I wish I could do this sometimes...

[fma_fanatic]

So, Da Dairy Druid and I went to Cracker Barrel last night for dinner. It wasn't too busy, as I think we got in just after the dinner rush, so it was only a few minutes to seat us. We ended up in the smoking section (I had said first available, so it wasn't that big a deal), which most of the time no one really smokes in anymore.

Everything was fine for the most part - the waitress was a bit harried, and we both think she just had a long day. We all do. But this story isn't about her as she got a very nice tip from me.

No, my story is about the table behind us.

You see, when we sat down, there was a father and daughter finishing up their dinner. The daughter was very well behaved and the father..well, I guess he was a father. Anyway, about 15-20 minutes in to our settling into our table, they left and the table was waiting to be cleared. A few minutes pass and I look up to see an older woman wander down the way to the yet to be cleared table and plop herself down in the seat.

She calls to her older friend who is slowly making her way to the table that she is just going to wait here until they decide to do their jobs and clear their table.

Now, with Cracker Barrel, you wait to be seated. It is not a seat yourself type of place. So this woman just decided that she was going to find an open table, cleared or not and sit herself down. She made a fuss when the hostess came and asked her if she could please stand up for a moment so that they could bus the table. I want to ask who does this, but I saw who does.

[Amina516]

Shes lucky the hostess didnt send her back out to the waiting area....ugh. People.

[Stormraven]

I was one of those people once - well, almost. This may be a threadjack. If people think it is, maybe one of the mods can pull it out?

I went to a local place called 'Country Kitchen' and entered. There was, at the time I entered, no sign saying 'Please wait to be seated'. I'll grant I may have missed it, but I did not see it.

So I sat myself down. And over the next ten minutes, saw people get seated and get waitresses while I got ignored.

Not once did anyone come up to me and say 'sorry, but we need you to wait to be seated'. Had they done that, I would have shrugged and gone back and waited. Instead, I just got ignored.

I didn't wait much longer. I got up and left, and haven't been there since. I may have been slightly sucky by not seeing a sign, assuming one was there, but I think they were suckier by not letting me know.

[HYHYBT]

They might have been... or they might not even have known: as I understand it, if the waitresses were seating their own customers, then it may have been that each thought you were with someone else.

[Mottom24]

when I worked on the shore, self seaters were my only joy at work. I was the busser, and if you look at my thread history you'll find some good ones with self seaters. it was my only joy because I got to boot them out. we were almost always busy and have a wait, but people would plop down when they felt like it, even when the table was dirty. The servers sent me because, since I was never the server, me being a jerk wouldn't affect their tips as much. I also got to chew people out for moving where they sat, only when we were very busy though. if we were pretty empty we would just be a bit tiffed about it.