Restaurants

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I've never really seen resturants as a problem since I've gone out to eat constantly since a young age. You come in, someone leads you to a seat. You look at the menu figure out what to order. When the waiter or waitress comes to take your order, you tell them. They bring your meal. You eat it and enjoy the food. Once your done, you ask the person for the check and you pay your share. If Im with friends, everyone pays for our own selves. With family, my parents will pay. And we normally estimate the tip 15%, leave it on the table and leave.

Very rule oriented, very algorithmic and just perfect for Aspies. By the numbers, by the book.

ruveyn

The way I figure out tips is this:

Tipping is generally 15% though I give more for good service as wait staff is the lowest rung of the ladder.
You take the amt of the bill (say it is $5.50), you take 10% of that: that is you take off the 0. So that is 55¢.
Then you add half of that, so it would be about 75¢. I would go up a little if the service was good: so I'd go to $1.

Another example (more complex): $3.43 about 10% is .35 and half of that is about .15 add together I'd give about .50.

You don't actually do much math. You round up or down. I don't worry about it.

Speaking of restaurants though I almost always order the same thing. However, I have a restaurant near me where I have actually ordered half the stuff on the menu. But then I feel comfortable there.


--des

Go alone. I do it and have no problem. f**k "LOLOLOL you have to go to restaurants in a group-its a social activity". The main reason I go to restaurants is to eat the food that interests me there. And maybe look at/enjoy the surrounding restaurant. Not social bs.....at least not with family (too much).

Oh. AFAIK in many cases the waiter blatantly asks you "are you ready to order" or something.



whoa.....

I heard of bad customer service but oh wow.



don't be a health inspector. also see spitting or pissing into food. But normally you have to anger them



In Europe people tend to eat multi-course meals and view eating as more of a 'social' activity in many cases (re. large meals, not local or cheap cafes)



There are sites you can go to to get inf on the restaurants and what they do/offer. Also see (if possible/not anoying or streeful) asking family or friends who went there.



Ask the waiter where you pay. The more annoying thing is to check to see what other people are doing and follow them. Sheepish yes but :/

Most of the servers that I can remember ask me if/when I'm ready to order, so I don't tend to have that problem. The whole bill thing can definitely be confusing, but the thing that weirds me out is the idea of being served. I grew up on restaurant and fast food, but I still find the whole thing odd because I imagine that there was a time when restaurants didn't exist and people just made food at home, but doing that can get annoying too. And I usually dine out with my parents, who can be a bit snippy when they're not satisfied and it makes me uncomfortable.

I like figuring out tips. I used to do 15% by taking the 10% and then adding half of that 10% to itself. But then I read in a magazine that it should be 20% now...

I'm not very good with menus, though. I'm just really indecisive. There's this place where I grew up that my friends and I go to every now and then but the menu's items are in white curly font against black paper in random places on the pages in no specific order of things, like words will be slanted and such, it takes forever to read. But the smoothies are good.

I don't have problems in restaraunts because like someone else stated, servers generally ask you if your ready to order.

On the other hand, I had a hard time working as a server myself because of the social cues. Your supposed to 'know' or 'sense' when a person is ready to order by thier cues. There were times when I would approach a table several times asking if they were ready to order because I couldn't 'read' them and thereby potentially lowering my tip money by appearing to be a pest.

Should you treat the waiters like "real people" and talk to them or do you treat them like robots and ignore them?

A waiter reaches around you and puts a bowl of soup before you. Do you say "thank you" or just ignore him?

Even tho I worked the job myself I still don't look at the servers. If you asked me which server was mine I can never say because I don't 'see' them, the same with retail people. I do say thank you when they deliver the food and 'everything is fine' when they ask halfway thru but never really look at them, I have this way of passing my gaze over thier faces real quick to give the illussion that I'm looking at them.

It's hard for me in restaurants. I have to get my parents to order food for me. I remember in one resutaurant where it was a buffet and you had to tell the cook what you wanted, my dad had to get the food for me. At my age, I should have had a child's plate but since my dad was getting for me, they gave him an adult plate. At the end when the bill had to be paid, my dad had to tell them that I have Asperger's and asked for him to get the food for me, so they couldn't charge for an extra adult plate.

I'd say treat everybody like real people all the time, though obviously you have to remember they're at work and therefore likely to be busy. So if you like soup, I suppose that saying thank you is in order.

I have some minor problems with restaurants. I get anxious when having to call the attention of a waiter, I never know how to do it both discreetly without bothering other guests, and still making sure I'm seen or heard by the waiter. Especially "unusual" situations (like when the food is seriously bad/too cold, etc, or when something is missing or the wrong order) are horrible.

Tips are annoying, but not really too big a deal. I don't mind if I tip too much or too little, except when I get comments about it from the people I'm with. Either "you're insane, that's way too much", or at other times "no, man! we should tip more". Luckily, with most people it's a dialogue "how much shall we tip" and it's safe to err on the side of greediness around Dutch people anyway

I say "thank you". I believe in Good Manners.

ruveyn

Um... problems with knowing what to do when you are in a restaurant eh?

Yeah... see my problem is I can't go in the restaurant in the first place! I'm too scared!

Going to a restaurant you've never been to before can pose some questions of etiquette,
because the proprietors always seem to assume that every customer already knows
the restaurant's own idiosyncracies.
I once went to a Japanese-style restaurant on impulse and my first awkward moment was that everyone was assumed to be experts using chopsticks (If you particularly wanted to use cutlery instead then you had to ask for it specially). As it happened,I managed ok with the chopsticks. At the end of meal I was brought the bill and 2 notes saying 'please leave your business card' and 'please write the type of your credit card' . This was rather disconcerting as a) I don't have a business card (aren't people allowed to eat in their own leisure time or do they expect all their customers to be business executives ?)
b ) I was planning to pay by cash

I hope this demonstrates to those who
have posted about there being no problem
whatsoever in restaurants that it's not always as simple and logical as you'd expect !

Wait staff are real people, but they are busy, so you don't carry on conversations (haha, like you probably would). I say "thank you", "please", etc.

I ask if they are going to bring me a check or not. Or sometimes you can see if someone coming up.

I don't ever use chopsticks-- it would be a great way for me to lose weight.

--des

No idea whether it was already mentioned but this is not right. You generally 'round upwards'. I am occasionally in a restaurant with a group of people and the procedure is about like this:

Waiter: That'll be 7.30 €.
LiE: 8 *hands money, say a 10 € note*
Waiter: Thank you! *gives back 2 €*

Edit: I hated this part. I knew that it is impolite not to tip, but I never was sure how much, and for a long time did not really dare to speak upin a restaurant at all, thus paid only the required amount. Seriously, Can't the waiters be paid a decent wage so this stupid custom can end?