Anatomy of a Restaurant Patron, Part Four - Seating Arrangements

As with any job, being an insider allows you to be privy to certain tidbits of information that the public does not know. At a restaurant, some of these tidbits are seemingly common sense, but I've heard the same comments over and over so many times, that I feel it is necessary to explain a few things.

First, servers are usually assigned sections of the restaurant, consisting of four to five tables, in which customers are seated and then taken care of by that particular server. The quality level of service often has an inverse relationship to the number of tables a server has. However, there are not always enough servers scheduled on any given shift to cover every table in the restaurant. This is due to a predicted pattern of business volume. On a Monday afternoon (or any afternoon, for that matter) at the Sharp Edge, there is only one server. If, by a fluke occurrence, ten tables decide to sit down to eat at the same time, it's a sticky situation.

I bring up this matter because of one comment I've heard both at my restaurant and at others while I was a guest. If you go to a restaurant and there is a wait to be seated, yet you still see empty tables, chances are there are not enough servers to cover the tables. Would you rather have a seat and receive extremely terrible service because your server is overwhelmed, or would you rather wait fifteen minutes until another table clears out? So many times people come in and say, outraged, "Why is there a wait when I see all these empty tables??" Well, now you know why.

The second seating situation I'd like to address in this post is quite simple. If you see a sign on the wall that says, "Please Wait to be Seated," then please wait to be seated. It's a rare occurrence that restaurants these days have people seat themselves. When you saunter in like you own the place and grab a table, you're likely messing up the seating rotation between servers, thus subjecting yourself to an annoyed server and one who may be too busy to pay proper attention to you. Furthermore, do not go into a restaurant, tell the hostess that you are sitting at the bar, and then proceed to seat yourself at a booth NEAR the bar. It's not the same thing. If you're not sitting in a bar stool, you're not considered to be sitting at the bar.

Lastly, if you have a seating preference (near a television, in a certain server's section, etc.), feel free to voice your preference, but do it BEFORE you're taken to your seat. Don't sit down, decide you don't like the view, and ask to switch. And certainly don't ask to switch tables midway through your meal. Just finish your food and know better next time.