Closing Out Your Tab, Picking Up the Check, and 9 More Ways You Became a Better Diner in 2023
On the menu this year: ditching chain restaurant snobbery, treating servers like human beings, and unleashing 'The Bear' in some weird ways.
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I spent a good deal of 2023 feeling like a cat who'd been moved from the home she'd always known and into a strange new place, wandering around, trying to find her litter box. Yes, I'd ventured back into restaurants some time ago, but parts of this year still felt like I was trying to work out a once robust social muscle that had perhaps atrophied. This state was hardly unique to me; Twitter user @pleasebegneiss (it was still called Twitter then, so please let me have this) perfectly encapsulated the awkwardness, saying, "Reservations are so embarrassing like hi i’m here for my spaghetti appointment" to the tune of nearly 450,000 likes.
Friends of mine who work in the hospitality industry know full well that the majority of customers' strange behavior can be chalked up to the collective lack of socialization for a spell, as well as the fundamental changes that restaurants have made in order to evolve. We're all (well, most of us) trying our best out here to be better customers, and the stories we publish on F&W Pro are intended to empower just that. It's our mission to share insight into some of the practices and policies that restaurants and their teams use to bring you an excellent experience — while not going belly-up along the way.
These are the most read among those stories in 2023, so take a seat and settle in. Your Bitchy Waiter (frequent contributor Darron Cardosa); chef Lee Anne Wong; and F&W staffers Daniel Modlin, Amelia Schwartz, and Oset Babür-Winter will be right with you.
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Restaurants have a perfectly good reason why they can't seat your incomplete party
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Before she worked at Food & Wine, associate editor Amelia Schwartz spent plenty of time at restaurant host stands trying to explain to formidably hangry customers why despite their tardy party member being "just five minutes away," they couldn't have the table. Even if it's empty. Even if they ordered appetizers. (And yes — because people lie.) Here's her six-part explanation.
Mad about high restaurant prices? It's not the chef's fault
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Chef and restaurateur Lee Anne Wong encountered yet another customer who felt the need to grumble about why the avocado toast at her oceanfront restaurant in Lahaina cost $20. She broke it down, dollar by dollar, cent by cent in an essay explaining the economics of rent, labor, ingredients, paper products, and the like in an effort to enlighten. Just a few weeks later, the restaurant — and so much of Maui — was devastated by wildfires, and Wong helped her chef community across the island begin to rebuild their businesses and their lives.
What happens when the grocery store is the buzziest restaurant in town?
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If the shelves of your grocery stores, shoppy-shops, and online outlets seem to have diversified over the course of the last couple years, it may be because restaurants needed additional income streams. And those products — from sauces to cocktails to sweets — may even reach more mouths than the food and drinks served at the restaurants that created them. Senior drinks editor Oset Babür-Winter explored the trend and why it may help your favorite place survive.
Does anyone at a restaurant actually notice if you don't eat everything on your plate?
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Did you grow up as a member of the Clean Plate Club? There might have been an elder who guilted you into it ("There are kids starving in X country!"), food may have been scarce, or maybe you just wanted every morsel. You don't really need to explain your eating habits to anyone – especially at a restaurant. Veteran server Darron Cardosa explained exactly who at a restaurant is (or more likely is not) looking at what you leave on your plate and why that should never worry you.
I'm your server, not your servant
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"We are happy to serve food and we want to give our customers the best possible dining experience. We’re there to take your order and ensure everything is as good as it can possibly be. That’s how we want to earn our tip," explained Cardosa. But it shouldn't come at the cost of anyone's dignity. "We don’t want to feel like trained seals who will perform a party trick when someone throws a mackerel for us to catch in our mouth. And by ‘mackerel,’ I mean a $10 bill."
Your favorite restaurant might be part of a 'secret chain'
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News & Deals editor Daniel Modlin recently relocated from Austin to New York City, and no doubt, he'll miss his favorite restaurant. Or maybe he won't have to. After an exceptional meal Modlin discovered that the vibrant, vibey Tex-Mex place he'd enjoyed so much was actually part of what he now calls a "secret chain." Might your favorite spot have a sibling out there, too?
Close out your bar tab before you go to your table — here's why
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I arrived at a restaurant to meet a friend maaaaybe five minutes late (sorry, hosts, I've changed my ways since reading Amelia's story), and she'd already bellied up to the bar and was sipping a Martini in the packed room. No big deal, we could just transfer the tab, right? Nope. Before we could take our table, policy required guests to settle up, which isn't really the norm for NYC. Of course I complied (I'm vaguely feral; I'm not a beast), but I asked Darron to break down the payouts from the pro POV, and now I'll proactively pay up every time. Here's why you should, too.
5 things your server definitely doesn't want to hear about
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Restaurant servers see and hear all, which is why that clean fork arrives at your table within seconds of yours clattering to the floor. That's fine, and gravity is a force to which we must all bend. The urge to talk about your rash, tipping, or disdain for the server, themselves, is not. Darron explained which subjects he'd love to have 86'ed forever — or at least until he's out of earshot.
I love that you watched 'The Bear,' but here's what you still need to understand about working in restaurants
Chuck Hodes / FX
The Bear came roaring into the cultural canon in June 2022, then thundered back in 2023 to an audience ravenous for more of their favorite new show. Creators Christopher and Courtney Storer received plenty of accolades for their incredibly realistic portrayal of restaurant life — so accurate, in fact, that even viewers who'd never worked a single shift were suddenly convinced that yelling "Yes, chef!" and "Behind!" gave them instant industry cred. As I noted above, Darron has put roughly three and a half decades into his hospitality career, and he had a few feelings about the phenomenon.
You are not too good to eat at a chain restaurant
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Restaurant reservations have long been cultural currency and novel experiences are part of the thrill. But that doesn't mean that the chain restaurants making up a tremendous portion of the landscape are automatically less worthy of your respect. Darron explained why he believes the more falutin among us should just get over ourselves and into a basket full of unlimited breadsticks.
Read this before you pick up the tab for your whole table
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Oh look at YOU, big spender! You want to treat the whole group to a meal, and that's lovely — but there's an art to it. In our most-read Pro story of the year, Darron broke down the finer points of picking up the tab without dropping the ball or breaking your server's spirit.
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