Message: | OK, so this is not so much a mere annoyance as it is an example of truly breathtaking snobbery (from both maitre d' and clientele) ...
A couple months ago I was in a painfully trendy restaurant on Third St. near La Cienega and not long after we were seated the place really filled up in a hurry. The maitre d' (actually less of a true maitre d' than a male bimbo-hostess) occasionally sauntered to the front to add names to the table waiting list, but mostly hung around this one table bantering with some Beautiful People friends.
After a few minutes, he turned to head to the front again, then froze in his tracks when he saw an elderly couple standing at the host's station who looked like they had dropped in via a wormhole from Nebraska. Pretending he hadn't seen them, he returned to his friends' table for more chitchat.
Meanwhile, the couple (who must have been around 70) stood there waiting patiently, even though the woman walked with a polio-style cane and none of the waiting hipster types in wool caps and $50 "vintage" tshirts would give up their seats. Finally the poor lady is hanging onto the host's podium for support, while the host himself keeps chatting away, looking at them out of the corner of his eye every so often, clearly hoping they'd give up and go away.
At this point I couldn't take it any longer, and as we were sitting near the entrance, I took the extra chair from our table (there were 3 of us) and carried it about 20 feet to offer it to the lady, and she gratefully accepted. Upon returning to the table, I was harangued by the waiter for messing up the furniture layout! Meanwhile, of course, the host kept yakking it up.
It was the first time in years I've completely stiffed a wait staff .... |