I’m probably a tad too thirsty for waitstaff praise. I like ordering dishes that servers recommend and complimenting their good taste. I make a point never to request menu alterations. Most of all, I facilitate table bussing with Tracy Flick–like determination: filtering silverware, plates, and glasses into their open hands, fishing for my Most Grateful Customer gold star.
During a recent dinner at a chic shared-plates restaurant, however, I was upstaged by a self-bussing tablemate so eager that he might as well have been on the payroll. He stacked our plates and gathered soiled forks and knives. He used his patterned cloth napkin to brush baguette crumbs into his cupped hand. As he held up a pile of dishes in one hand and a heap of silverware in the other, the server took charge. “You can put those down; I’ve got it.”
Did I detect a hint of exasperation in her voice? After all, this was a full-service restaurant. At that moment, it hit me: Maybe the most eager among us are taking self-bussing too far, getting in the way of servers doing their jobs.
Chad Hall, a server at Dear Margaret in Chicago, is all too familiar with the industrious self-busser, whom he dubs the “A-plus student.” He’s noticed a demographic pattern to this behavior too. “Folks in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s are leaning more into it,” he says. “They’re very aware that I’m doing a job for them. Maybe it’s strange to give themselves up to somebody else rather than take ownership. But that’s the name of the game; it’s service.”
Dinner at this French-Canadian small plates restaurant often encompasses three courses and requires one or two rounds of fresh plates and silverware. Hall has a system for clearing: He starts with silverware, which is less disruptive to remove, then stacks small plates and finally larger serving dishes—unless, of course, an overeager diner gets there first. They’ll start stacking up goopy plates and silverware like “wobbly Jenga”—a nice gesture, though one that almost always makes Hall’s life harder. “At that point I have a stack of porcelain on my forearm; half my brain is fully balancing that, and the other half is like, ‘How can I add to this?’” says Hall.
“There’s an eagerness to it,” he says of these diners. “I think they want praise.”
Jessica Rosa, a server at Mother Pizzeria in Newport, Rhode Island, takes a similar approach to clearing tables. She finds that many of her customers are blissfully content to sit back and let her do the plate-clearing—which she mostly appreciates. Being five-foot-two, it’s hard for her to reach across tables to fetch rogue forks and wine glasses. A bit of help pushing dishes in her direction is appreciated.
Still, less is almost always more. “As a server you’re trying to balance a million things in your head, like, ‘I need to do this for the next table, that for the next table,’” says Rosa. The worst thing we as diners can do at that moment is keenly present our leaning tower of saucy dishes, forks, and knives, which the server will likely feel compelled to take.
Perhaps we kiss-ups would be better off leaning back when we’re done eating, remembering that not cleaning up is one of the privileges of dining out in the first place. “That’s what we’re here for,” says Rosa. “That’s what you’re tipping us for.”
