#BoothObsession: Why do restaurant hosts give me the stink eye when I ask for a booth? 🤔 Let’s talk about the mysterious phenomenon of booth preference and the host’s reaction to it. Do they have a secret pact with table manufacturers? Are they trained to avoid booths at all costs? 🤷♂️ Join the conversation and share your thoughts on why the booth dilemma seems to ruffle some feathers in the restaurant industry! 💬 #BoothGatekeeping #HostSecrets #TableVsBooth. Don’t just read, engage with us! What’s your go-to choice: booth or table? 🍽️ Make your voice heard! 🗣️
Probably because instead of asking for a booth from the start you wasted their time instead.
I think I’m going to have to agree that you probably wasted their time when you could have told them from the start and saved everyone some time.
Restaurants have areas of service. Each waiter covers a given set of tables. They host is supposed to balance the number of people in each waiter’s area – they plan this. And they notify waiters when they will have a new customer.
By waiting until after they have planned it and notified people and then telling them where you want to sit you have made their work harder. They have to go replan and renotify people.
Every time you ask for a different table or booth you are being a pain in the ass.
If you want a booth, man, just say you want a booth. If you say you don’t have a preference and then say you actually want a booth when the host leads you to a table, the host now has to rejuggle all the servers sections to put you in a booth and still distribute work fairly among the servers.
Also, from my experience as both a host and a server, the Venn diagram of “customers who say they don’t have a seating preference but then ask for a booth” and “customers who ask for alterations to their meal after I’ve already sent the order to the kitchen” has a BIG middle.
They have a rotation to follow for what sections get sat when. They’ve probably already marked you down for whatever table they’re bringing you to. The server may have already been notified depending on the system they use. Now they have to undo everything and find you an available booth.
Just ask for what you want up front. They will accommodate you.
I just tell the host at the beginning before she leads us anywhere that I’d prefer a booth if one is available, most of the time it’s not a problem.
We seat customers in a rotation of each servers’ sections, anything that deviates from the rotation will require us to leave our post to go track down the server we sat out of rotation, so just say you want a booth when you get there.
Just ask up front. Don’t wait for them to read your mind.
When I go up to get on a wait list to be seated, I tell the host we want a booth, and we’re willing to wait longer to get one. But we’re asking for reasons that have to do with a disability that’s recognized under the ADA. A very few times, we’ve had to push back when they insisted on seating us at a table in the middle of the room, but I haven’t had to say anything beyond “ADA recognized disability” for them to figure it out for us.
(If it’s a larger group than any booth there will accommodate, we ask for a table in a corner, and the person with the disability in question picks their seat first.)
When you “finally” ask…? They get annoyed because you let them trek around the restaurant before telling them your preference. At that point, they’ve already marked the intended table as being in use, and have to go back & rearranging things before another host tries to seat someone where you ended up.
You’re making their job needlessly harder.
Because you aren’t asking upfront. You’re hoping they pick what you want and then when they don’t you suddenly decide to voice your preference. Just say youvwant a booth every time when they ask where you wanna sit. It’s that easy.
Ask *first* if you prefer a booth. Don’t wait until they show you to a table. That’s why they are irritated. Just say, “4 people, booth please.”
Ask when you check in – asking at the table is inefficient and can cause the hostess to stack more occupied tables with one server than another. This sucks for them.
It’s like playing Tetris and you’ve got a bar lined up, but then it gets slid to the side at the last second and now the stack is fouled up. That’s you asking for a booth when you’re already lined up with a table. Tell them right away you prefer booth and they’ll get you in the right slot
1) Each server is assigned a section. Hosts are supposed to rotate tables between the sections so that some server’s aren’t overworked while others aren’t making enough money.
2) It can be really stressful to be double-seated as a server and the host will sometimes get complaints from servers when they do this. Double seated means that you give a server a new table when a previous table has not even been greeted or gotten their drinks yet. If you have several tables, are short-staffed, and get double seated, it may cause that table to not even be greeted for several minutes which makes a very bad first impression for the server and can set the stage for the remainder of that table’s visit.
So if you are being seated at a table when there are opened booths, it is probably because the server in that section was next in line for a table -or- they are avoiding double seating a server who is working the section with an opened booth.
The booth isn’t the issue, it’s the asking once you’ve already gotten to the table the hostess assigned to you. Ask for a booth before leaving the hostess stand.
Op, you should be telling the host or hostess you want a booth when you tell them how many people you have in your party. For example. Hi, booth for 4 people please.
They’re irritated because you’re waiting until they’re trying to seat you to ask and now they have to shuffle things around to accommodate you. Tell them you’d prefer a booth right off the bat, don’t leave it up to chance unless you’re okay with the outcome.
Anymore I just state right away, “we’d like a booth please” to not have to see what they had planned first.
My biggest question is….why would anyone prefer a booth over a table?? If it’s just two people, i guess.. maybe. But a party of 4? Just why? The tables are a set distance from the bench, so you can’t get closer, or pull further away. They are almost always that sticky vinyl that you slide off of. You are cramped and have no arm room with someone directly next to you. If you’re on the inside, you feel you’re inconveniencing someone to move to go to the bathroom.
A 4-top table makes sense in every possible way, and i am genuinely curious about your love for booths.
In a restaurant each server is assigned certain tables to wait on. And they are sat tables in an order. First server A gets a table then serve B gets a table then server C gets a table and so on and so forth. When you asked to be sat in a booth instead of a regular table you’ve just ensured that waiter A has had too many tables at one time while waiter C doesn’t have any and you f***** up the flow. And it’s the host or hostess that gets yelled at for it
Also, if you ask late, after they’ve done the work of figuring out where to seat you, that’s annoying.
Express your preference right away
Just tell them immediately you want a booth.
You said it in your post. You’re waiting until they walk across the restaurant to sit you at a table to make your request. You’re doing this is making their jobs harder and wasting both of your time.
Simply by making this request upon arrival, you would have a better experience.
They’re upset because you waited for them to seat you before telling them your preference. Which means they now have to go back and update the seating chart because they probably already put you in their system for the table they initially brought you to. They’re upset because if you had just spoken up earlier, they wouldn’t have to do double the work.
FYI, whenever you have something going on “every time” you do something, you’re the common denominator.
That’s never my problem it’s always more like you made a reservation? I don’t see you on here and then you show them the confirmation and they get really pissed
Because servers are assigned to certain tables for their shift.
It is the hosts job to try to give servers an equal amount of tables.
The host knows that he or she is going to get shit on by the waitstaff for not keeping this under control.
Just tell them when you walk in the door that you want a booth. Don’t wait for them to get you to the table and then ask. You’ll save the hostess from a lot of unnecessary work