Why do people sit where they sit?

Greetings and thanks in advance to anyone who can give me a reasonable answer to this question.

First, I’ll give a bit of background. I’ve worked in restaurants for over 20 years and it has mostly been in fine dining. I’ve been a server for many different celebrity chefs and really enjoy it. Currently, I work in a fairly casual-style restaurant and when guests arrive we often ask them to sit wherever they like.

Guests will, very often, sit at the table that is dirty. This will be the only table in the room that is dirty and it could be a room with no other guests in it. I know what you’re thinking; it must be the best table in the restaurant. No, it doesn’t seem to matter. We have many tables and 6 of them are, for all practical purposes, identical. They are situated by the windows and all have the exact same view.

Sometimes, it will be a table that is completely un-bussed with plates of half eaten entrees, coffee cups, and wadded napkins. It happens at my current restaurant every day. Granted, it happens less in fine-dining because we have a host or hostess seat the guests but it still happens. In fine dining, when the guests are taken to a clean table, they will ask for the table that is dirty.

I’m convinced that there has to be something behind this. I’m sure that part of it has to do with them not paying attention when they sit down but I would assume when they realize what they’ve done they would move to the adjacent clean table. That never happens.

While this is not really a big deal, it is superbly annoying. I’ve started mentioning it to the guests in a humorous manner and say how often it happens so as to not make them feel like idiots or that I’m singling them out. They usually say something-along-the-lines-of “I guess we didn’t notice.” I’m dubious about that answer and there are many reasons why I feel that way.

I am by no means a psychologist but I have learned a considerable amount about people’s behavior when they are eating out. I know exactly what a guest/s wants from me within 5-10 seconds of greeting them (performance/behavior). That said, I can’t seem to delineate a personality type that would be common for sitting where they sit!

Again, thanks for any answers you might have and for reading. I think this would make a fascinating study and I would be willing to take any notes for any one that may find relevant answer or answer any questions you may have in order to get an idea about the psychology for this vexing question. I also know several servers that would happily take notes since we all experience the same issue.

You are not the only person who has wondered this because I saw a TV program about the psychology behind this some time ago.

I believe the short answer is effectively that people choose the table where they feel safest and often this has to do with what they may have their back to or how much stuff surrounds them, as they are inclined to feel more safe with their back towards a solid wall or similar "dividing" type object where people can't sneak up behind. I would imagine this is a subconscious decision rather than a conscious one, so it probably doesn't make sense to get annoyed at people for their subconscious reasons for table choice, particularly when you are being paid to keep the restaurant in good, clean order.

For myself it was whatever table was the most isolated and far away from people. Not out of a sense of paranoia or anti-social behavior. It was out of a sense of respect for other diners. I had 4 children that had been taught proper manners and thought it was a great challenge to see how much they could misbehave in public before they were punished. Considering at the first sign of misbehavior they were taken into the restroom for a conversation it never seemed to discourage them. So it was much easier to find a table that gave me a head start in the event their test of choice was throwing something at a neighboring guest. I will say that by the time all of them were 5 this had stopped.

salted lipstick wrote:You are not the only person who has wondered this because I saw a TV program about the psychology behind this some time ago.

I believe the short answer is effectively that people choose the table where they feel safest and often this has to do with what they may have their back to or how much stuff surrounds them, as they are inclined to feel more safe with their back towards a solid wall or similar "dividing" type object where people can't sneak up behind. I would imagine this is a subconscious decision rather than a conscious one, so it probably doesn't make sense to get annoyed at people for their subconscious reasons for table choice, particularly when you are being paid to keep the restaurant in good, clean order.

Thanks for the response. You, apparently, didn't read the post. I read the same study you're speaking about, long ago.

I always sit facing the door, some always sit with their back to the door. Go figure! The question is why, at identical tables, do they sit at the dirty one? Pretty simple. Thanks for trying.

I believe the reasoning lies fundamentaly and probably subconsciously in the new diners belief that the previous diners had used their logic in selecting what they thought was the best seat in the restaurant. The new diners would then adopt the previous diners selection instead of having to decide on their own.

