I can tell you from waiting tables and hostessing, that there is a "map" of the restaurant tables and a rotation. Each server has a section, they are usually numbered, and you *try* to seat in that order, rotating from server to server.

Now, problems come in when you have:
1. less experienced servers who get weeded faster than others
2. busy nights when some tables turn faster than others
3. customers asking to be moved after being seated
4. larger parties where tables need to be combined.

As far as asking and getting seated in an empty section....every place I've worked has the "customer is always right" theory. Therefore if a customer asked to be seated in a "closed" section we would do it, then ask a server to pick up that table. Of course, then that server's whole section can be seated AND they have these one or two extra tables outside of their section, and everyone ends up getting bad service.

These are just a few reasons why I urge everyone to be understanding with servers when eating out. There is way more going on with your server than what you see from your table.

I've always assumed that hostesses seat diners in such a way that it evens out the workload--number of customers and traffic patterns--for servers. Is that incorrect?

After working in the restaurant industry for a while, I always assume there's a logical reasoning behind where the hostess chooses to seat me. Unless I simply cannot imagine enjoying my meal at the table they take me to, I almost always sit down without complaint. I've been a part of one too many shifts that went completely insane after starting with one server having to pick up tables out of his or her section. It sounds silly if you haven't worked in the industry, but bad nights usually start with something simple.

I'll agree with EL though, I enjoy when hosts and hostesses give me the option.

Bucky, I thought that too. I hate when I go into an almost empty restaurant where everyone that walks in is being seated together.

I just finished reading Waiter Rant and it has some really interesting info on the backroom dealings of the restaurant serving industry. Definitely makes me glad I'm not a fussy customer!

I stopped going to Golden West for two years based on the seating policy. When GW was at their old location my wife and I came in at the end of the lunch service. No one was there, but we were seated at a very small two top. I asked if we could move to one of the larger tables, but the waitress said it was against their policy to seat two people at a four top. Now I could understand this if the place were busy, or if it was right before the lunch rush, but absent of that I couldn't believe there would be such adherence to some policy. In fact, I couldn't believe the hippies running that place would have any policies, let alone a seating policy.

It definitely can make a smooth running shift go south fast. It doesn't seem like much, but restraunts tend to run on the organized chaos system. As a result, servers can get thrown off pretty easy by someone switching tables, or getting triple sat.
Put it in this perspective: what would it do if someone were to say "Elizabeth, I I'd like you to start doing top ten tuesdays on Monday because it suits me better and would you also do the 'whatchadothisweekend' for sam too?"

Given that the restaurant only makes money and stays in business by pleasing its customers and getting them to come back, you should get the table you want (absent extenuating circumstances). There's no comparison to an office-type job.

"Elizabeth, I I'd like you to start doing top ten tuesdays on Monday because it suits me better ...

Maybe if you tipped better she would.

Newspaper makes $ by pleasing advertizers + selling papers= pleasing customers. still a service industry.

Ummm...not really a connection there. Work in an office, my boss says do something, I do it because I gotta please him. Work in a restaurant, gotta please the folks coming in the door.

The issue comes in when satisfying one customer (who happens to want a booth or is too cold or doesn't like the whining kid next to them, etc) means possibly dissatisfying the rest of the entire restaurant.

You have no idea what moving one table on a busy night can do. You get a chain reaction and it can affect all of the servers in a negative way.

Just like when one server doesn't fill up the silverware container, then you have to run to the back to search for a fork. While you're doing that, you get seated again. This table needs water, that table's food is out. All tables now need something, and they all would have been fine had you not been in the back searching for that one lonely fork.

Really, everyone should have to wait tables just once in their life.

This is why I love this type of format. It reminds me that most people have never been in the service industry (restaurant or otherwise) and that we, as restaurant workers and customers, need to have patience with each other.

Please remember, sometimes hosts are just going by the floor map and don't even realize that they are seating you at a table you don't like. I've even had people complain that they were sat away from everyone else and not in the middle of the group. I think communication is key in this type of situation.

Excellent points. EL

So, Carey, your preference would be that the customer get up and leave? Just so long as the staff is no inconvenienced?

Eve,

No. All I'm asking is that people who have never worked in the restaurant industry, understand that things are not always what they seem. And some things are done for good reason (i.e. where you are seated).

So, when Book and I go out for a quite meal and the place is not crowded I shouldn't ask to be seated far from the large and noisy groups so I can enjoy Book's company and my meal, because there is a good reason to sit me there? Again, I don't think any of us questioning this position are talking about times when the place is packed. I guess Ms Eve and I are wrong in thinking restaurants are a service industry; rather customers exist just to feed the restaurant's till.

[See, kind and gentle. Not snarky and no topic drift. I am trying.]