Actually, I daresay most people won’t recognize “top” either. I had no idea what that meant (or that it was ever said) until I started reading waiters’ blogs. As for “being seated,” it ain’t exactly unheard of, but it’s not unambiguous either. On another day, or in another sentence, I might have caught the idea, but then I’ve never been shown to my seat in a Pizza Hut either. (Shakey’s, maybe; anybody remember Shakey’s?)
I’m from Germany, and English is my second language. However, from reading the Dope, I thought that “being seated” meant “being shown to the seat by a waitperson” in the US, I didn’t know that it means the same as “sitting down” by yourself!
As for the Pizza Hut, the local branch I’m thinking of (Isartor in Munich) explicitly has (or at least had a couple of years ago when I last looked) a sign “Please wait to be seated” (I don’t remember if it was in English or German), and I remembered this oddity because I’d read guides to the US where they explained how widespread even among cheap restaurants the concept of “being seated by the waitperson” was, and thus, that simply walking in and sitting down yourself as we are used to would be a faux-pas. (Apparently, the reason is that different tables belong to different waiters, and the expected revenue of tips is to be divided evenly, thus people need to be seated by the waitpersons.)
I remember Shakey’s. As I mentioned in another thread, I owe my very existence to Shakey’s Pizza.
I would say that “being seated” means that you’re being escorted or directed to a particular table. “Finding a seat” or “please seat yourself” means you’re on your own. And if you’re in one of the former places during off-peak hours, they may just tell you to sit wherever you like.
I’ve spent a little time in Germany, and the subtle differences in dining culture are fascinating. Being shown to a table here isn’t always about trying to be fancy, and I don’t think it’s always about money, either. Maybe they’re trying to balance the workload among the waitresses. Maybe one is about to end her shift. Maybe they don’t want two people taking up a large table if they know a smaller one will be available very soon.
That last bit is important. I was very surprised in Germany to share tables with people I didn’t know. (That will sometimes happen here, at a crowded food court, but only if those are the only open seats.) I’m not sure why we don’t do it more in America. I hope it doesn’t seem anti-social, it’s just that every group expects their own table. I liked doing it there; met some interesting people I never would have otherwise.
Except at Oktoberfest. I even managed to get into one of the tents. Couldn’t find a place to sit down, though, and got some dirty looks when I asked if seats were free.
And in a restaurant that’s very much true. However, in a church or courtroom, for instance, people might stand up as a show of respect… and stay standing until the priest, minister, or judge says "Please be seated." :smack:
Human languages are so weird.
I certainly remember the “Please wait to be seated” signs in most of the Pizza Huts I’ve been to.
It’s quite common, though not universal, in American restaurants, for the reasons Robot Arm mentioned, plus, in restaurants where you just pick a table and sit down, I’m always a little worried that it will be awhile before someone notices I’m there and need to be waited on.
Huh. Now you have me surprised - whenever I’m going out alone or with my fiance, we always expect to sit alone ourselves, not share the table with somebody else. We’re not eager to sit with strangers when we want to talk among ourselves. But maybe we only go into Restaurants when they are not fully packed. And of course, if we are two people, we either don’t choose a big table, or expect to have to share it.
Another cultural difference - at least from what I’ve read - is that in the US, it seems to be expected that you pay and leave as soon as you’re finished eating - not only in the fast-food places, but also in normal restaurants (the business of restaurants is feeding people, and the more people they feed, the more money they make, so make place!) Whereas here, it’s quite normal to sit around for over an hour, even after the meal is finished, maybe ordering a soft-drink again, while talking, because when we’re dining out, it’s an experience, and the restaurant is expected to provide a comfortable surrounding for that experience. (Watzlawick, the Austrian philosopher and psycologist who went on to Palo Alto, wrote in his Guide to America about how there aren’t normal “Coffehouses” - the typical place to sit around, read a newspaper, philosophize and chat if you want to, or be alone if you want to, half the day - in the US, and that the Bars there are are dark, as if the purpose is to get drunk without being seen. He speculated it has to do with the strong Puritan work ethic where loafing around without doing anything productive is frowned upon).
