Waiters and Waitresses of Reddit, what can we, as customers, do to make your lives easier?

then you will be there for a long time, and most people (including the server/establishment) don't want that. Imagine it is a group of 10, and the ticket times are 4 minutes (that's fast for most sit down restaurants).

Person 10 could possibly get their food 40 MINUTES after person 1 (this is unlikely for various reasons, but possible if everyone had different plates). This would be a little less than average timing to turn an entire table of 10 and seat another party of 10. Not to mention the wait that it causes every ticket after yours.

Every plate will have to be run individually, which means the expo/runner/server may as well have served 10 separate tables. This is similar to what other people called 'running' or 'one tripping' the server.

Every time you drop something off the table has another request, so you end up make 5-10x the trips required of a normal table. Which means you spend 5-10x the time on one table than normal, which means you are spending a LOT less time with your other tables, who will not be happy with their service.

e.g. Asks for a straw, asks for more splenda when you drop the straw, asks for an extra napkin when you drop the splenda, asks for some butter when you drop the napkin, asks for a diet coke when you drop the splenda (insisted they only wanted water originally), asks for a small spoon for their kids when you drop the diet, insists that you remake their kids quesadilla because the menu didn't say it came on flour tortillas (it does) when you drop the spoon, says the diet tastes funny and, 'you know what? I'll just have a black coffee,' when you drop the remade quesadilla on corn, asks for almond milk with their coffee when you drop the coffee, asks for the check when you drop the almond milk, asks for the check to be split 10 ways when you drop the check, asks for the check to be recombined into 4 checks when you drop the split check, party tips about 8% on $200 because Grandpa (fixed income) said he'd 'get the tip'. None of this includes the 10 trips it took to run the food. And then you get the pleasure of cleaning up after a table of 10, running all the dishes to pit, picking up the trash, sweeping, wiping down the nasty shit off of the table, and resetting it. That's like $18 for two hours of fairly intense labor.

Oh yeah, and don't forget about the needs of your other 6 tables while all of this is going on. If you do, they'll likely complain or tip poorly (and rightfully so IMO).

This can happen with every customer when you drop the food individually, so we try to avoid it. Also it isn't 'classy' or whatever and some people will literally complain about it on yelp.

I have a table of regulars that trickle in and leave individually over a period of 2-3 hours twice a week. It sucks because they're regulars and actually pretty nice, but we all fucking hate getting them in our section because of these reasons. The tip is always 20% but it is the same amount (actually more because they always sit at the far end of the restaurant) of work as having 10 one-person tables. I'd rather have 4 four-person tables than 10 one-person tables. I make more money and it's waaaay easier.

Anyways sorry that turned into a rant lol

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent