Nancy Young > wrote in
:

> Rhonda Anderson wrote:
>
>> A group of us had to go to Canberra for a conference a couple of
>> weeks away. First night there we went to an Irish pub for dinner
>> where they used the system where you order at the counter and are
>> given a number to take back to your table so they know where to bring
>> the food.
>
> Yuck, I hate it. I expect service like that from a fast food place.
> I go to a restaurant, I want to sit down and have someone take my
> order. No, I wouldn't go there again. Talk about impersonal.
>

The number system is quite common here now in coffee shop type places and
pubs etc. I wouldn't expect it in a nice restaurant, of course. It's an
improvement over the system in place in many pubs/club bistros where there
is no table service at all. You get given a number, and you need to either
keep an ear out for that number being called, or keep an eye on the screen
where the numbers flash up - then you go to collect the meal. Have been to
one pub bistro where they gave you a pager, and when your meal was ready to
collect the pager went off (vibrated, from memory, I don't think it beeped)
- that was better in that you couldn't really miss it, and your attention
didn't have to be away from the table.

I wouldn't expect any more table service than the take the number to the
table sort in a pub or club here. It's bistro food usually, fairly
inexpensive, but often very good basic fare. The food at the place in
Canberra was certainly tasty. That pub is a decent size, and you can eat
your meal at any of the tables within the pub, which is sort of divided
into separate rooms. I would imagine it would be quite difficult to have
full table service where you can't even see if people have arrived or not,
or whether they're just there to drink or to eat as well.

--
Rhonda Anderson
Penrith, NSW, Australia