Was I BU to leave the pub after being told off by the manager?

[EmptyTheFrickingBins]

I had booked a table for a group of seven people to celebrate a Ruby wedding anniversary. On arrival to the pub we found the table with our reservation and sat down to wait for the rest of party - this was at 4:30 which was our booked time.

Three other guests were already seated at the table and there was no indication that any other table had been reserved for us.

My parents - who are both elderly and disabled - arrived and I returned to the table with them where we asked the other guests if they'd be happy to share-- there would have been room and we couldn't move because the only free tables were for four or under. This was at 4:45 and we had been waiting for them to finish.

They reacted in a very angry way and stormed off from the table and must have informed the staff on the way out.

I just want to be clear - at no point where we rude or demanding.

We were viewing the menu when a manager in a pink top came over to the table and told us rudely that we shouldn't have asked the other guests to move (again - at no point did we do this), that another table had been reserved for us and we should have spoken to the staff - again none of this was indicated, and only the one table had our name on it!

I felt extremely embarrassed by the interaction - we sat at the table in good faith as it had the reserved sign on with our name.

The woman's attitude was awful and spoiled the night - we ended up leaving because we no longer felt welcome - everyone was looking at us as she told us off!

@VashtaNerada

We've eaten out at pubs a lot too and what OP did was odd.

You don’t wait to be seated. You find a free table and sit there.

Only if you haven't booked. If you have booked you ask. Most pubs I have been to don't put a name on a reserved table, so you have to ask to find your table, but we would ask anyway.

When you reserve a table, you move round the pub to find your table and say to the people sitting there, “sorry, we’ve reserved this from 4:30.”

You may wander around a pub looking for your name, but that is not the normal custom and frankly would annoy me. Most people would ask a member of staff to point them in the right direction which also lets them know that the Emptybins party has arrived. If you take OP at face value the pub would have assumed they were over 15 minutes late. And the OP didn't speak to them, giving them time to move off, she and her party sat down at their table before they had finished and annoyed them enough for them to go and complain. In the OP she states that the staff member told them that another table had been prepared for them which she would have known if she had spoken to someone.

It's very telling that OP has totally omitted the conversation between her and the other people at the table.

I wonder if you would have behaved like this at the Ritz?

It’s like turning up at a hotel and finding that the room that you have booked is still in use and just getting in bed with them.

You sound like a nightmare.

Surely it’s basic good manners wherever you are eating to just wait or to ask the staff to sort it?

I've been to plenty of pub meals where you just walk in and find the table with your name on it. I've also been to ones where there is a wait here to be seated sign. Different places do it differently.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yeah but you don't just hop on if it's full do you?

I might ask if they minded if we set up the cards and sat down, I don't think that's unusual in a situation where seating yourself is the norm.

Except many of us who have said OP is BU have worked in these pubs or similar ones. Trust us, we do understand how things work.

If OP had approached the people on the table when she first arrived and said "hi, I think we have this table reserved for 4.30" then that is one thing (and fairly normal).

But she stood eyeballing them for 15 minutes then settling her party around them and suggesting they share the table. It's this behaviour that is very odd.

If OP did the first thing, the guests would have had time to acknowledge their mistake (if one was made) or offer an explanation ("oh we were told this table isn't reserved anymore and we could stay" in which case OP could have found a staff member to ask for assistance).
The second thing meant that OP made the guests so uncomfortable that they left when, in fact, they didn't actually need to leave as that wasn't OPs table in the end.

They obviously did mind though. OP conveniently doesn't say how they responded. Would you sit down if they weren't happy? It isn't 'the norm', there are 5 pages of posters who have said that and it is highly unusual to join another party of strangers and rude. It's also odd to make a booking but not let anyone know you have arrived - in fact it doesn't appear the staff were aware they'd arrived until there was a complaint, so over 15 minutes after the time OP had booked. At the end of the day the OP sat at the wrong table

You sat down at the table with a group of strangers while they were finishing off after a meal and you think you’re the one entitled to be annoyed 😂
You’re trying to justify what you did with all the smoke and mirrors about reservation cards, disabled guests etc but how did you not know that normal behaviour is to approach staff and wait to be seated?

