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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:
ShatnersBassoon · 15/02/2015 10:06

It's fine as long as you shift if someone who's already been served asks you to. Only once has a table reservers refused to move when I've asked them to, but I asked the cafe staff to get her shifted, which they did.

unlucky83 · 15/02/2015 10:06

I do both...if it is a big queue join the queue with DCs - then when we get within one or two people of the front (or slightly earlier if they are being too annoying) send the Dcs off to find a table ...
So you are not table hogging too long - or letting DCs annoy others in the queue ...I guess if there was only 2 tables and two people in front I wouldn't do that - but then there is always the risk a new group joins the back of the queue and sends someone to hog one of the two available tables.
(When DCs were younger - you can't carry a tray and push a pushchair - so just before my turn I told the person behind what I was doing and dumped the DCs at a table I could see and went back to my place in the queue...)
If someone was table hogging and there was nowhere to sit I would ask to join them - pulling up a chair from another table if need be...

OnceUponATimeAgain · 15/02/2015 10:08

"It's fine as long as you shift if someone who's already been served asks you to. Only once has a table reservers refused to move when I've asked them to, but I asked the cafe staff to get her shifted, which they did."

But why would someone move? they've 'bagged'' it

Sparklingbrook · 15/02/2015 10:10

Because they can see you are stood there with your dinner with nowhere to eat it and they are nice?

meglet · 15/02/2015 10:11

it annoys me tbh. I'm a LP so I don't have another adult who can bag a table.

ShatnersBassoon · 15/02/2015 10:12

Why wouldn't you move for someone who has been served ahead of your party and is holding a tray of did and drink?

ShatnersBassoon · 15/02/2015 10:13

Food, not did Confused

VodkaJelly · 15/02/2015 10:13

why would you not get a table first? I would never buy food then try to find a table, doesnt make sense

WineCowboy · 15/02/2015 10:13

Am trying to form an opinion on this but ladystark's hash cakes are toooooo good. Cake

Tinkerball · 15/02/2015 10:15

In real life this is common practice. Only on MN is it s problem. Of course if you are yourself you can't do it but the minute you have more than you well of course it's normal! Why on earth would an entire family take up a huge place in the queue without a guarantee you had somewhere to sit at the end? You just wouldn't.

DontDrinkandFacebook · 15/02/2015 10:16

There's no way I am queueing up and paying for food before I know whether I'm even going to have somewhere to sit and eat it. It should be taken for granted that people will look for a table first. Why on earth wouldn't you do that? Confused

It's a bit tricky to bag a table if you are on your own, but tough.

ShatnersBassoon · 15/02/2015 10:18

why would you not get a table first?

Because you'd feel like a twat sitting there, pretending you haven't noticed the person holding a tray full of stuff, looking hopefully at your empty table while your friend is still dithering over panini at the back of the queue.

DontDrinkandFacebook · 15/02/2015 10:19

Chillie I agree that situation with the woman in costa would have been very annoying and she was selfish to do that if she could see the place was busy, but these places should employ enough staff to police that kind of thing, ask her politely to buy a drink or move on, and they should arrange their furniture in such a way that people in ones and twos don't have to hog tables meant for four.

Sparklingbrook · 15/02/2015 10:23

I think people deploy the 'look at my phone and avoid eye contact' technique Shatners, and pretend they haven't noticed. Wink
Or on the other hand really don't notice, and be oblivious.

thenightsky · 15/02/2015 10:31

I blame the american sit-com 'Friends' for normalising the sitting around on the best sofas in coffee shops for hours and hours without eating.

Sparklingbrook · 15/02/2015 10:35

YY lets blame Friends, they did an awful lot of sitting about didn't they? They shouldn't put comfy sofas and free wiFi and newspapers in coffee shops if they don't want you to stay very long.
There's an independant place locally that I would quite happily live in TBF. Grin

Daneel · 15/02/2015 10:37

But in places with long waits, there'd be a shorter wait if people didn't baggsy tables. For instance, if a place has a twenty minute queue, and the average table takes twenty minutes to eat, then, if the queue is full of table baggers, each table will be in use for an average forty minutes but if everyone waited to sit down, each table would be in use for an average twenty minutes, which would free up more tables for use.

flipchart · 15/02/2015 10:41

Since I saw a thread like this ages ago I began to observe people's behaviours, not only in the UK but in Spain, France, Poland, America, Denmark, Belgium, Latvia, Portugal and Germany ( yes these sort of threads have been going on that long!)

