AIBU to not get the table grabbing behaviour at a cafe?

[IncognitoPanda]

It’s Black Friday - needless to say it’s heaving. Queue of maybe 10 people at a cafe where you order at the counter and tables generally very busy. I cannot believe the number of people who think it’s reasonable to put one person in the queue whilst the other smugly nabs a table as people leave to sit saving it for their party when people who have queued and paid cannot find a table by the time their drinks are made. AIBU to go and join them at their table and make awkward small talk whilst their buddy still queues so that my coffee doesn’t go cold as a solo shopper?

Again, using this system, how do you know whether you're likely to get a table at time within the next half hour using this system?

Claim a table before you eat = you can always see at a glance how many tables are free.

Get food first = you have no idea how many people in the queue need a table or belong to an existing table.

Speed of eating has nothing to do with it, and at least half the cafes by me rely on a steady flow of customers, not a remorseless churn like a fast food joint.

Can't take this seriously unless op comes back and replies.

Posts a contentious topic then runs off

Well if you are on your own, and there's a long queue, chances are someone will leave before you get to the front. In a large cafe like an M&S there will always be someone about to finish. Or single people sitting at a larger table, at least one of them will probalby be prepared to share. Particularly if they obviously only have one meal/drink in front of them, i.e. already served and no mystery friend in the toilet. You just have to take your chance and be observant to move in on people who are making moves to leave, and be brave enough to talk to people. (I have had to coach DH in this).
In a very small cafe that's full you are probably better to look somewhere else. They won't mind if you put your bag at a table though.

This is like the "how to join the motorway" discussions. It normally works just because it's a slightly random phenomenon and relies on you being ready to take the opportunity when you see it. The more you try and apply rules and certainties to it (that there will definitely be a gap, or table) the worse it gets.

Agree! Its horrendously selfksh behaviour and also massively inefficient. I wish cafes would clamp down on it.

I think this is ok to do 🤷

There are plenty of people on here saying that is exactly what they would do.

Presumably people do it so they're not in the very situation you've described: where they've 'queued and paid then cannot find a table by the time their drinks are made.' It's the same thing, surely?

I wouldn't eat in a restaurant or cafe unless I had a seat would be illogical

I did have this last year, I was a new mother and when I went into town and had my baby wanting a bottle I’d always go around all the coffee shops to find a seat and had so many situations where there had been free seats but once I ordered they were all taken, I learned to just put my baby bag or even shopping bag onto a table to ‘reserve it’, I now don’t even care with the amount of people who would watch me with struggle and no one ever offered to help/get to the table even though they see me manoeuvre the pram to get there

I go into a cafe, assess whether it looks like there will be a table for me, then go ahead and buy food. If it looks in doubt, I leave and go find somewhere quieter.

If I have my kids with me, it's much easier to tell them to go sit at the table while I order. Five kids of various ages in a queue just slows me down and is probably annoying to those around me. If they sit at the table, they're quietly waiting, and I know I have a big enough table. I figure the amount I spend with six to seven people probably means the cafe owners don't care. We don't stay for long anyway. Eat and dash.

They won't because often their system is to bring the food over to you once you've ordered it, even if you take the drinks yourself.

That's what the cafes I go to do. They give you a number for your table once you've ordered and bring over the food and drinks when ready.

I really wouldn't be wandering around a cafe with a tray trying to pounce on a table. Coat on the chair order food hen sit down. Fuck wandering around.

Coats on chairs and bags on chairs is nothing I've ever seen in a cafe. If I saw that I'd be likely to pick it up and take it to the counter thinking it was left behind. "Someone left their coat/bag here." I figure they'd look after it in case the person came back for it.

Yeah, they say it, but they wouldn't actually do it.

No offence, but that's really annoying behaviour. I regularly go to cafes alone and it would be a PITA if anyone kept moving my bag because I nipped to the loo!

I'm also not paying for lunch if I'm going have to stand there with a tray like a lemon while it goes cold.

If I'm on my own and there are no spare tables I've been known to find a table of table hoggers (no food yet) and plonk myself down. Sometimes I'm even finished before their food arrives.

You're more trusting than me, because I would never leave my bag unattended.

Go to the loo then order, surely? That's what I do.

The reason I'd give an abandoned bag to the staff is because I'd think it might get stolen by someone with less good intentions if unattended, and assume it was forgotten by someone who might claim it later. I guess I could ignore it. It's not my problem if someone's bag gets stolen, after all.

As long as you don't complain when one of my five kids sneezes in the vicinity of your food or their chatter bothers you.

The cafes I go to give you a table number and expect you to wait for the food to come out at a table. I've never had anyone rude enough to just join a table of others already seated.

So if you go to cafe and you have to queue to order food and save a table that is considered wrong

Yet if they come to your table to take your order that is perfectly fine if you are sat there waiting

Why is is really any different?

Duplicate

Busy cafes are not for single people.
I say this as a single person.
Get the coffee to go.

With difficulty. I find a coat on the back of a chair works for me. Same as in Wetherspoons when you're on your own and have to pick a table before you can order...there's no knowing it will be there when you come back.

Busy cafes are not for single people.
I say this as a single person.
Get the coffee to go.

Go where, exactly?