Ah, the Oktoberfest is something special, and no normal rules apply. Remember that 6 million people visit it during 14 days (and it’s open from around noon to 11 pm only). Since it’s tradition for companies to go there en masse with their employees and honored clients, they reserve their seats in the little cubes (boxen) one year in advance - and then the seats are gone long before they start erecting the tents. (Several years ago there was a lively discussion whether or not it was legal to sell seat reservations on ebay - some of the tents didn’t want to honor sold reservations to discourage hoarders.
The general seats on the main floor are of course always taken during the busy times, too. The best bet is going during the off times - Monday early afternoon - and sitting outside if the weather is warm.
If you do go into a tent, don’t ask at the boxes/cubes around the main floor, they’re always reserved, and on the main floor, every seat may already be gone. That’s why you see groups of people wandering around looking for free places, too. The dirty looks weren’t meant dirty, it’s just the typical normal state of a Munich person or a Bavarian is surly and non-talkative, esp. to foreigners. They prefer short grunts instead of talking. 
Hijack: this reminds me of course of the famous Fritz Teufel quote (he is one of the 68 revolutionaries, member of Kommune 1) when up in court, the bailiff asked everybody to stand (as you said, to show respect for the Judges and the system they represent), and he said “Wenn’s der Wahrheitsfindung dient …” = if it helps in finding the truth … 
When I was in Germany I was told that I was expected to leave my tray on the table at McDonalds because otherwise I was insulting the dining room personal by doing their job. But I see constanze is from Germany, so I’m now questioning if that was true. I’d hate to think they thought I was an ignorant slobby American just because I had the wrong info. This was in the 80’s btw.
To (hopefully) clarify for constanze, it’s the same thing - if one is ‘being seated’ one is currently being enabled to take a seat, through the process of being allocated a chair, whereas ‘please be seated’ is an invitation to put oneself in a seated state. The opposite of the latter is ‘please be upstanding’, and I suppose one could be in the state of ‘being deseated’, by the staff telling you to leave.
I just asked somebody who went to University in the 60s and 70s and ate in the Menas there, and he confirms that everybody took their tray back because it was self-serve. He did the same when McDonals appeared in the late 70s (before he stopped eating there), but adds that non-students who at that time would have only been used to normal restaurants with waitpersons doing the serving wouldn’t have known about returning the trays themselves. (Since IKEA still thinks it’s necessary to explain it to people today, apparently not everybody has gotten the message).
Since our normal schools are till noon, 1 pm at latest (only some private schools are full-day) school students don’t go to cafeterias.
I was there for three months, and it only happened a few times. In the U.S., it wouldn’t happen at all in a normal restaurant.
(There is a place near Harvard Square called Bartley’s, mostly a burger joint. It’s so small the tables are packed in cheek-by-jowl, and there’s one long table down the middle. The waitress will seat you wherever there’s room. It’s a very informal place, and may qualify under the food-court exception I already mentioned.)
True.
We have coffeehouses now. People take their laptops so they can get some work done.
I was there on a Saturday (late-afternoon, I think). I saw some people hanging around in front of one of the tents. I figured it was one of those five-people-come-out-and-they-let-five-people-go-in kind of things. No one ever came out. I was passing one of the side doors, and I just stepped up to try to see through the window, and somebody opened the door and let a few of us in. The band was playing that classic German drinking song La Bamba.
I don’t even like beer all that much, but I’d have had one, and I was really hungry. I couldn’t find even one seat. And like I said, no one was leaving. I left. I’m glad I got to see it at least once in my lifetime.
This is a very good example of another German/American difference. When I was living in Berlin they opened an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. It was medium-priced, had a nice selection of food and desserts and they were basing the idea off of similar buffet restaurants in the USA.
They went out of business in just a few months.
Why? Because Germans wouldn’t leave the tables…they would finish dinner, then have a few drinks, and then one would go back and get something else to eat, then another would go, and they would have some more drinks and then someone else would go. People were staying at tables for hours and hours.
In the US at buffets, even here in Vegas, most people eat, have dessert and coffee and then leave. The owners of that German buffet totally underestimated the turnover per table, and the friends of mine who were waiters and waitresses said that often there would be a two hour wait for a table to be free.
Needless to say, that low turnover rate killed the business.
Re: Oktoberfest, Fun Facts of / Going to the
Lucky!! That’s actually the way it works. They will never EVER open up the front door of the tent again once it’s closed. People waiting there = Fail! Also, chances of getting into a tent at all decrease with time (but sometimes they increase once you’re drunk enough to not care that you just walked past a burly security guard who might chase you around inside the tent for a bit before he gives up).
