So I had a rather awkward situation at a restaurant and was wondering if I was in the wrong?
Backstory:
It's Father's Day and there are a few people waiting in line to order. I don't know if these people already have a table or not but all the tables are taken except one so I go into self preservation mode and quickly snag the table. I was also still waiting for my dad to come so I didn't want to order yet. My girlfriend then asked me if we should wait to be seated first, which made me feel bad for potentially queue jumping so I looked back at the line and saw a couple who looked like they wanted to sit there. I offered them the table since they were there before us but the man said since there was only 4 of us, we could split the table.
The table was actually 3 tables combined into 1 and had 6 seats and the lady tried to separate the table so that they had an extra table for themselves but I told her that I needed the extra table because I was waiting for another person.
After we sorted out the issue, they went back to the front counter to order. As I was waiting for my dad, a different couple came to sit down at their table. At first I was going to tell them that someone was already sitting there, but then it reminded me of the OzBargain posts about people reserving parks for other people and I didn't want to be rude so I did the 200 IQ move and said nothing.
My dad finally arrived during all of this and sat down at the table that I had saved for him. While my girlfriend and dad caught up about life, I sat in silence waiting for the chaos to unfold.
The couple then came back and saw that someone had taken their table and the lady actually took it pretty well and said "wow that was fast" and then asked us if we can share even though there clearly wasn't enough seats for them and my dad gave them a firm no. Feeling guilty, I asked my dad if we should move but he told me to not give them our seats and at the time I agreed with him because I felt like there was no good choice so I went with the selfish choice.
They ended up sitting in the bar area to eat which is obviously not as pleasant. When I went to make my order, the same couple was in front of me ordering some drinks and the lady looked back and gave me a bit of a dirty look but I just ignored it. As we all finished our dinner and was about to leave, the lady said "Thanks for saving our table" sarcasticly and said it twice to make sure we heard her. I just said "No worries" back and left.
Looking back I can laugh at the absurdity of the situation but I am still left wondering if I was in the wrong and wanted the communities thoughts about the situation.
What kind of restaurant are you talking about? Western/Asian? $/$$$? Name it.
Not all restaurants are the same.
If it doesn’t have Please Wait To Be Seated sign, it’s fair game.