This is a little exercise in situational ethics related to restaurants.

Background: A pretty popular, good-sized fish restaurant. You often have to sign up and wait for a table, but they have a long curved bar with nice chairs (let's say 26 of them and call them A through Z) and you can just sit down there if seats are available.

Couple #1 comes in on the early side for lunch and almost all the bar seats are empty. They pick seats B and C. They could have had a table without much wait, but they like the bar because the service is generally better -- and it's now smoke free. They don't sit in seat A because it is at the end right next to a spot where the wait staff come and go.

An hour later, Couple #1 is just finishing their entree and is thinking about asking for the dessert menu. Couple #2 comes in and is told that there is a one-hour wait for a table. They take a look around the bar and see that there are two seats available - A and D.

You are couple #2. How do you proceed?

(edit: I see Bitt and Phil's responses and realized that I should have said in the OP that I am going to wait a bit to respond to responses -- let some opinion collect a bit -- as I have a few more questions that really depend on initial responses...)

If its obvious they are about to leave (i.e I can see they are nearly finished) I'd wait near the door for them to leave so I could grab their seats. I'd not ask them to move so I could have A&B nor would I stand over them!

I don't think that it's unreasonable to ask them to move down. If Seat A is a well-known bad seat, then having them move away from it would be more appropriate.

I don't think I'd do it.

Then again, if most of the seats were open when they sat down, they shouldn't have left a one-person gap to begin with. Right after we teach people which side of the sidewalk to walk on and which door to open, we need to teach them some basic tenets of dynamic storage allocation.

I say I wouldn't ask them to move but if they looked up and we made eye contact it might happen. I'd not feel comfortable doing it though. Making them move their jackets, bags, drinks etc is something I'd not like doing. If they offered though I'd accept.

Edited: 'Their' not 'They're'.

Its like Urinal Etiquette

I'd have asked with little hesitation. In fact, I'd appreciate someone asking ME to move over. I would feel like an ass if I looked up and there was a couple standing simply because they were too timid to make their presence known.

The first time I read your reply I was thinking you were responding to the Urinal Etiquette thing

Hehehe, no no no. If I'm in a head they're just going to have to wait. I', not scooting over. Or hurrying up.

In this particular case, I wouldn't think of asking them to move over. I am pretty strict about mannerisms over food. No phones, no TV, no moving people about once they've started. No way I'm gonna interrupt their evening.

But then again, suppose you flipped the question around, and I was part of couple "A". I'd move over straight away if I saw the restaurant was full and people waiting could sit in the space I'm unnessesarily (sp?) taking up.

I'd say the restaurant is a special case. In the Cinema or on the Underground, I'll ask people to move up if I want them to without much bother.

I would sit in A, tell the girlfriend/wife or whatever to sit in D and would conduct a conversation through B and C until they got the message. This assumes your partner is willing, otherwise they can just come "visit" between courses.

Gareth

I guess it depends a bit on how close the bar seats are together. If they're so close that having an empty one between groups is necessary for not being on top of each other, then a bar with only seats A and D empty is at maximum capacity and you'd need to wait for a table. It is a bit like the urinal problem, or like the SEPTA problem (SEPTA trains have a double and a triple seat in each row AB_CDE, and the natural fill order is aecbd).

Peter

Quote:
conduct a conversation through B and C until they got the message.

See I'd find that really rude if I were the BC couple and make me less likely to move! Its not something I would do. Theres not 2 seats together so live with it and wait. Its not in me to harrass someone into moving.

I don't find what they did particularly rude. And Bitt, you're assuming that the most common configuration of people sitting at the bar is two people. I don't think I've ever eaten at a bar with another person. I think couple 1 could reasonably expect a single person to sit in seat A.

Along the same lines, what if there's a single person in seat E? That person could move to A, but it's not likely.

I would definitely wait for that couple to leave. The amount of time to eat dessert would be far less than an hour wait (which I'm completely used to in my area), and I think it's unlikely that the couple would sit at a bar for a long conversation afterwards.

Anyway, there are much more annoying practices from restaurant patrons. I've been in a party of four at a crowded restaurant with a long wait. Almost all the tables are four-person booths. I'm standing with my party by a freezing cold entrance, and 12 feet away there's two people occupying a booth who have clearly finished their desserts a long while ago and are now just chatting away. I find that rude.

