Hammond wrote:and it's also possible that some people just don't care that much about where they sit

That's me. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I'm fine with whatever table I get. I think "good table" or "bad table" is a subjective term. One person's "bad table" is perfect for someone else. Some people want to be in the middle of the hustle and bustle, some people want to hide in the shadows. Some people like booths, some people hate them. Some people really don't care at all. Respectfully, I think that being angry about where a host offers to seat you is being a tad overly sensitive.

Frankly, I'm a bit annoyed when a restaurant gives me a list of possible places to sit. "Do you want the booth in the corner, the table by the bar, or this large table over here?" Honestly, I don't care. Just give me a table.

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:I'm not sure what Custom House was guilty of besides offering you a table that wasn't one you preferred. It seems to me like they gave you the table that you asked for, no harm done.

I agree that the situation was resolved 100% satisfactorily (and tried to indicate this in my post). And no harm done. Except that, yes, a little harm was done, because it would have been better for there not to have been an unsatisfactory situation in need of resolution in the first place. The overall Custom House experience was sufficiently positive that the "bad table" opening amounted to little more than a tiny bad taste in the back of our mouths by the time the meal was over. But at those prices, it was regrettable.

As you say (and as, in fact, I said in my own post), there are some who would have found nothing wrong with that first table. But I suspect they would be in the minority. I can't read the restaurant's collective mind, but nevertheless am certain that they are fairly used to hearing dissatisfaction with that table. What they probably ought to do is remove that table entirely--but since there are people who will take it without complaint, the restaurant would be sacrificing some revenue to do that. We are not "princess and the pea" people; we're fairly "roll with the punches." But this was just wrong. I bring it up not to pick on The Custom House, but because it's a problem that has become all-too-generic.

I guess it must have bothered you, to some degree, or why else would you begin a thread on this subject.

Someone one said recently on a different thread: "The only thing I hold a restaurant responsible for in the hospitality department, is to treat me with a professional level of courtesy and respect. Anything beyond that is icing on the cake".

I guess, getting the "ha ha" table was not a professional level of courtesy.

Most restaurants seat people on a rotation basis, by wait staff. This insure's that the wait staff has an equal opertunity for tips. If you do not like a table, the host will normally seat you at the same waits open table. If that wait does not have an open table, then it becomes a bit of a problem, that requires the host to remember who is out of rotation. By the way, the same thing happens at a new or used car dealer.

sabersix wrote:I guess it must have bothered you, to some degree, or why else would you begin a thread on this subject.

Someone one said recently on a different thread: "The only thing I hold a restaurant responsible for in the hospitality department, is to treat me with a professional level of courtesy and respect. Anything beyond that is icing on the cake".

I guess, getting the "ha ha" table was not a professional level of courtesy.

The someone who said the quote you're quoting was me. (I can't tell whether you know that, and are pretending not to in order to achieve sarcasm, or whether you genuinely didn't know that. But it was me, and I stand by it. I see no reason not to.)

And yes, being shown a bad table falls under the category of not being treated with courtesy and respect. So I'm not sure what your point is.

And yes, of course it bothered me! Has that not been clear from my posts on the topic? If not, I'm a much poorer communicator than I thought.

Okay, this is clearly a topic with some emotional energy behind it, though no need to get all peeved at one another, okay, please?

Hammond

I'm not sure where the idea of a 'game' is coming from. From my experience, both as a patron and manager, restaurants try to be fair to both the patron and server. If a table is unsatisfactory to you, it isn't the restaurant trying to play a game. The server assigned to that section deserves the same opportunity to make a living as the server in the section next to theirs. Of course, if a table is hard to seat (unsatisfactory to you) a good host is going to try and seat that table until someone takes it.

Personally, I enjoy the traffic and bustle of the waitstations, at least I enjoy them more than the din of crying babies and/or the morons yelling into their cell phone.

Flip