Do you need a Coleman latern? Maybe a tent? How about some s’mores?

I grew up in the South.

In “Dixie” as it’s sometimes called, there is an abundance of outdoors activity from airboating down backwoods bayous in Louisiana and everglade in Florida, to hunting the wild game across the Appalachian foothills of northern Alabama. Anywhere you go across the south, camping is a regular activity throughout the year. I’m sure it’s a common activity in the North too, but all you “yanks” can go to hell.

The camping activity is commonplace throughout the country. “But, I thought this was a restaurant blog, not an outdoors blog” you ask? Ah ha! You’d be correct, sir. Unfortunately, camping in a restaurant is not a serene weekend destroying the lives and families of small critters and wild game with large guns, or basking in the starlight beneath the forest canopy. Camping in a restaurant is rather a nuisance that should be dealt with swiftly and with a blunt object (okay, maybe not swiftly… or with a blunt object).

Camping in a restaurant is explained as when any number of people at a table get caught up in conversation, reading a book, or just plain boredom that they occupy a table longer than the desired time during a lunch or dinner shift. Camping can occur before or after the meal has been ordered and eaten. “Pre-campers” enjoy chatting each other up before ordering the entree. Often times, business meetings held over lunch fall into the category of pre-camping. People will occasionally break out the ledger books or maps of architectural engineering before even ordering an appetizer, “water is fine for now”. Only after the third or fourth visit in a 30 minute time period will they realize that they’ve been sitting there for a while and order at least the first course. What these people don’t realize is that at lunch, we as waiters rely on the ability to get people in and out quickly and happily. “Turn and Burn” as we say. Because PPA (Per Person Average) is lower at lunch, being that most people don’t order alcoholic beverages, coffee, or dessert, our tips are lower per table. So, we rely on volume to make our money. When a table sits there for longer than normal, we lose the ability to turn that table, meaning less money for us.

It can sometimes be even worse at dinner. At least during lunch, people have somewhere to be, whether it’s back to work or to an appointment. At dinner, people feel that because their work day is over, they can sit and enjoy a nice, long dinner. That’s great and all, but again, we’re still at work trying to pay our bills while you’re enjoying that nice, long dinner (sarcasm is expressed in italics here). Even if a PPA is on the higher side, I still could have made a little bit more money if those customers had gotten up 25 minutes earlier.

On one occasion, I had two groups of ladies come in for a dinner shift. One came in at 5:30 and was waiting for a few more people to arrive at 6:00, and the other group came in at 6:00 on the dot. Now, mind you, I had a three-table section. So, I was encouraged because I was ready to turn and burn these tables, but to my chagrin, I was sadly mistaken. Both of these groups of ladies decided to sit, and occupy these tables until 9:55, a whole five minutes before the restaurant closed. So, for an entire busy Friday night, I had one table that I could use. The best part is that neither of these groups of ladies ended up spending more than a combined $70. That means that between two tables, I made $15 on a Friday night. I could have easily turned those tables over three or four times in the course of the four hours they had been sitting there and made five times that. What’s the cherry on the sundae is that one of the women sitting at that 5:30 table was so heartless that she had the nerve to ask me “are you in a rush or something?” when I brought them the bill at 9:45. No, sorry, I was in a rush three hours ago, but now since we’re about to close, I don’t really give a shit.
The point of all this is to hammer in the point that those tables that you sit at are our bills we pay, the food we eat, and the gas we put in our car. If you sit there and take up one of those tables for longer than the time it takes to eat your meal, have a short conversation and leave, it hinders our ability to pay for all those things. If we can’t turn those tables over, we don’t make our money. So, you should feel somewhat guilty that you are basically taking money out of our pockets every minute extra you sit there (but obviously you don’t, since you are the paying customer and you’ve “bought the table” for the time). Here’s what I’m getting at: if you’re going to sit there and take up the table, you need to compensate your waiter for the extended period of time you sat there. If you feel like you’ve been sitting there for a while and say “gosh, how long have we been here?” then you should leave an extra tip that says “I’m sorry for taking up your table”. A few extra dollars on top of what you’re already leaving is enough. We get the sympathy.

Otherwise, keep the camping in the wilderness.