Customers often use the menus as place mats, which means they’re either ruined (if they’re the one-sheet paper menus) or we have to wipe them down (if they’re the harder, cardboard type) to get rid of sticky dried-up alcohol or food stains. Either way, it’s a wasteful practice: un-ecological and un-ergonomic, not to mention uneconomical.
Professional etiquette prevents me from telling them that the menus are not place mats — let alone telling them off for leaving sticky marks on them and making extra work for us — so I try as much as possible to subtly raise their awareness by saying, when I approach a table with plates of food: “Let me clear some space for you. Can you hand me the menus, please? Now, that’s much better, isn’t it?”
Last week, I delivered food to a group of four men in their 40s at Table 14. One of them, when asked to hand me the menu, said, “It’s OK. I’d like to keep it here.” I took the opportunity to sneak my message in, “Well, menus are not really place mats,” but he insisted he’d like to leave it there — this exchange was all done in a civil manner, by the way. I let my eyes linger on the menu for a few seconds before putting his food down on the menu-turned-place-mat, then looked dolefully at the plate of food sitting on the menu before I walked away.
A few minutes later, when I went back to them for the routine check-back (for quality of food, in case there are complaints), I saw that the menu had gone from under his plate. I said, with my usual good-customer-service bright smile, “Oh! You’ve lost your place mat!”
He said, with a contrite look, pointing at the menu now sitting on the chair beside him, “You looked so unhappy about it, so I thought I should remove it. I’m so sorry. Will you forgive me?”
Haha, the trick worked!! I was very touched all the same.
Haha, the trick worked!! I was very touched all the same.
(London, 2019)
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