Restaurants

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Who else finds the protocol of most restaurants particularly difficult?

I've noticed this in several Aspies including myself. Much of it is a) unstructured, b) non-verbal/intuitive. Going to new restaurants for the first time it's difficult to know the protocol of when ordering and serving takes place. It always seems to be difficult to know what's going on. Half the people in a party (particularly a party of Aspies) always seem confused as to the protocol. It seems to have to be known in advance. And it seems to be different between restaurants from different cultures.

If you have an impairment in comprehending non-verbal language, that's sometimes difficult because waiters or waitresses will often just look at you or smile or raise their eyebrows when they want to take your order (understandable when at restaurants of certain cultures they will be speakers of that language and are non-native speakers of the local language if they speak it at all).

Eating out is such a typically communal activity, part of the difficulty for the independent-minded Aspie. This difficulty is reflected especially when it comes to getting the bill and paying. Working out who pays what is an absolute nightmare. Some people always lose out unfairly. Tipping adds to the complications.

Who else finds restaurant protocol as intricate? Is there a case for Aspie friendly restaurants and how could this be achieved in their protocol?

The worst part for me is payment. Do you wait for a check, do you go to the counter, what do you do with the tip? Who knows.

But as for the ordering part, if they just look at you expectantly... well, it's their job to take your order, right? I mean, what else could they be waiting for? I don't know, maybe there's something I've forgotten about, but I think it's a good bet that you can just say what you want at that point in time, and even if they WERE waiting for something else, they'll probably switch and just take your order, because that's the whole reason everyone is there.

I just tell my parents what I want and then they tell the waiter. I'm terrified of how difficult it's gonna be when I'm an adult and I have to order stuff for myself. Especially cos I never choose something from the menu, it's always plain penne pasta with no sauce or anything except parmesan cheese, and this is sometimes awkward to describe when ordering.

(On a side note, in Cornwall when I ordered my usual sauceless pasta with cheese, the waiter couldn't stop bloody laughing at me! Bastard.)

As for protocol, I had trouble knowing what to do when I went to cafe with my two friends last summer. I felt really stupid not having a clue where to go to order, etc.

I plan to live in Italy when I'm older, so I might be better there because people will just assume things are different where I come from, so they won't know I act just as idiotic at home too. That's the optimistic prediction, anyway.

hate them with a passionmy friends drag me to pizza hut, smetimes nandos, oddly enough nandos is the only one I am comfrtable ith the paying is difficult i just look to the ground insert my pin and leave immediately. hate especiall ovr friendly waiters and waitresses it really freaks me out and is dubious and I feel lik being taken advantge of. Also is the lack of spaci control ad people around I don't like

haha, glad to know i'm not alone in getting anxious when it comes to this kind of thing.

Me and restaurants will never get along with each other.
I only attend them if Im invited to attend or when travelling. I would never go because Im curious of what food they can provide.

Restaurants is spooky and Im always affraid they will give me something I cant eat at the end. They use to twist regular food to be fancy and spice it up.
When me and my husband travelled this spring I was the one forced to find places for us to eat each days. He is even more blocked to approach an restaurant than I am.

One day we was walking the streets as hungry. I approached an restaurant where I turned to do "everything wrong according to their rules"
I was supposed to take a table and gently sit down and wait for someone of the staff to approach me.
Instead I was walking in, searching the meny myself and found it eventually, then I just grabbed someone who passed by to say I want this...
That was embarrasing. How was I supposed to know what codes restaurants have....but they was friendly and didnt take me as rude, just as a lost foreigner...

When I was about 16 or 17 I worked, briefly, as a waitress in a restaurant. I couldn't work out the protocol as a member of staff and was actually pretty relieved when I was sacked.

I have such a problem with small/local places. Case in point: Last summer we were on our way to Texas, and stopped at a local cafe. Well it was one of those places where you just go sit anywhere there's an open table. We didn't know, so we were standing there like idiots for several minutes. At that point I felt like I was going to collapse into a puddle of glue. I also have a really hard time with spacial stuff. There is a restaurant that I like that has really good food, but it's really small and everyone is really close together. I can't even go there because it's so unbearable to be in that situation.

as long as the staff speak english, I have no issues with restaraunts.I have been to fast food restaurants where a majority of the staff is made up of third world immigrants who can barely speak english.Im not racist, but it would be nice if the person taking my order understood english and could speak english.