Similarly, my favorite breakfast place has extremely busy weekend mornings. Nearly every week I'll see someone who obviously came in before the rush, but has decided that he has every right to sit alone in his four-person window booth and read the paper and have cup after cup of cofee, even though there's a line out the door, and will do this until the lunch period starts. Will they move to one of the two-person booths which are essentially for one person? Nope.

Damn, why'd you start me on a rant?

it's at a bar, so slightly different (i.e more relaxed) rules apply.

I think that if I really wanted to sit at the bar I would ask the couple if they would mind moving down to C and D, if they don't want to, then fine.

If I don't care too much about sitting at the bar, then I wait.

Just the other night my girlfriend and I were sitting down at the bar in a restaurant with four seats open. Prefering to not sit next to anyone, we asked the bartender, who assured us that it was fine. Soon after we sat down, the party to our right left, and it wasn't an issue. The bartender has a much better idea of the eb and flow of the place, so they're a good person to ask.

I personally wouldn't ask people to move. Having a space between parties at a bar isn't unreasonable if the place isn't burssting out the seams with people. If as you sit down you insist on monopolizing extra seats that other people would like to use right then, you're being a jerk. If you're the only party approaching the bar at that point, I don't see a problem with it.

Perhaps we're all ignoreing the real reason why bars serve food in restaraunts: the dinner for one crowd. And with all this moving about, you seem to be filling up their spaces. Leave 'em for the lonely people so they've got somewhere to eat.

Matthew

We are talking about a bar, even if it is at a nice restaurant.
I wouldn't have any issues with asking if B/C could shift down. It's more informal at the bar, anyway.
They don't both have to move- B could take D and C stays seated. That's just my engineering brain talking- in reality I think it's more likely that they'd both move.

If I wanted them to make the offer, I'd seat my gal at A and stand next to her while we ordered drinks. This gives them the option to move away from the not-so-nice end of the bar.
If I didn't want to push the issue and they didn't make the offer, I'd rely on my charm and charisma to make the hour-long-wait-for-a-table go by in an instant.

While we're talking about a bar, the initial premis implied eating at the bar. If everyone's just ordering drinks, it's probably not much for people to move down. If everyone's ordering food and there for the long haul, it's a bigger disturbance.

Matthew

A closed mouth doesn't get fed. If they don't want to move (for whatever reason) then they can simply say so. It's not impolite to ask, but it would be impolite and inconsiderate for them not to move down one seat. I think not asking a simple and reasonable thing like that indicates a fear of confrontation. If they don't want to move then they're either rude or have a good reason for it. I say give them a chance to be polite and move over for you.

Quote:
indicates a fear of confrontation

I'd not say confrontation. More like not wanting to inconvenience the people sitting there and have them move all their things. I'd rather just wait till they're finished. Maybe its just me

Good point. But I think they're inconveniencing other people by leaving two single seats, even if they don't realize it, which is why I think asking politely will just make them realize the situation.

ACtually, I agree... More than likely they have no idea that someone is waiting for a seat. If they were obviously avoiding eye contact, they're just being rude, and I have no qualms with pointing it out.

Now, since they ARE at a bar, the odds are fairly good that they WILL have drinks after. At least, around here that's the case. In this case, it may be 2-3 hours before they decide to take their conversation elsewhere. Really, it just depends on the bar.

I think we've all forgotten one thing here: the restaurant itself.

What I (or, more likely, my partner, since she's more decisive in these situations) would do would be to hail a waiter and ask them to ask the person/people to move. Especially in the cases you state, Dignan, the restaurant has an interest in getting as many people to eat (and pay) as possible. They're going to be a lot more diplomatic and yet forceful about it. They're also the ones in authority - the person can't really refuse a staff member asking them to move, whereas they can refuse you. And it's also hard for the staff member to come back to you and say "Sorry, but the ignorant boor over there doesn't want to move". If necessary the staff can sweeten the deal for the other person/people, knowing that they'll get more money in the long run.

And if you're in the USA, tip the waiter a bit more afterward to show that you appreciate it.

Have fun,

Paul

Can't think of where best to post this, so I'll respond to myself.

(I am gratified, I must say, by the many responses)

Here's question #2:

Regardless of how you responded, put yourself again in the role of couple #2, but instead of Couple #1 occupying B and C, there is a single person occupying seat B, and A and C are vacant.

Does this change your earlier-stated approach in any way? If so, how?