The waiter comes to the table to ask if we want coffee. The usual discussion ensues: What types of coffee does the restaurant offer, are all the choices available in regular and decaf and so on. The waiter takes the orders and then asks, “Will you be needing cream and sugar with that?”

What happened to the days when an order for coffee meant that the waiter automatically brought to the table a little tray that held the cream and sugar and the other accessories with which we decorate or alter our coffee? The service would take different forms. In a diner, you would be brought a little metal pitcher for cream or milk and a little metal canister, usually holding sugar or sugar-substitute packets. In a fine restaurant, a silver tray might hold a silver bowl of sugar cubes, while the milk or cream pitcher would also be silver and have a lid. These luxuries fascinated me when I was a child, especially the sugar cubes wrapped in paper, because when you unwrapped them, the paper kept its tiny neat folds and you could play games with it. Not that my family went out to eat in restaurants frequently, or ever.

Anyway, before I get all teary-eyed with nostalgia and fantasies about lost childhoods, let me say that the seemingly polite question that we hear so often now in restaurants, “Do you need cream and sugar with that?” is merely another way in which restaurants abdicate their responsibilities toward good service and erect a wall of faux-etiquette between waiters and customers.

And then the check comes. Now obviously the vast majority of checks in restaurants are paid by credit card; that’s the way of the world and the expense account. But occasionally I’ll pay with cash, slipping those greenbacks between the covers of the fake leather booklet. What happens nowadays is that the waiter picks up the book, turns slightly and then says, “Will you need change back from this?”

Well, honey, it’s not a negotiation. That question, disguised as polite concern and a way to save you, the customer, time, is such a naked plea for a tip that the waiter might as well get down on his or her knees and say, “Please, please, please!” It’s really a form of intimidation. Why take time to figure out a proper tip, is the theme: I’ll just keep the rest of the money.

No, waiters, take the booklet the way you’re supposed to, keep yer mouth shut, except to smile pleasantly, and bring back the change. Then the diner can figure out the tip and leave the appropriate amount.

Yes, I know, waiters have a hard life, and I’m not being ironic about this — all you have to do is listen to their horrific tales to understand — and, I hasten to add, the points I gripe about in this post are not the fault of the waiters; these are management decisions to deliberately diminish the quality of service.

But the tone of a restaurant, the pace of the meal, the cordial yet detached relationship between waiter and patron, the unspoken yet always fulfilling round of little details that comfort and assuage: These all need to be maintained in order for diners to have a successful experience in a restaurant, whether chomping on a grilled cheese sandwich at Mom ‘n’ Pop’s Road House or slicing into foie gras at La Maison de Upper Crust.

Service with a smile, dude!

Image of the happy waiter is from ckm2005.ucsd.edu.

One of my colleagues at the office related this incident:

He and three friends had gone to a restaurant to celebrate his birthday. The restaurant is a fairly sleek and contemporary place that serves upscale French bistro fare. It’s moderately expensive and fields a good (and more expensive) wine list. The chef is well-known in town for his talent and affability.

The group ordered martinis, and my colleague had taken a sip or two — in other words, he was not inebriated — when, in making some expansive gesture, he knocked over his cocktail glass and spilled the martini. He used his nakpin to sop up the liquid, called over the waiter, explained what had happened, and asked for a new napkin, which the waiter promptly brought.

At this point in the narrative, I interrupted and said, “And of course they replaced your martini.” A statement, not a question.

“Uh, no,” said my colleague. “The waiter asked if I wanted to order another one.”

All right, this is a simple incident, an accident that could happen to anybody, and I certainly don’t think the restaurant should replace the spilled cocktail of a knee-walking drunk (if such has not already been ejected from the restaurant). But the good will, the rapport that would have been established by replacing my colleague’s spilled cocktail would have been enormous, perhaps incalculable. It’s the sort of unspoken but deftly performed gesture that brings customers back and earns loyal patronage, compared to which the cost of a jigger of call-brand gin and a smidgeon of vermouth is nothing.

