PLEASE don’t stack the dishes in my home. If it’s my good china, I’m afraid something will get chipped, or whoever carries the heavier load will be more likely to drop it. Even if it’s the everyday stuff, if both sides of the plate are dirty I may need to rinse both sides before loading the dishwasher. Or at least look at both sides to see if they are gunky enough to need rinsing. My dishwasher filter is disgusting and annoying to clean, so I really like to remove gunk before loading.
I go to a family camp where some people stacked plates, and others didn’t, and I disliked having a stack of dirty dishes in front of me. (It’s not a “dirty dish” if it’s the plate I might still use, but it is once there are two there. Not rational, but that’s how I feel.) But a lot of people wanted to stack plates to be helpful. So I asked some people who used to be servers. (Most of the staff are children of campers, and a lot of campers are ex-staff.) The people who had been staff said it made their lives easier. So now I stack the camp dishes.
It would never have occurred to me to stack dishes at a regular restaurant. If I did it, it probably means I’m really frustrated and want to signal the waiter REALLY LOUDLY to come and clear our table. Yeah, I can’t imagine they like that.
Of course, if it’s a place where the customers can actually bus their own dishes, like, move them to the dirty dish place, where they sort them into plates, flatware, etc., then sure, I’m happy to do that, even if it’s optional. But I’m not going to leave a stack of plates at my table. If I stack the dishes, it’s because I will be moving them to the dirty dish basin within seconds.
I’ve never been a server but I’ve worked in a kitchen before. The regular flow is for apps to go out first and we can drag our feet on the dinner a bit and bit other tickets w/o apps before yours. It’s nice all around because the other table w/o apps is happy and you don’t notice any slowness.
Of course if you intend for your app to be your meal, definitely let them know it should come out with the other meals.
But otherwise, as the kitchen staff, I say please go with the regular flow of things and ask that your app come out first.
related: is it annoying for wait staff if you request that items be delivered as soon as available? I’m often in a group where some or all of the people don’t have time for a leisurely meal, and if one dish will take a while, the others don’t want to wait to get their food. But maybe that’s disruptive.
IMO that’s a case where even if it is disruptive that doesn’t matter. You’re the one paying for the meal and wanting to eat it while it’s still hot and you have enough time to do so is a pretty fundamental part of eating out to begin with.
This was pretty common in sports bars and it never bothered me in those circumstances. People sticking around to watch more than one game (especially football or soccer) tended to graze throughout their stay. We would bring out apps and other food as soon as they were ready for folks to casually snack on.
A request like this can be less convenient in a fine dining restaurant but as others said, you’re paying so we’ll do our best to accommodate the guest.
On a side note, I never really cared about people ordering things well done but you should understand that your well done meat is not going to come out as fast as something that is cooked to a lower temp. I’ll never forget a customer I had 20 some-odd years ago who threw a mini fit because their well done steak was “taking too long”. Easily one of the dumbest conversations I’ve ever had with a table and I’ve had a lot of dumb conversations with customers.
There’s a scene in The Gambler where Mark Walburgh orders a beer.
Waitress: What kind?
Walburgh: It doesn’t matter.
Waitress: We have 37 kinds, don’t #%#%^@#% put it on me.
John Goodman: But he did put it on you, miss.
If you care about what makes it easiest for them then you make the decision. If you prefer a booth tell them you want the booth. Otherwise you’re placing the burden on them to decide for you.
Don’t stack. There’s a very good chance you’ll screw it up and stack them wrong, or make more work for the wait staff. It also sends a message to the staff that you don’t think they’re capable of doing their jobs, which is to serve you. Don’t try to help them.
On a related note, I can tell you that working at a grocery store where customers bag their own groceries and the state requires us to charge for bags, that it is severely annoying when I ask the customer “How many bags would you like?” and their answer is “A few” or “However many it takes” or “However many you think I need”. I’m not allowed to just decide how many bags you’re going to pay for - you have to make that choice yourself.
But I’m also not going to remotely know the answer. This isn’t even a choice situation. The answer really is “however many it takes,” which I will not know until I am finished bagging.
I’m glad I’ve never been anywhere where they charge for bagging if they’re doing this, rather than totalling up however many bags I used after I’m done.
Huh. I would have thought that waitstaff would already have a default, something that was objectively easier, and thus it wouldn’t actually be a choice they were making.
If I don’t care, I really do just want to do what’s easier for them, and I don’t want to guess what that is and get it wrong. If there is no objective answer, then I’d gladly choose for them.
Maybe I could say “appetizer first, unless the other is easier”?
I’ve never been a server, but I’ve known enough of them. What they want is an answer to the question, “Do you want A or B?” Either one would be fine by them, but what they don’t want is “Oh, whatever is easier,” “You pick,” or similar.
The longest I’ve ever waited for my food is when they brought me a “rare” steak that was gray all the way through, and i sent it back. I think they must have had to slaughter a new cow. The rest of my table was completely done well before my steak arrived. But I’m paying for the damn thing, and i want to have a steak, not a piece of tough dry stew.
Like @BigT , i doubt i know in advance. Can i bag as you are ringing stuff up, so i have some sense of what I’ll need before you need to ring up the bags?
I really think the problem here isn’t the customer. It might be the law, it the way the store is set up. But … Predicting how many bags you will need for a load of groceries is not trivial.
I third “as soon as they’re done.” I know that appetizers are generally done before the entree, but on the offhand chance they aren’t, I don’t want them waiting to serve my main until I’m done with the appetizer.
