We can tell if you’re going to try something inappropriate
Waiters can tell whether a guest is going to hit on them from a long way away. “Are you going to try to pick me up later? In front of your partner when she goes to the bathroom?” McLeod asks. “I developed a serious radar for looking and looking, and learned to deflect early.”
We notice your clothes, but try not to make judgments
It’s important to not make first impressions of patrons sitting at tables. “Trying to judge who will tip or not based on their clothes is wildly unpredictable,” says Taylor. “I have had the shabbiest-dressed characters leave $100 bills, and the best-dressed completely stiff me.”
“Being able to correctly assess your guests before you even start talking to them gives you an advantage before you even start talking to them, which at the end of the day can help your tip jar,” says Myhre. “Can you look at a table and know whether they are going to be good tippers before you interact with them? Not really. Generous people come from all walks of life.”
Restaurants in a post-COVID world
Your waiter always notices and adapts to your behaviour, and the choices we make now are more important than ever to keep each other safe. Some of these changes might even stick around for good. From building outdoor dining ‘streeteries’ to bulk-ordering disinfectant, restaurants and servers, as well as customers, have made many adaptations to work around the pandemic as much as possible. “I know the steakhouse I barista at will be keeping QR codes in place for the foreseeable future,” says Hickey.
Brittany Arndt, head waitstaff, agrees. “In the future, I think there will be people that will still wear masks, and taking what we have learned from this I know we won’t go completely back to how things used to be conducted. We shouldn’t. Maybe we’ll put salt and pepper shakers on the tables and candles…maybe not!” Many restaurants are ramping up their standards of cleanliness in order to make both customers and servers safer. Other restaurants are taking the step of installing ceiling-mounted Far-UVC 222 lights (proven to kill the novel coronavirus) throughout the venue and pumping nightly ozone treatments through the space in order to clean the air.
Whether we return to normal, or adapt to a new normal, a few things remain clear: treating your waiter with respect and following the restaurant’s rules remains the best way to ensure a pleasant dining experience. After all, you don’t want to cook every night!
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Source: RD.com
