If I was staying at a restaurant for that long, I would have looked several times to see if others were waiting for a table. 2 1/2 hours is-a-long-long-time.

Anonymous wrote:I think the manager was rude. He should have asked, not demanded, you get up, and should have offered you free drinks at the bar in return .

Re-read, he apologetically asked per OP

I think the manager was rude. He should have asked, not demanded, you get up, and should have offered you free drinks at the bar in return .

Have a little sense of timing. If it's a quiet weeknight and you're not keeping a table from anyone, fine.

You started your meal at 6:00, which means 2 1/2 hours later was 8:30 pm. Prime time on a Saturday night, and apparently there were people waiting at the door/bar area.

Yes, it's rude to linger and take up a table then. No, there was nothing wrong with politely asking you to move it along. Offering you a drink at the bar would have been the extra gracious way to do it, but that's above and beyond and not to be expected.

If you want to have a leisurely conversation with your friends, move it to the bar or to another place for dessert or more drinks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You were wrong. You shouldn't linger for that long after eating when there is a wait. If you wanted to continue your night, you should have gone to a bar or something and ordered drinks. You were preventing the restaurant and the server from making money on another table, and you were causing the wait times to increase for the other customers. It's very rude.

This, and I hope that you tipped the server at least $75 for lost revenue.

Nope. Not if THEY ASKED HER PARTY TO LEAVE. See the restaurant owners on here who are saying that's verboten? They should have handled things better. Maybe she should have scooted out earlier, but the restaurant is in the service industry and it's their business to treat people correctly; it is not OP's business to treat restaurants.

That being said, I still would have tipped 20% on the bill if the service was good otherwise, but I'm not going to pay you extra for handling my sort-of-obliviousness impolitely. Surely this has happened to this restaurant before; they need to get a better policy together.

I'm amazed by the people on here who are being rude and unkind to OP when she was just perhaps a little bit clueless, whereas the restaurant is supposed to have expertise in dealing with these situations and according to all the commenters so far it should have handled things better by sending them to the bar with freebies or just not saying a word. Shine on you crazy diamond, DCUM!

Former server here:
20 minutes past signing the check? Granted it was 8:30 on a Saturday but I tend to think management erred on the side of moving them quickly.
Also, while $250 in this area for a four-top is not a high end bill, it depends on the cost of the restaurant. Rule of thumb is you can keep the table longer as long as you're ordering what another table would have cost. So if an average bill is $100 and a table stays for an hour, at 2.5 hours a $250 bill compensates the server the same as the table turning over. If you're done ordering, have paid the bill and are lagging (or have considerably under-ordered what you think an average bill is), please be considerate and vacate the table so another party can be sat.

Anonymous wrote:You were wrong. You shouldn't linger for that long after eating when there is a wait. If you wanted to continue your night, you should have gone to a bar or something and ordered drinks. You were preventing the restaurant and the server from making money on another table, and you were causing the wait times to increase for the other customers. It's very rude.

This, and I hope that you tipped the server at least $75 for lost revenue.

PP again--also, it is also the restaurant's responsibility to manage their reservations; it's not up to each customer to say "gee, I bet that person had an 8:30 reservation so we'd better hurry up." Restaurants should plan on some people who eat quickly, some who don't; simple as that.

OP, I'll disagree with the "you're rude" consensus. I don't think you were rude. Being kind of oblivious is not the same thing as being intentionally rude, and it's not the restaurant customer's responsibility to think about the restaurant's bottom line when you're in the middle of socializing with friends. OP does not have to behave in such a way as to maximize the restaurant profits. Like some PPs have said, it was actually the restaurant's rudeness to ask them to leave without being gracious and offering something else--I've worked in restaurants, and agree with PP that it was forbidden to ever ask a patron to leave.

This is why I could never own a restaurant. I don't like to reward people for being rude. You should have enough common sense not to sit at a table past paying the check on a weekend night at a busy restaurant. You're already costing them money, why should you get additional free items for being rude? but again, this is why I could never own or run a business that had to cater to people like OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a bit of a spin off question: when i want to keep chatting with my friends after dessert I feel like its "ok to hold the table" as long as I keep buying rounds of drinks...is this correct or no?

Depends for how long. IME, a table that is still buying rounds after dinner is pretty happy and tipsy and fun. Then they leave a giant tip. If this describes you, you're welcome to stay as long as you like. If you plan to linger for an hour over one drink and are unfriendly, no.

I think it also depends on how busy the restaurant is and if people are waiting for your table. I went out for dinner with a group of girlfriends and had reserved a big table at a popular restaurant months in advance. There was a big group there ahead of us who kept ordering one coffee at a time, then someone else would get one glass of wine etc. We were all standing around waiting for an hour after our reservation while the wait staff tried to gently nudge the people along. They were still ordering but they could have easily moved to the bar, it was 9:30 and we were starving and wanted to sit and eat!

OP, you were rude. Now you know for future reference.

What I don't get is these posts that ask "Should this bother me?". I mean you're either bothered or your not, why sit around and think about it the next day and wonder if you should be bothered? What are you going to do about that feeling now anyway?

It's a gorgeous day, go enjoy it instead wasting your time wondering if you should be bothered about something, especially when you were clearly in the wrong.

Anonymous wrote:I have a bit of a spin off question: when i want to keep chatting with my friends after dessert I feel like its "ok to hold the table" as long as I keep buying rounds of drinks...is this correct or no?

Depends for how long. IME, a table that is still buying rounds after dinner is pretty happy and tipsy and fun. Then they leave a giant tip. If this describes you, you're welcome to stay as long as you like. If you plan to linger for an hour over one drink and are unfriendly, no.

Anonymous wrote:You were rude but I don't expect you to admit it

+1 you should've given up the table and gone to the bar. At 2.5 hours, I see nothing wrong with this as there was still a wait. If you want an unhurried dinner, make your reservations for 8 or later so you can be pretty sure no one will be waiting for a table.

This comes up regularly on Tom Sietsema's chat, so it seems to be a common request in the DC area.