I agree with wireless, and that’s what I’ve most often experienced (in Canada and the US). I do find it somewhat awkward if the server rushes to remove my plate as soon as I’ve finished the last bite – that feels as if they’ve been watching for me to finish. Usually they’ll ask if I’m finished, and remove the plate when I am. I can see certain advantages to this – neither I nor the others present have to look at a plate of crumbs and scraps. Normally the ‘dessert or coffee?’ question isn’t asked until the last plate has been removed. I may be asked if I want another drink, if my glass is almost empty. Technically, you’re not permitted to serve more than one alcoholic drink at a time here, and you have to wait until a person is finished a drink before asking them if they want another.
Really, I can’t envision any restaurant where they waited for everyone present to finish. I think the idea of having to look at a plate of destroyed food is a worse prospect than feeling rushed because others are done. (Besides, it’s obvious that someone else is done, and you might feel just as rushed whether or not their plate is still there.) I would understand if this custom was different in Europe, though, and I’d probably feel differently about it if I lived there.
Maybe I’m just weird, but I can’t grasp why somebody would feel rushed merely because a plate has been removed from the table. As far as I’m concerned, once I’ve finished my meal the plate and the remaining bits of food upon it are garbage. Please get this garbage out from in front of me as quickly as possible.
Then again, I’ve never thought of eating as an “event”. When I eat, I get it done with and get the hell out. I hate eating in groups anyway. Maybe this is why.
I tend to be the last person to finish eating, and so I HATE it when a waiter or waitress takes other people’s plates before I am done. Whether you notice it or not, when you don’t have a plate in front of you you tend to look at the plate and at the motions of the last person eating…that’s really quite a bit of pressure for some people, such as me! I have given up on a meal, not even finished it, because I have felt rushed. Especially if the waiter/waitress comes by often to ask “are you finished with that?”
I have also been a waitress, and I was always told to wait until the last person was finished before clearing.
I’ve heard it suggested that this is part of the reason that Americans tend to judge European service badly compared to what they’re familiar with - if you expect prompt clearance, then leaving all the plates until the end would understandably seem lazy. (No cites, though.)
According to Miss Manners, you should never clear the plates until everybody at the table is finished. It makes those left behind feel rushed, and implies that the person with no plate wolfed down their food.
At the fancy restaurants that I have been to, the plates have always been left until dinner is complete. It’s only at the family style restaurants that plates have been cleared when one person is done, and it has always made me cringe.
Of course, we’ve found through many surveys in the industry, that people will bitch and moan about poor service if the plates aren’t cleared soon enough.