There’s your mistake right there. If you don’t have a reserved seat, you will not get food in an Oktoberfest tent (maybe, but only maybe in the afternoon). And you wouldn’t want to eat there: In the evening, people are usually standing on the benches, with one foot on the table to keep their balance. No fun having your fried chicken sitting right next to that. Also, one beer is never enough to bear the godawful music.
It’s like the Hotel California! Once they’re actually IN a tent, people will never leave, because chances of getting into another tent are pretty slim. What you do to get a seat is you mosey up to a table where it looks like there are 5 inches of room not used, and ask the people there if you can stay until you get a beer (you will not get beer if you don’t have a seat). Usually, they will agree. By the time the beer arrives you will have done the Macarena with them, and of course have to toast them, and suddenly nobody cares that they didn’t know you before.
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The OP?
I think it depends on the layout of the fast food restaurant: If it’s easy to see where you should deposit your tray, people will usually go for it. Otherwise they will assume that somebody will collect the tray eventually. However, I will note that I haven’t seen a tray left on a table in a long time (but I don’t go to fast food restaurants that often).
I also get the feeling that fast food restaurants have become more “upscale” in terms of décor - McDonald’s e.g. has implemented “McCafé lounges” in many of their German restaurants, and people might be more hesitant to leave their trash sitting on a table in a nicer environment.
Although, I’d like to add to this hijack, it’s not impossible to have all-you-can-eat-buffets in Germany generally - small restaurants (I know an Indian one near Stiglmaierplatz) offer a buffet during lunch hour (noon to 2 pm) for 5 Euros e.g. because they know people will eat quickly and cheaply to get back to work (and a buffet saves time to normal ordering if you have only 30 to 45 min. lunch).
And on Saturdays/Sundays, many restaurants offer “Brunch” - buffets, prices from around 10 Euros up to 40 Euros, usually drinks extra, depending on how many expensive stuff like salmon shrimps etc they are offering. There’s a time limit, too - say from 9 am to 12 or 1 pm - and they especially market it as a way for families to eat together in leisure without having to cook themselves, a wide selection for less money than normal.
Before the Oktoberfest starts, tourist information and many other places will distribute a little booklet. Besides boring articles on the different style of the tents, there are three useful things inside:
- A map of the whole field (Wiesn) with the names of the tents, the main attractions, toilets, streets and public transport.
- A barometer-type forecast with green for few people, yellow for moderatly crowded, red for full and (newly introduced) red with a cross for insanly full.
- Some coupons at the end to save 10% or similar.
Usually, the days not to go because everybody else goes are:
Friday afternoon, Saturday, Sunday. It’s packed like a Tokyo subway.
The afternoon before and during October 3rd (National unity day , a holiday).
Evenings after 5 pm (when work lets out), worst from 7 pm to 11 pm (When they close).
The Tuesday afternoons are “family days” when all the rides for the kiddies are cheaper - and the fathers spend the time during this in the tents drinking beer!
So what’s left to amble around without being crushed and have a chance of sitting down and enjoying yourself quietly?
Early Afternoons - on weekdays, they open around 1 or 2 pm, but until 5 pm (except for the family day) people are at work. Monday esp. is usually quiet, because everybody is trying to recover from the wild drinking/partying on Sunday).
If the weather is nice and warm (as it should be by rights), sit outside the tents, that’s nicer.
If you choose your time to be in Munich, a secret tip is to come before the Octoberfest proper opens, while the workers are putting up the tents (that takes about 2 months!), and eat in their cafeteria - cheaper than the real thing, but authentic and less croweded. Only the pensioneers and similar have discovered this.
The regular Biergärten outside the Wiesn of course usually offer real Wiesn Beer during that time - the Löwenbräu at the Stiglmaierplatz even advertises that if you can’t find a place in the tents, take the shuttle bus to them, there is always a place free …
The Auer Dult, in the next-to-last week of October, also has some selected seating, though not the special Wiesn beer, but suffers typically from very cold and rainy weather (while it’s typical for the last two weeks of September to be warm and golden).
Or you buy your Wiesn beer at the Supermarket cheaper (it costs over 7 Euros a Mass = liter = quart there, and they are raising the prices every year. The days of free beer coupons from Munich companies are also long gone in most cases.)