Take Your Best Manners With You When Visiting a Restaurant

When visiting a restaurant, take your manners with you. Please remember, in all cases, you are visiting and are a guest, as the restaurant is someone else’s property, so we respect it and all who are there.

Take your manners.
Dress appropriately for the formality of the venue.
Dress conservatively. Too much cleavage can be distracting.
Use your parenting skills and mind the little ones.
Use indoor voices.
Turn the cell phone off.
Remove the earbud from your ear; no one will beam you up anyway.
Treat wait-staff politely.
Ask about unusual ingredients and how the dish is prepared—fewer returned dishes.
Wait until everyone has received their meals before beginning to eat.
Leave a tip of 15% to 25% of the pre-tax bill.
Privately communicate if there is a problem with the meal, service, or venue. The restaurant owner usually wants to know of any problems.

Don’t

Be late! Be on time for reservations.
Wear hats at the table. Ladies may wear small designer hats.
Clean utensils or anything on the table with your napkin.
Blow your nose at the table.
Talk loudly or use cell phones.
Allow children to wander.
Demand to return wine just because you don’t like it. Return it if it has been corked, is the wrong wine, or is super cooked and tastes like bad Sherry.
Use toothpicks or pick your teeth at the table.
Put on makeup at the table.

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