We posted this story on the food and dining blog at the newspaper where I work (and which is not connected with biggerthanyourhead.net), and I was surprised by how many responders said, essentially, “Let the guy buy his own drink! Why should the restaurant pay for his clumsiness?”

Well, O.K., you can take that view, but I think it’s ungenerous. No, one doesn’t want our fine restaurants filled with people who sip half of their Cosmopolitans, knock them over and expect a free replacement. I think the ideal is that we would never expect this sort of magnanimity but that it would be extremely gratifying if it happened. And waiters would appreciate the tip such generosity generated in turn.

 

A restaurant much like the ones you patronize.

The waiter comes to the table, hands out menus, takes drink orders and so on, and then announces that he will recite the roster of specials, the dishes that the chef — or as the chef is known in the restaurant, “Chef” — has created especially for your enjoyment this evening.

A bit of throat-clearing, and he begins:
“First Chef has prepared an appetizer of pan-roasted day-boat scallops on a bed of fresh micro-greens and cucumber coulis with a, um, a, uh, black cherry-wasabi vinaigrette. Another special appetizer features seared organic foie gras with, with, um, a Granny Smith apple-port wine reduction and, uh, gosh, what was, oh, right, caramelized Szechuan pepper-corns. The entree special is, uh, let’s see, um, o.k., got it, whew, ha, the entree special is a fennel-and-violet-encrusted Chilean sea bass with, um, yes, basil-buttermilk smashed Yukon Gold potatoes and, well, damnit! I mean I thought I had this down pat, I mean, I swear, an hour ago I was rattling this shit off like one-two-three, it’s with, wait, wait, ah, baby asparagus and a Meyer lemon-Savennieres demi-glace! Yes, I did it! Yes, I said, Yes, I will, Yes!”

Let’s call a moratorium on this sort of command performance, which demands that waiters memorize long lists of special items, requires diners to sit patiently as the recitation winds on, and then we still have to ask what the details are since we can’t remember them: “What was the sauce with that elk again?”

Chefs cannot, I suppose, help wanting to break out of the strictures of the menu and show off their talents for inspiration and spontaneity, but the burden on the waiters who have to recite the specials for diners sometimes seems unbearable. I have often seen waiters tuck crib-sheets inside their order books and glance surreptitiously at the list, but they always seem embarrassed if we catch them peeking, as if they have failed in some way.

I say, go ahead, print the specials on a card and let waiters read them, especially at restaurants where the specials seem to go on and on and we gradually dissolve in a haze of boredom and forgetfulness.

Better yet, print specials on cards and insert them in menus or have waiters pass them out so we can read them for ourselves.

That’s why computers and printers were invented.

The waiter swoops down and says, smirking, “Is everything wonderful?”

Or, even worse, “Is everything perfect?”
Well, not much is perfect in this imperfect world, but could we diners please be afforded the courtesy of making our own judgments about the food and the restaurant and the service without these blatant elbows in our ribs? Asking “Is everything wonderful?” isn’t an expression of concern for your dining welfare, it’s a form of coercion. The courteous response is a simple, “Everything is fine, thank you,” not, “Hey, it’s a bowl of onion soup, how wonderful can it be?”

Though that’s the whole point.
This actually happened a couple of days ago at lunch in a really nice restaurant, you know, white table clothes, menus printed on heavy paper, a certain air of casual solemnity. The place serves French bistro-style food but with an edge of creativity and interest. I was eating an onion and black olive tart with smoked salmon and fresh greens and having a glass of the MacMurray Ranch Pinot Gris 2004. Everything was good.
The young waiter veered toward the table, loomed and leaned over, beamed and said, with an interrogatory lilt: “Yummy?”

Yummy!

“You got it, Ace,” I said, “and my right foot in your tummy!”

Ha-ha, no, I didn’t. I said, of course, “Everything is fine, thank you,” but I mean, really, a restaurant isn’t nursery school. Could we please be treated like grown-ups?