Your Play-by-Play Announcing is Taking My Head Out of the Game

And you don’t want my head out of the game. Trust me. Because my head in the game is your dining experience.

The Table Announcer is one of the most annoying RCs. This person thinks that s/he (usually she) is clever, witty, and also daring and a strong, independent person who speaks her mind. All of that may be true, but what intelligent person would try to make jokes about the server and the restaurant while the server is at the table?

Folks, as I’ve said before, I am an adult and a child of God, and therefore I am not doing anything untoward to your food no matter how stupid you are. But I cannot speak for my fellow comrades in the restaurant industry! Let me give you an example of the ridiculous things the Table Announcer is saying, all the while putting her food and the food of everyone at her table at risk.

“I hate this place! They only bring out one bread at a time. How do they expect all four of us to eat that one little stupid bread?” This said as the server places the Complimentary Bread on the table. A couple of things. The bread is free, and not a meal unto itself. We do not expect you nor your dinner companions to get full, because if you did, you wouldn’t order food with a price tag attached to it, and we would go out of business. Second, saying that in my face, but to your friends, as though to say, “I can talk about her and her restaurant and there is nothing she can do about it but stand there and take it and be quiet!” This couldn’t be farther from the truth. I can take my time getting you another bread; you may not see another loaf til the tail end of your meal. And if you think you can solve that problem by asking another server, well, this is what will happen with that. They will come in the back and inform me that my table wants another bread, would I like them to bring one to you, and I very well might tell them no, don’t bother. So they won’t, because they have plenty of other things to do taking care of their own tables. And that’s just me, because I would never do anything to put your health at risk. But lets just say that in ten years in the business, I have seen servers do a lot of truly heinous things when a table gets too high and mighty.

Another example of the Table Announcer? She cannot mind her own business and focus on her own food, she must dispense sage comments on the orders of every other person at the table. “Ooh, girl, don’t get the caesar salad, they always put too much dressing on it! Don’t get the sirloin, it don’t never be tender enough here! Un-un girl, the cheesecake here is not good. They say its homemade, but it don’t taste nothing like mines.” Again, a couple of things. It might not be enough dressing for you, but your girlfriend is A Different Person. As far as the cheesecake goes, your obviously such a good cook you should slap yourself…before someone else does!  And for your rude, ignorant-sounding comments about my restaurant (in my face), if our restaurant always lets you down, then don’t come back, FOR ALL OF OUR SAKES, especially mine!

The bottom line is, your table announcing will not, in any way get you better service, and there is a very good chance it will get your entire table worse service, and they will have you and your big mouth to blame. Table Announcers should practice not saying anything at all if they have nothing nice to say. I suspect most of them would be silent for most of the day if they followed this advice.