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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

You grab a table while I queue up....

313 replies

Grandshiredoubles · 14/02/2015 23:24

Which means that some people before you can't get anywhere to sit. Happened today in Waitrose where the naice people should kmow better. Do you think people should wait until they have their food before getting a table or Aibu. Talking about YOU lady with the red shoes in malvern today

OP posts:
DamnBamboo · 16/02/2015 13:33

What's the point in buying food if there's nowhere to eat it?
If I see a table, I grab it.
Why on earth wouldn't I?

hazeyjane · 16/02/2015 13:35

Give me an a old fashioned caff any day. The people are gruff, mind their own business and have no opinion about who sits where.

hahaha, does everyone in your cliche world read the racing times, drink grease tea and fried egg buttys and call everyone sweetheart.

DamnBamboo · 16/02/2015 13:36

It is the same Uncle You have no right to a table until you have purchased your food

That can't be true though can it. Otherwise nobody in any restaurant before being presented with their bill would have the right to a table.

I can't believe the stuff people moan about on here.

CavalierQueenCharlotte · 16/02/2015 13:46

In my cliché caff you can smoke Grin

LoisWilkersonsLastNerve · 16/02/2015 13:47

I don't know about middle class but there is a certain type of people on both sides seem to be very 'me, me me ' why should I not bagsy a table/ they should move for me, not hog tables types.
Just buy your posh overpriced sarnie and sit the hell down. On the floor if you're that bothered. Amazing how quick a chair appears when you do that in Waitrose!

VanitasVanitatum · 16/02/2015 13:56

People will never stop doing this but it is very unfair on people who are on their own and so cannot do this. This is why I chose cafes where they take your order at the table!

Gigglenhoot · 16/02/2015 13:59

Mildly annoying, particularly if you're on your own, but hey, you take your chances.

DuchessofCuntbridge · 16/02/2015 15:27

For goodness sake - surely this is a common sense issue?

If you haven't secured yourself somewhere to sit in a busy café/pub/whatever, then how can you be sure you will have somewhere to sit when you have your food...?

Personally, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would fancy standing around like a lemon with a tray full of hot food waiting for tables to free up on busy days, all because they have some ridiculous aversion to securing a table prior to ordering!?

Find something more worthwhile to moan about.

SoonToBeMrsB · 16/02/2015 15:34

I did this yesterday - I got us a table while DP ordered and waited for the food. The place was fairly busy and if I hadn't gotten a table we would have hot food and nowhere to sit Confused

Fair enough if I'd bought a sandwich that could be taken elsewhere but I'm not going to hover around with a tray of food until someone leaves.

SuperFlyHigh · 16/02/2015 15:59

SoontobeMrsB - ah but there you have it - most other establishments (Starbucks, Pret etc) won't LET you take a sandwich elsewhere to eat, if you've bought it eg in EAT.

muminhants · 16/02/2015 16:15

This is why I chose cafes where they take your order at the table!

Although that is also an issue. Why do so many (independent) cafes not make it obvious? Doesn't say at the door, on a sign at the food bar, on the menu....

I hate it when I have to ask if it's self-service or waitress service. It's often not obvious at all.

muminhants · 16/02/2015 16:17

or waiter

flipchart · 16/02/2015 16:45

what does pee me of is when you get a single person who sits at a large table/4 seater sofa type table
Jeez, is there no end to moaning!
I bloody love it if I'm the first if my mates to arrive and the big comfy sofa is free! Guess what I buy np my coffee and wait for them to turn ip and we can all sit on it together! ( and watch all the single parents that are ALWAYS in balancing prams, toddlers and lattes while they float round looking for somewhere becauseI they didn't have the sense to claim a table when they walked in.

Have a missed something? Aren't single people allowed the nice seats?

flipchart · 16/02/2015 16:48

I hate it when I have to ask if it's self-service or waitress service. It's often not obvious at all

Hi, shall I sit down or shall I come to you? ( answer) 'thanks'

What's difficult about that! ( unless you are in Lithuania like I am at the moment and don't speak the language,in which case a few hand gestures get exchanged)

LoisWilkersonsLastNerve · 16/02/2015 17:01

Should we strike up just giving page for the seatless of the world? Grin

Mehitabel6 · 16/02/2015 17:19

I really can't see why people fuss if they are on their own and can't bag a seat- it is often me and there are always single seats.

The difficulty appears to be that the management wants to serve as many people as possible- they want them in the queue, only using a table at the point of consuming and to get on with it quickly and leave. However the customer wants to spin it out, have the chat, have a rest, wait until the rain stops, read the paper, waste time waiting for a train, use the WiFi etc etc etc. Difficult to resolve.

merrymouse · 16/02/2015 17:22

I think the management want you to stay in your seat and have another coffee - that is why they provide stuff like wifi.

fatherpeeweestairmaster · 16/02/2015 17:51

OP, in my experience of the Waitrose cafe in Malvern, the queue moves soooooo sloooooooowly despite the herds of naice but utterly ineffectual staff flapping about behind the counter that you can count on at least one table leaving before you get served. Maybe four. You can watch entire phases of people's lives passing while four staff try to work the till/vanish into the back.

(YANBU. It's very singlist.)

CavalierQueenCharlotte · 16/02/2015 17:55

I have never been inside a Waitrose except the shop at Fleet Services and the Dubai Mall neither of which are very naice people places. Jealous of MalvernEnvy

DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 16/02/2015 17:58

If you want to sit down for a drink/meal, you should find a seat then gt the food/drink. Anything else is stupidity, not politeness- I agree with the martyr diagnosis.

hazeyjane · 16/02/2015 18:13

Yes, yes I am a martyr. It is petty, but on those occasions when it happens it does make life more difficult, and yes when someone rushes over to bag a table before they see me and ds in his sn buggy heading towards it with me balancing a tray with the other hand, I do think they are a cunt.

Really not in the right frame of mind for this thread after a shitty arsewipe of
A day.

Mixtape · 16/02/2015 18:29

Someone racing to beat you to a table when they see you and your DS approaching is different from the normal practice of finding somewhere to sit before ordering though, very different. If DS cannot be left at a table, dump your stuff there. Make it clear to staff that your DS is unable to wait alone and that you will be sitting there. Nothing wrong with that at all. Anyone who has a problem with that IS a cunt.

fatherpeeweestairmaster · 16/02/2015 18:39

The problem about queueing up on your own is that it gives you time to simmer. I once spent twenty minutes queueing on my own in a John Lewis cafe, anxiously scanning the table movements for a likely spot while people behind me sent friends/partners to save them somewhere to sit. I saw a prime table about to be free as I stepped away from the till, tray in hand, and was about to grab it, at which point a snotty woman and her mum who had a table and were already eating decided they preferred the look of that table and mum sent daughter over to claim it. Between the pots of tea, the icy queue rage, the John Lewis setting and the hissed non-apology apologies it was the most English I've ever felt.

BrendaBlackhead · 16/02/2015 18:41

I had a humdinger of a barney in a National Trust cafe. I was making for a table with a laden tray and the dcs in my wake, when a Bloody Boomer (sorry - there is a very aggressive component of this demographic) sprinted to the table and sat down to reserve it. She refused to move in spite of my standing there with the full tray and ds pushing dd in the pushchair. I rose to my full height (5'3") and told this woman how rude she was in a voice which carried throughout the whole property. There was much muttering by other customers and many profferings of seats. I hope she choked on her soup and roll (between four).

ilovesooty · 16/02/2015 18:46

So Brenda the woman was inexcusably rude. However you try to justify it I don't think her age is relevant. Anyone would think that other age groups are never rude.

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