Behaviour seems pretty much universal people will go to a cafe look round to see if there is a seat, claim it, with either family members or friends or coats, get their food and drink nd go and order the food.

RufusTheReindeer · 15/02/2015 10:45

Went to a McDonald's in a big shopping centre, one of those eating hall type places

2.30pm on a saturday and it was hell on earth. Children were sent to buy their food (DH and I didn't bother as we knew we wouldn't be able to sit down) while DH and I scanned for chairs. If we could see a spare table I would have sat the children down while we got the food. Not going there again!! Grin

I have got a table with the children in a number of places in very touristy areas while DH gets the food, but he has also come back to the table to find I've given it away to someone who needed it much quicker than us!!

I also wouldn't go in a cafe if it was that busy that I thought I would struggle to get a table, I do a little calculation of number of people in the queue versus empty tables

TheGirlInTheGlass · 15/02/2015 10:58

The norm in many non-table service places these days is to have a sign saying "please find a table then place your order". Sometimes prefixed with "in busy periods" - so I can see why it's become the de facto way of doing thins.
OP- genuine, non-sarky question- If everyone was guaranteed to follow this rule every time, and you got to a till, paid and then found all tables occupied, what would you do? In some circumstances you could cancel and get a refund I'm sure, but in others, what then? Would you stand and eat/drink? Leave? Hover until one became free? Something else?
I'm all for an alternative, if there is one - although I do what you dislike in a group/pair, when I'm alone I do wonder where I would go! Which results in me 'reserving' a table with a book and scarf, or my shopping...
How would you make it fair, and make it work?

Koalafications · 15/02/2015 11:06

YABU.

I do this every time I go to a busy cafe. DH gets the food, I sit down.

If someone wants to come and sit at the table with us then they are more than welcome Grin

jeanswithatwist · 15/02/2015 11:29

Op its just the same in our local wayrose, annoying unless it is he someonene old etc

Sparklingbrook · 15/02/2015 11:34

Our local Waitrose doesn't even have a cafe. I could drive the half an hour to Malvern and check it all out.

ChillieJeanie · 15/02/2015 11:45

Excuse the delay in responding, I've been having my Sunday morning trip to Costa with a book before doing some shopping. Grin It's great before 10am, there are very few people in. But even so, when I have finished my drink I leave. I don't hang around taking up space for the next hour, and like others I do find those people who do quite unreasonable as well. It's one thing to occupy space if you're regularly topping up with another drink, but quite another to buy one drink then spend all morning on a laptop as the space around you becomes busier and busier.

Of course, before 10am on a Sunday they only have one member of staff on. Clearing of tables doesn't get done unless there's a lull (mainly drinks to go though), and there is a longer wait for a short queue since they're taking payment as well as making the drinks, and delivering hot food to tables. I can live with that for relative peace while I enjoy my drink and book.

I think unlucky83 has a decent balance between the two ends of the spectrum by queuing and then scouting for a table when it's close to your turn to order.

And now I'm off out again for lunch at my mother's, which could result in a contribution to parking threads due to the inability of two of her neighbours to park properly. You can get four cars down each side of the carpark, but these two cars always seem to occupy three spaces between them. Hmm

vienna1981 · 15/02/2015 11:46

This is a problem in Costa Coffee, Ilkley and no doubt umpteen other coffee shops throughout the UK. Suddenly your leisurely sit-down cappucino in a nice pot becomes a paper cup take-out because half a dozen folk queueing behind you have snaffled the seats. BsAngry .
It wasn't so much of a problem when your drinks were brought to your table. Then that service got stoppedSad .

Sparklingbrook. Good morning Wink .