This reminds me of a similar situation, which I'm sure you're aware of, when my wife and I used to go out dining in a restaurant strip where there were many eateries to select from. I would be inclined to go where there was fewer diners in the belief I would get a more personalised experience. My wife instead always wanted to eat where the place was busiest and most crowded. Her logic being that the busy place must have better food or there wouldn't be so many people. A possibly correct assumption, but not necessarily true. That assumption could only be made once the food from both eateries had been tasted and compared. This didn't stop her assuming that others had already made the best decision.

It could be that they subconsciously realise that by sitting at a dirty table,the waiter/ress will be more likely to notice them because of the mess on the table! I have noticed that if I sit at a clean table, the waiters/waitresses don't notice me, but if I sit at a dirty table then they're over like a shot because it's obvious from the mess on the table that I haven't yet been served.

Obviously the tables don't all have exactly the same view. Positioning within a restaurant also has something to do with it. One may be a little closer to a door or a wait station or the bar or a cozy fireplace or whatever. Also, what's the draft like? Any vents, floor or overhead near any of them?

Patrons also seem to like tables at the end of traffic lanes. From my restaurant days, I recall people preferring to be at the end of a path, rather than being along the path, although most people seem to hate corner tables (even if there are full windows on both sides of the corners). Servers seem to stop and spend more time at the end of a traffic lane than in the middle of it, so that may have something to do with it, though I doubt most patrons have consciously noticed that.

For me, it wasn't necessarily that people wanted the tables that were dirty, it was that they all wanted the same particular tables, night after night. The tables were identical to others near them in the room, were almost identical in the view they afforded and, in my opinion, many were among the more disadvantageous positions in the restaurant, but the patrons loved 'em. Since someone else got there first, that naturally meant that the table was dirty (or still in use) by the time they arrived.

The short is, without knowing the patrons, the style of dining, and the layout, it's hard to say. That's why people make entire careers solely on analyzing and optimizing this kind of thing, to increase the number of "perfect tables" in a restaurant. Then, once you get the owner to stick a prybar in his wallet and pay for it all (which he takes out of your tips anyway, even though it's illegal), you throw in the insanely fickle mind of the restaurant patron and mess it all right up.

As Randall Graves so famously said in Clerks, "this job would be great if it weren't for the f***ing customers."

I'm strongly convinced that the people don't sit at those tables because they are dirty. Rather both of these are the result of a more basic, primary cause X. Let me put it this way:

Factor X causes people to sit at a few particular tables - > Thus these tables see more "traffic" than other tables - > Since more people use these, said tables become dirty faster than others.

Now what is factor X? Hard for me to guess without seeing teh restaurant and knowing what sort of customers go there. If your clientele are mostly students and couples, then they might naturally go for the more sechluded spots. Businessmen in for a quick meal will likley choose spots near sources of light, but also near the bar and/or door. In general nobody wants to sit "in the middle" or at a seat that has people passign through constantly.

So yeah, there can be a lare number of reasons depending on the time (daylight or artificial lighting), types of clientele, type of food served, air circulation, the way clients and waiters move around the space etc...

First, I don't think my answer will be particularly helpful, but I found your question pretty interesting really. I will make sure to pay attention where I sit and where other people sit next time I eat out.

But I think it's cool that you know what a quest wants within 5-10 seconds. It would take me like at least 10 minutes to understand what they want. I've been fired for that in the past. Lol. xD Buuut, that was a long time ago that I prefer to keep forgotten.

I think there surely must be a reason behind this. Maybe you can find some articles about this subject on the web? I think there really should be a study on this or something, because it's pretty interesting really.

Now I'm curious to know... Lol.

I like the "Factor X" answer. I don't believe there's such a thing as a restaurant with completely "identical" tables. Something's got to be different between them. Maybe you're just not sensitive to the differences.

I don't like sitting at dirty tables, and I'm just assuming that's more common than not.

On the other hand, where I sit in a restaurant is very important to me and if a dirty table is the "best" for my purposes, I won't worry too much if it's not bused.