Let’s review restaurant etiquette
A few months ago, I noticed something peculiar. In the post-pandemic return to commuting, people seemed to have forgotten that if the train car is packed, you need to take off your backpack to make space. This rule, along with countless others, form the bedrock of making the subway as pleasant an experience as it can be — even if that particular bar isn’t very high.
I’ve noticed a similar backsliding at restaurants. Patrons who were once simply grateful to be able to dine out again seem to have forgotten their etiquette. (For instance, your busser is not your server, so please don’t ask them to fetch you another martini.) With this in mind, I spoke with three general managers about the rules of dining that they think customers might need a refresher on.
You may already know about some of what you’re about to read, but the goal here is for every one of us — server or diner — to have the best restaurant experience possible. “It is truly a beautiful thing to go out to eat and to be taken care of,” said Jenna Mogilevsky, the general manager at Gertude’s in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. “And for a lot of people that’s the only time they’ll ever get to experience being taken care of because maybe in their life they’re the caregiver. They can go to a restaurant and escape and just sit back, relax and enjoy.”
Instead of saying “I’m sorry” to your server, just say “thank you.”
There’s a reason we use one’s treatment of people in the service industry as a moral standard: It demonstrates a level of basic respect for those who work in what can be a pretty thankless line of work. But don’t let that respect turn to guilt every time your server reaches over to grab an empty plate or you ask for a small modification to your order, Ms. Mogilvesky said. “I feel like it really brings out the weird class divide of me serving you, and you being served, when you apologize and specifically call out the thing that we’re trying to make seem so effortless and beautiful,” she said. “You don’t have to be sorry; just say thank you.”
An empty restaurant doesn’t mean you can sit wherever you want.
You walk into a popular restaurant on the earlier side and there’s a veritable wealth of tables to choose from. Your host seats you, but that booth over there looks mighty appealing. There’s no harm in requesting a switch, said Sarah Herold, the director of operations at Frenchette Group, but if your host says no, it’s usually because they have to consider turns — the carefully calibrated slotting of diners by reservation time — and “we’ve mapped out a room so that servers aren’t seated too many tables in their section so that you have the best experience you can,” she said. “A lot of thought goes into everything.”
Try your darnedest to arrive on time, with your complete party.
To that point, showing up significantly late to a reservation (or not showing up at all) can create a cascading effect that throws off the entire night. The 15 minutes spent waiting for a complete party and the 15 minutes that it usually takes a table to get their order together adds up. Just think if it was you on the other side of the last party, said Ms. Mogilevsky. “Now your reservation is going to be 30 minutes behind, and that’s not a pleasant experience.”
Please factor children into your guest count.
Perhaps this is a vestige of the “12 and under eat for free” era, but if you have children in your party who will need their own place setting or a chair, add them to the reservation. Customers will say, “We have five, but we have two kids with us,” said Trent DelSignore, a former general manager at Roberta’s, in Domino Park. “So you have seven. And now we’ve got to figure something else out.”
Good news: The standard tip is still 20 percent.
If you’re worried about tipping creep, don’t be. Both Ms. Mogilevsky and Mr. DelSignore confirmed that 20 percent is still acceptable, though it should be considered the floor, not the ceiling. “Twenty percent is perfectly acceptable if you had a perfectly acceptable dining experience,” Ms. Mogilevsky said. “If there were things that you really loved about it, tip more.”
If you’re having a bad time, let the restaurant know in the moment.
Maybe you’re conflict-averse, but don’t assume there’s going to be conflict if you raise your hand with an issue. In fact, restaurant workers would prefer if you were upfront about what you didn’t like about your dining experience while you’re still in the restaurant rather than in a Google or Yelp review. “Tell us in the moment if something’s not going well,” Ms. Herold said. “If your steak isn’t to temperature, if you’re too cold, if the table next to you is bumping into you — so that we can make it right, because we want to make it right.”
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