by Ginger Philbrick
A friend, who I greatly respect for his knowledge and his life experience, has sent me information about restaurant customers partially bussing their meal table.
Having been a server himself, he recommends this be done in order to show regard for the server and perhaps have the server “favor you in the realms where he or she has agency to exercise such.”
By partially bussing a table he means quietly stacking small plates such as bread and dessert together. Keeping water, tea and soda glasses over napkins to absorb the condensation also lightens the burden of the server, who doesn’t have to wipe the table between courses. My friend reminds us to leave the utensils in the 4 o’clock position on our plate when we are finished eating, making it easy for the server to secure the utensils with his thumb.
Although grateful to my friend for calling these tips to our attention, and completely agreeing to the parts about sweating glasses and captive knives and forks, I want to add a caveat to the suggestion of partial bussing of a table by stacking dishes. Although it may be welcomed in very casual dining environments such as pubs and diners and informal family dining tables, it is not always appropriate. At some restaurants waitstaff go through intensive training on the etiquette of serving and clearing a table. Diners may be disrupting the established protocol if they stack their dishes, especially with food still on them, making efficient bussing difficult. Additionally, when diners stack their own plates, it often makes the table look messy and gives the impression that the waitstaff is not attending to it as they should.
When hosting a dinner party in your own home, the correct way to clear the table is by removing one or two plates at a time without requesting guests to pass plates, utensils or glasses to you unless you cannot reach them. If you feel it would take a very long time to do it all yourself, ask help from someone you think would be comfortable making the task go more quickly.
Definite No-Nos: scraping dishes at any table, or table side, except perhaps at a very informal picnic; and putting your napkin on your used plate. In the first instance, you are in fact establishing a garbage pile in full view of diners; and in the second, cloth napkins can become very soiled and paper ones risk being stuck to the food left on the plate. Yuck in both instances!
Of course, if you wish to make your server’s or busser’s job easier, the best solution is to ask him or her what is preferred.
Ginger Philbrick is the owner of Because You Are Polite LLC. You are invited to email your manners questions to her and she will respond as time and space allow. You may contact her at youarepolite1@gmail.com.
