Do you think a good place to have a meeting is in an extremely crowded building?

[Digitalpotato]

Or, why fast-food workers should be allowed to tell Tablehoggers they have to leave!

Alright so there's a place called five guys burgers and fries. It's a chain, but due to the fact that they give copious amounts of really good fries, they are extremely popular. Now there' a rule in this town regarding these places. The amount of customers at once is directly proportional to the size and cleanliness of the dining area.

The smaller the dining area is, the more customers will swarm the store. The fewer the tables, the more huge groups come in, thus forcing people who were wanting to dine in to be forced to take out or just stand and eat because they ordered it for "Dine in" and didn't see people hogging the table.

So obviously, when we went in we noticed that there was a HUGE group of people in a loud dirty restaurant (it's so busy they can't clean it until closing) that had clearly finished their food hours ago and were hogging literally half the dining areas. They had papers out and were yelling over the music and causing parents to have to practically HOLLER to be heard to their children and it was just more shouting than an irate Ventrilo.




okay, if you are having a meeting, you do it at a QUIET place. NOT where people are bringing four-year-old children and NOT at the busiest place in town!

[Kiwi]

Almost all of the resturants or coffee shops in our city have a "two hours and your out" sign which basically means you get the table for 2 hours max and then you have to bugger off or buy something else

If works well because we have a large number of homeless in the summer and they will literally buy a coffee in the morning and sit at the same table all day long

they even enforce it at dennys and mc donalds now during peek hours

[katie kaboom]

they even enforce it at dennys and mc donalds now during peek hours

Who spends 2 hours eating in McDonald's?

[Kiwi]

Who spends 2 hours eating in McDonald's?

people with no where else to go, or nothing to do

the elderly with no family, the homeless, the people who have to fill up their day somehow

[taxguykarl]

You beat me to it, Kiwi. One McD's here has become a hangout for obnoxious teens.

[powerboy]

There is one coffee shop that our group holds it community meetings (meetings that the public can come and talk about experiences and to just find out more about paranormal) at. And yes, they do allow us to be in there for a long time. Since we bring in over 20-30 customers.

[tropicsgoddess]

The restaurant I worked at had a dining area that was divided by sliding doors (the clientele usually were in the 40+ crowd...we rarely got the younger set and families). The back dining room was used for private meetings, parties etc. more often than not and some of the patrons would request to close off the door for privacy or use the whole dining area for the party (the big ones). I remember one group that came in was having a meeting about a new project in the city where a new plaza was proposed on being built to increase the city's economy and jobs. They were cool and the host gave me a $20 tip (I was the hostess at the restaurant). Sometimes we had wine tasting in the back room and after work if there was still any wine and hors d'ouevrs left, us employees would get to have some (provided of course we were off the clock) .

[blas]

Well around these parts, the elderly frequent McDonalds, Hardees, and BK as soon as they open and just order coffee and maybe something to eat, and will sit there and talk and read the paper until well past lunch time.

[MergedLoki]

Most fastfood joints around here have signs posted saying stuff like 30 or 45 min. seat times max.

[infinitemonkies]

At my nearest McD's there are a lot of elderly people who will come in every day at around 7am, order their senior discount coffee, and hang out there getting free refills until the lunch rush starts coming in at around 11:30.

[greensinestro]

people with no where else to go, or nothing to do

the elderly with no family, the homeless, the people who have to fill up their day somehow

Damn! You beat me to this one!

Not to hijack this thread, but it also happens at other popular establishments, like Cracker Barrel. Now that they have a discount for the seniors, there are times during peak hours when this kind of crap happens. A while back, my family and I went there, and we needed one of those large round tables normally found in the corners. It looked like one nearby was about to be vacated, and this table had at least eight or more seniors seated at it. The plates were being taken away, and it looked like the table was about to be free for us to sit down at.

Nope. Instead, they all sat around deciding "should we get coffee and dessert?", and of course they did. Then, we had to stand while they sipped their coffee, laughed at a joke or two, sipped some more coffee, laughed some more, took a bite of their carrot cake, sipped some more coffee, etc. Now, we had stood waiting for about twenty minutes when finally, one of the other tables was freed up. We sat down, and by the time our food arrived was when this group got up to leave, which was about forty-five minutes after we had arrived, and after they had all finished their meals.

I don't think Cracker Barrel has a "two hour time limit" policy in their restaurants, but they should, unless they're worried more about how much money they make, let alone getting a bad rap if they tell these people to finish up.

[bainsidhe]

My city is a college town, so we get students taking up tables at places like Denny's, Perkins, etc. Heck I've done it myself, but only if they're slow. As for McD's, I like to sit and enjoy reading the newspaper. It soothing after a rough day at work.

[EricKei]

The BK closest to my house actually *reveled* in this -- granted, I don't think I've ever seen them at 100% capacity even tho they're small, maybe 6 booths, four 2-tops and six 4-tops (less of an issue that way) -- For ages, they've had a cadre of elderly folks who come in at opening and sit there sipping their coffee (they buy food too) and chat and read the paper for a good 3-4 hours each day. This went on for so long that they instituted a "Breakfast Club" thing there, even going so far as to have a sign in one of the Handicapped spaces outside that marked it as "Reserved for the President of the Breakfast Club". It was the same folks, literally EVERY day, always pleasant and nice to talk to if you felt like it (small town mentality here).

The patrons there never seemed to have a problem with it. Methinks that one's the exception, not the rule, however.

[greensinestro]

The BK closest to my house actually *reveled* in this -- granted, I don't think I've ever seen them at 100% capacity even tho they're small, maybe 6 booths, four 2-tops and six 4-tops (less of an issue that way) -- For ages, they've had a cadre of elderly folks who come in at opening and sit there sipping their coffee (they buy food too) and chat and read the paper for a good 3-4 hours each day. This went on for so long that they instituted a "Breakfast Club" thing there, even going so far as to have a sign in one of the Handicapped spaces outside that marked it as "Reserved for the President of the Breakfast Club". It was the same folks, literally EVERY day, always pleasant and nice to talk to if you felt like it (small town mentality here).

The patrons there never seemed to have a problem with it. Methinks that one's the exception, not the rule, however.

You definitely do not live in South Florida, because you don't have nice patrons like this on an every day basis, plus you would certainly have other folks who would complain.

[EricKei]

You definitely do not live in South Florida, because you don't have nice patrons like this on an every day basis, plus you would certainly have other folks who would complain.

Exactly. That, and one benefit to our hidebound mentality here is that many locals really do have the "automatic respect for their elders" thing. Most locals would not complain about it...to their faces. But once they leave...HOOOOOOOOOOO~~~~~WEEEEE >_<