I used to work at a kentucky fried chicken as a cook, then cashier, then eventually supervisor.

I never have a problem in a restaurant. The waiter or waitress comes up and asks me if I am ready to order. Also when it's time to pay, they just leave you the bill and you take out your card or cash and set it with the receipt. Then the waiter comes and takes it and if you paid by card, they ask you to sign the receipt and they give you a copy of it. It's always this way in every restaurant. No non verbal cues.


I hardly eat out with everyone. I would just wait till I am told to pay or help pitch in if I were with a group of people. Every time I ate with family, I never had to pay.


The hardest part is the tips. I do not know how much tip to pay. But luckily I do not eat out much. My bf has the tip calculator on his cell phone so he figures out the tipping for me.

I used to get very confused about the protocols, but these days I seem to have got the gist of it fairly well. If the place is any good, there'll always be staff there who are trained to be as helpful as possible with customers' questions and to make them feel at ease. It helped me a lot to remember that they're likely to want me to enjoy my experience so I'll come back and spend more money.

This is how not to do it (don't click the link if you hate gross, vulgar humour) - note how the staff remain completely polite despite a very difficult situation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pf3hR0_LUo

But I still have problems with restaurants. I wouldn't go near the cheap places, as they're most likely to have cut corners with customer care. Places like McDonalds I wouldn't visit at all, except just to use the toilet. Small wholefood cafes can be OK. There was one place where the guy who served the food actually sat with us (we knew him vaguely) and talked with us for a few minutes - I noticed that was sometimes the style in Italy as well, and I heartily approve because it breaks up the whole "master-servant" thing - a lot of people just go to restaurants to be fawned upon, and I've never been a fan of that. Of course it can be a bit of a shock to suddenly have an additional social demand, but when I've seen the waiter join the guests it's always been done in a very non-intrusive way somehow.

Places with dress codes would make me nervous, though if I were in the mood for it and had a really smart suit, I could get into it. But the suit would have to look perfect and yet feel completely comfortable.

Background music is OK as long as it's so quiet that it doesn't distract me when I'm trying to focus the conversation.

I'm more comfortable with just one companion than with a group - it's easier to predict who I'm going to be talking with. Otherwise I risk ending up sandwiched between people who might ignore me.

One big minus for me is that I have no control over the way the food is prepared. I've no idea what goes on in the kitchen and I don't entirely trust the cooks. And the prices are often very high - especially for drinks.

Tips are at the customer's discretion, and shouldn't be an obligation. Just leave a bit of money under the plate if you want to. Luckily the restaurants are no longer allowed to deduct them from the staff's pay like some of them used to. Anyway I think tips are something of a rich man's game. I wouldn't feel guilty about not tipping, if I thought the prices were too high or the service was poor, though if the people I'm with think differently, I'd usually go along with it but I'd feel kind of overridden.

It confuses me too. Generally I avoid restaurants as my difficulties with food make public eating too hard to handle, but I often have a meeting with a support person at a cafe and to at least drink there is usually expected.

What I do is I make a bee line for the counter, ask for what I'm ok with drinking, and try to pay on the spot.
I hate it how not every place works like this though. It makes things very awkward.

With the tip- It's not compulsory in Australia I think, but is appreciated if the service was reasonable. You do put money in the tip jar if you've had a meal, you don't really have to if it was just a cuppa. Not sure how much you're meant to tip. Any ideas?

In Germany, the tip is compulsory and it is 30% of how much the meals were paid on top of the meal price. I think. Or the wait staff get a 30% cut of what you pay for meals? This makes my brain hurt.

I wish there was a sign. It should be on the specials board maybe. "Welcome, take a seat. Our special today is.... Call for the check."
How is it that other people know these things automatically? It makes me feel really stupid.