The other night, our party was interrupted no fewer than four times during the meal by our waiter or his assistant asking us a variation of the question “Is everything all right?” The waiter, an otherwise normal-looking young man, appeared during each course (appetizer, salad, entree, dessert) eager to know how things were going, how we were doing, did we have everything we needed. That was in addition to his banter while he was serving those courses. Even the busboy inquired about the state of our satisfaction over coffee.
Now, I’m for concern as much as the next person. I know that a common complaint these days is indifference: salesclerks looking the other way or chatting to a friend on the phone while you are desperately trying to find out if the shirt you like is available without a lipstick smudge. We are accustomed to supermarket checkout clerks deciding to count every last penny just as we have unloaded a cartful of groceries, and we dread even entering the Department of Motor Vehicles. So I suppose I should be thrilled to know that every employee of the restaurant where I’m dining truly cares how I feel about the black bean soup. But surely there are limits.
It is to be expected, I suppose, n those elegant establishments that grant reservations only after you provide both social and bank references. An army of help-waiter, maitre d’, sommelier, busboy, water-glass filler–takes turns at your elbow, giving you your money’s worth of obsequiousness. Fine, for those who like that sort of thing. If you don’t, it used to be no problem. Eat elsewhere. But now there’s no escape. Family style. Chinese. Italian. Mexican. Morn and Pop. North. South. Urban. Rural. Everybody has to know how you’re doing. Often.
You can tell a great deal of training has gone into the timing. At the very moment you are struggling to transport a forkful of squirming pasta to the tip of your tongue or you’re dousing the flames ignited by a mistakenly ingested chili pepper, up pops the waitress with a perky “How’s everything going?” Is this a plot? Can it be some kind of class thing? Are they getting even in some way–Nancy, Jean-Louis, Pedro, Luigi? If you try to ignore them, they assume it is your hearing and ask again, louder.
Why do they do this? What makes them think we enjoy being grilled along with the salmon steak? Even the most dangerous criminal has a right to remain silent.
Don’t even risk meaningful conversation unless you are prepared to share your innermost feelings or political incorrectness with total strangers. The course is served, the wine and water poured, the waiter withdraws and you assume you have been left alone. Ha! Just when you are in the midst of entrusting a confidence, proposing a merger or sneaking a sweetener packet into your pocket, Armando materializes over your shoulder, desperate to know if you have everything you need.
At first I thought it might have something to do with age. You now: “Keep your eye on those senior citizens. You never know when they might knock over a candle, choke on a chicken bone or faint face-first into the rigatoni.” Suddenly surrounded by solicitous help doing everything but offering to cut the meat, one can get suspicious. But after careful investigation, I find it is happening to just about everyone old enough to leave a tip.
It has to be market research. The modern selling tool we employ to sell shampoo and elect presidents. Find out what consumers or voters want and promise to give it to them. I imagine that groups of people selected for their dining-out frequency were herded into research rooms where they revealed to the observers behind one-way mirrors what they liked and disliked about eating out. And “neglect” was high on the dislike list. You know, waiters who vanish during the meal and cannot be found when most needed. Having some experience in advertising research, I suspect this was interpreted by sages with Ph.D.s to mean that people wanted constant attention-when all they really wanted was to have their water glasses kept full and to get the check in time to make the movie.
I’m not advocating a return to the days of apathy. Then it was a challenge to flag down the back of a waiter’s head in quest of more butter. Or remember which one was our waiter–his or her presence had been so fleeting. All I ask is a little common sense. Serve the courses, make sure everyone is satisfied and retreat-but be available when needed. It would be a great help if restaurant reviewers and guidebooks kept an eye out for this growing phenomenon along with the Portabello mushrooms and polenta, and included in their ratings the dangers of being hovered to death.
As someone who drives with the seasons to Florida and back, I tell you this rampage of overconcern knows no boundaries. We could once count on the dining room of a motel chain off 1-95 in Georgia to treat us with normal politeness. Not on our last trip. Indifferent to the fact that my wife and I could barely stagger to the salad bar after a day of driving, the hostess, the waitress and even the cashier insisted on getting our reaction to the hush puppies. It is laudable that they are proud of their cooking, but wouldn’t one question do the trick?
Fast-food restaurants may be the last bastions of laissez faire. What a joy to sit at a table watching the busboys go in sullen silence about their messy business. Totally ignoring us. Forcing us to answer no questions. Keep it that way, Burger King. Resist any temptation to ask how we are doing, Wendy’s. And, McDonald’s, don’t even think of fawning over us with a kindergarten-teacher smile and a chirp at our clean plate, “Well, you didn’t like that very much, did you?”
It is time to draw a line in the tablecloth.