Yes, exactly! I’m such a snob for thinking that if someone is sitting at my reserved table, and they don’t seem to be moving after I arrive, I should speak to a member of staff. Silly me for thinking there are other options available in such a situation!

Such bullying behaviour by you. If we had been sitting at that table, we certainly would not have moved. And we would have told you where to go, too.

We went to a pub only slightly upmarket to HH the other day. Our table wasn't ready so we sat in the bar and the waitress came and got us. That's the norm to me.

If the people at the table weren't happy with us setting up then yes I'd have found a member of staff. That said given how badly the staff handled things in this pub it might not have helped, they'd have just had a row with the first customers and made them storm out most likely.

Totally agree. Sitting at a table reserved for someone else is rude and arrogant.
The people sitting there deserved what they got.

Do you generally lack of basic manners op?

Yes, but what if the staff had specifically directed them to sit there with a view to sitting OPs party somewhere else?

Even if these people just 'plonked' themselves down at a reserved table, when the staff came to take their order it is their responsibility to point out that the table they were at is reserved and they a) should move to an unreserved table, or b) hand the table back by the time that OP had it reserved for, or c) tell them that they cannot be accommodated for, so the awkwardness would still be the issue of the staff.

Being as the people at the table had FINISHED eating and could well have just been waiting for a taxi etc but were made to feel uncomfortable

It's likely they had been there for a while, well before the booking, and were not "rudely sitting at a reserved table"

Or do you think a reserved table shouldn't be used by anyone all day?

Unless of course the staff said they could sit there. Considering they had another table ready for OP and her party, do you really think a busy pub would hold 2 tables empty for 1 party?

It's clear they simply forgot to move the sign off the table so those "rude and arrogant" people did nowt wrong.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was wondering what the significance of the pink top was.

I agree with most of the previous posters though, even in the chain pubs I would normally wait for a member of staff to come over and show us to our table, they may have allocated a different table after realising that slow-eating party were going to still be there at the OP's booked time.

You were unreasonable for sitting down at the table whilst guests were sat there whether it was reserved for you or not. The guests will have told to vacate for a certain time and had most probably ran over a little, you should have approached a member of staff first. The plates may have been empty, but if they were mid conversation you could have been interrupting a sensitive subject, or they just objected to your overhearing.

If they needed to sit down why did you not just sit your elderly parents on chairs at a table no one else was eating at then go and find a member of staff to sort it out.
Sorry but I think the way you dealt with it was odd and I would not have been happy if some random people sat at the table i had been eating at and wasnt finished with regardless of what a piece of paper said? Really strange behaviour hungry horse or otherwise....

Whatever the policy is or isn't, I just simply cannot imagine walking in and sitting down at a table where others are eating - whether the table had my name on it or not, I'd go and enquire with staff! You were definitely in the wrong op

Other people were sitting there, having a meal. You just sat down. The correct procedure is to go to the staff on entering the establishment, give your name and say you have a reservation. They show you to your table. What you did was rude. The staff were a bit off, but you had behaved bizarrely.

Agree. Had this on a train once. Someone was sitting in my reserved seat. I sat down on a seat opposite and said nothing, since there were plenty of seats. However, a couple got on at a stop where my seat was vacated and I was organising to move if I needed to - but train was empty. I was thinking I should move when I had a piece of paper waved in my face and the announcement I was in someone's place. I apologised, naturally, and moved to my seat (but I could not explain to them as they were French and my French is mostly forgotten - they were rude to me which I was not annoyed at, I was in their seat, after all). Later an Inspector came to check tickets and told them they had the wrong ones, which made me smile slightly because they had been so entitled in their order that I get out of their seat now (could have explained nicely?) I would not have settled myself in someone else's seat normally, just I wanted to be near mine so I could move when I could.