Table For One, Please

On most days, I have lunch in the kitchen of my office.  I head in, eat my lunch (usually soup and chips) and then head back to my desk to either read my book or handle the pesky tasks of daily life that have to get pushed aside during working hours.  And usually I do not mind this lunch routine.  I get things done and/or I can disappear into the world of my book for 45 minutes or so.  When I want something different, I go out.  If I go out, I will usually go to a fast food place or to the food court in the office tower down the street.  Sometimes I am invited to lunch with other people, either co-workers or friends.  But more often than not, I am on my own.  Fast food places serve as a great escape for me:  it's easy to be alone in fast food places; nothing is out of place if a single diner orders, pays, and makes use of the small tables at a Subway or Burger King.  Even food courts are designed to make solo dining accessible and acceptable.

But sometimes, I get a wild hair and I want a sit-down lunch, where waiters come to the table, take my order and bring me my food, and keep my iced tea refilled without me having to take my coated paper cup to a drink fountain.

It's interesting to be a solo diner in a sit-down restaurant.  Tables at most sit-down restaurants are set up for parties of 2 to 4, with some set for 6 to 8.  Parties that fit those parameters are easy to handle and expected.  The problem comes in with parties of one.  Where do you put a solo diner?  Obviously a table for 6 to 8 is wasteful, as is a table set for 4.  There are more parties of 2, and those are perfectly suited to intimate, and usually prime-placed, tables for 2.  Why should the restaurants waste that prime real estate on tables for one?  Why indeed?  Most parties of one are dining alone come with work, books, iPods, knitting, cross-stitching, etc. and are content to be alone.

Restaurateurs know this, which is why most tables for one are placed in locations that make it difficult for more than one person to make use of them.  If pressed a party of two can be seated at some of those tables.  But more often than not, tables for one are in corners, next to walls or other protrusions.  They may have a sliver of a view out the window, but most often the diner is set facing the wall with their backs to the room.  Perhaps this is to make the solo diner forget that other people have friends, acquaintances, co-workers, or rank strangers with whom to share a their meal.  Humans are, after all, a social species.  And meals are traditionally shared.

However, there are many solo diners who dine alone, not out of lack of available companions, but by choice; it is a conscious decision.  So when I come to the hostess stand, and say "Table for One, Please," would you please consider treating me and giving me a table by the window, or placed where I can see the room?  I do not need pity, I need a full iced tea glass.