Nope, I’m not talking about the movie here. Instead, I’d like to pose a question: Why would a host or hostess EVER seat customers next to a table with a crying baby when the restaurant was empty? Does this make any sense? I ask this because it happened to me last night.

Last night my wife and I were taking a walk and decided to grab a bite to eat on our way home. The place we ended up going is called Bertucci’s, and while we really don’t like it that much it had two things going for it at the time:

1.) We were walking right past it on our way home.
2.) My wife loves the bread they serve and she had a craving for it.
3.) We were both pretty hungry and didn’t really care where we were going to eat at that point.

We walk in and the first thing I notice is that the place is DEAD. There might have been two or three tables filled at the time, and this is not a tiny restaurant. The second thing I notice (actually hear) is a screaming baby at one of the tables. Not just your regular crying, but all out B horror movie screaming. You know it’s bad when even the parents are looking frustrated and annoyed. However, since the place was empty, you would think that we would be sat at a table that was not in earshot of the sonic wail, right? Absolutely wrong. The host takes us to the table right behind that family.

What is that all about? Common sense would dictate that NO ONE would want to sit next to that human siren, let alone when the restaurant was empty! We immediately rejected the table and guess where the next place he tried to sit us was? Right next to the kitchen. It’s not like we were dressed like homeless people or serial killers, we weren’t dressed to the nines but we didn’t look like bums either. I couldn’t believe it, and my wife actually let out a chuckle. Needless to say, we rejected that table as well and got a decent table next to one of the other customers there (a nice and QUIET couple).

Has this ever happened to you? If I was a host, and the restaurant wasn’t busy, I would try to sit people where I would want to be sat if I was eating there. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems like common sense.

In the end, we had a pretty good waitress and the food was decent at the time (it did end up making both of us sick later).

I’d like to know what your experiences are with this kind of thing and what you think about it.