I waitressed for a while in college at a local diner which, at the time, did not have the standard policy of assigning a person to a table. Instead, the whole thing was sort of collective: the 1st available waitstaff would take your order, the 1st available person would bring the food when it was ready, etc. and all tips were shared.
(Side note: this policy was discontinued not long after I stopped working there.)
Anyway, this meant that the “auctioning off” of food was very common. It never occurred to me at the time that this was bad service (this was a … “colorful” joint) but it had one side problem. As a 24-hour diner, it was crowded as hell by 1 a.m. and by 3 a.m. it was full to the gills with hungry drunks, leading to this:
** walks up to tableful of wobbly heads and bleary eyes **
ME: “Okay, who had the cheeseburger?”
** blank stares **
“Ohhh, man. A cheeseburger sounds so good right now!”
“Yeah, it does, man!”
ME: “Is that what you ordered?”
** blank stare **
“Did you want the breakfast taco?”
"Mmmmm … tachiccupcosssss… "
More than once I simply set all the plates onto the table and let them sort it out among themselves.
Which I find odd, because having worked at one for almost 5 years (ugh…that long? Hopefully, if I get a pay raise at my regular job this year I can finally quit) I can tell you it’s frowned upon in chains, too. In fact, chains are more likely to have a stricter “seat number” system in place, since everything about them is planned to be repeatable no matter which location you go to.
I often am the ‘runner’ on the one or two nights a week I work. (which sucks, BTW. I go to the kitchen, load up with BLAZING HOT, HEAVY AS FUCK plates, give them to the table, and go back to get more BLAZING HOT, HEAVY AS FUCK plates. My arms are dead, red, and in pain after a shift.) i rarely have to ‘auction’ off the food, because the kitchen ‘pushes’ the plates in a certain order, so I know who is seat 1, 2, 3, etc…I only auction them out if it’s a table that has ambiguous seat numbers (we have a few round tables, and yeah, seat #1 is the first seat on the left with your back to the kitchen…but that could still be one of two seats, sometimes) and even then I’ll just auction the first seat so I know where to start.
But as others have said, there’s a few reasons we have runners.
Especially on busy Friday and Saturday nights, your server could be doing one of any number of other things. Taking another table’s order, doing their “sidework” (rolling silverware, cleaning/refilling the dressings station, checking the bread, etc…), bringing out drinks, so rather then wait for them and let food get cold, someone else brings it.
There’s only so much room in ‘the window’ for food, and if we waited for everyone to run their own, it would get filled up VERY soon, and there would be no more room to set up new plates.
Team service allows some more ‘accountability’, for lack of a better work, for the main server. When I drop off food I’ll also just ask a general “and everything looks alright? Tina’s been taking care of you?” and 99% of the time it’s “yes, thanks” but every so often someone will mention their server forgot a drink, or an app, or their salads, or something along those lines.
Edit: And on a personal note, when you see the server/runner come up to your table with the BLAZING HOT, HEAVY AS FUCK plates, and is clearly having trouble setting them down because you had your empty salad bowl still in front of you…don 't be afraid to help out! Move the salad bowl out of the fucking way…can’t you tell from my face that I am in a LOT OF PAIN!?
(Yeah, we should use trays for plates…we don’t. Yeah, I should have a towel over my arm for the hot plates, but that makes it harder to hold on to the plates. Catch-22 and all.)
It’s possible, if unlikely, that some people ask “who’s got the what?” as a way of making conversation, or because they think people expect that kind of snappy patter.
My wife managed some restaurants. Her big complaint was servers who would not help out while the food piled up, some servers were more consciencious than others, cold food meant they had to promo it out or redo the order, etc. More than one good server complained they ran Sally’s food but Sally never ran theirs but Sally got all the tip for her tables. Or Sally would disappear outside for a smoke for 10 minutes while someone else ran the food. Or the runner got asked for other stuff like drinks, thus doing even more of Sally’s job and earning Sally her tip.
When my food arrives cold, either Sally’s in the washroom with her period or morning sickness, or out smoking - and she’s done it so often that everyone else is tired of covering for her.
The rule of thumb for tips - good service is prompt to take your order, prompt to bring drinks (which is quick, and the server usually does); prompt refills; the food arrives in a timely manner (salads long enough before the main course that you can finish them); all the orders are correct (although the server can blame the kitchen, and it can be the kitchen’s fault); if a runner brings you the food, the server should show up within a minute or two and ask if it’s all good.
Basically, even though a runner brought your food, the server should look like he/she is paying attention and taking care of you.
We’ve all seen that annoying table of 6 across the aisle spending forever to decide what they want and trying to engage the server in that process for 10 or 15 minutes. I’d rather someone (anyone!) bring me my food when it’s ready, than wait 10 minutes for that other table to let go of my server.