Restaurants Need to Pick: Bigger Tables or Smaller Plates

Substack is always a place to share my thoughts on VERY important matters, even if those thoughts are unpopular, which is why I must share this with you.

Restaurants: your tables are too small for your plates.

This isn’t some niche complaint about a single bad experience. This is a systemic crisis happening at every type of restaurant. From the Cheesecake Factory, which will give you a two-top and then roll out plates like you’re attending a medieval banquet, but you’re sitting in a space designed for a child’s tea party. That hip new spot in your neighborhood, that seats forty people and has exactly one unisex bathroom, where you all wash your hands in some bespoke trough in the hallway.

This madness has to stop.

We’ve all been there. You sit down at a two-top. The table surface area is maybe 4 x 2 feet. You order what seems like a reasonable amount of food, an appetizer to share, two entrees, maybe a drink to complement your water. You know, the meal structure that has existed since the invention of restaurants.

Then the waiter arrives with your food, and suddenly you’re in a real-time physics problem. They’re carrying plates the size of medieval serving platters – we’re talking full Viking feast presentation – and they approach your tiny table with what I can only describe as theatrical surprise.

Have they not SEEN this table? They work here. They’ve done this dance seventeen times tonight alone. And yet, every single time, they look at the table, look at the plates, look at you, and their face says: “Well, this is YOUR problem now.”

Because here’s what happens next: nothing. They don’t rearrange. They don’t problem-solve. They don’t acknowledge that the restaurant has created an impossible spatial scenario. They just stand there, holding a plate roughly the circumference of a manhole cover, waiting for you to figure out where it’s supposed to go.

So now I’m the one playing table Jenga. I’m moving my water glass to the edge. I’m stacking the appetizer plates. I’m putting the bread basket in my lap like a weird bread perv. All while my dinner companion tries to pull their plate off the table just enough so it balances but won’t flip.

And the whole time – THE WHOLE TIME – I’m apologizing.

“Sorry, just give me a second.”

“Sorry, let me just move this.”

“Sorry, I’ll figure it out.”

SORRY FOR WHAT? What am I apologizing for? I didn’t design this table. I didn’t choose the plate size. I didn’t create this architectural nightmare. I’m a customer who showed up hungry and was presented with an unsolvable geometry problem that comes as a free part of my dinner.

But I apologize anyway, because somehow this has become MY failure. Like I should have known better. Like I should have previewed the plate dimensions before ordering. Like there’s a secret menu strategy I missed where you’re supposed to calculate cubic footage and only order accordingly.

The waiters never say, “Yeah, these tables are insane, let me help you out.” They never acknowledge the fundamental design flaw. Instead, they look at you like a contractor watching a homeowner who tried to install their own kitchen sink; it’s a vague pity mixed with “not my problem, brah.”

I tried pushing back once. Just once. The waiter brought out our entrees, did the usual surprised-face routine, and I said, “This is on you.” Yes, it was passive-aggressive. (I’m aware of that.) But I needed to see what would happen. Who would budge?

The waiter looked at me. I looked at the waiter. The plates hung in the air between us.

After what felt like an eternity (most likely 7 seconds), I caved. Of course I did. I always do. I moved my phone. I moved my napkin. Shoved a piece of bread in my mouth to take one plate out of the equation. I solved it, YET AGAIN!

Here’s my thing: I KNOW why this is happening. Restaurants need to seat more people. I get it. The economics of running a restaurant are brutal. Rent is insane. Margins are thin. You need to pack in as many tables as possible.

Fine. I understand.

But then MAKE THE PLATES SMALLER.

OR

Give me a table where two people can eat a normal meal without forcing me to create a new Cirque du Soleil show called, “Jenga ala Bistro.”

Or maybe we start a server honesty policy.

“Hey, so that you know, you won’t actually be able to share that appetizer.”

But I know it’s not going to change. This is just how we eat now. I’m going to spend the rest of my dining life with bread baskets in my lap, apologizing for problems I didn’t create, while servers look at me with mild disdain for not moving my plates fast enough.

But I want it on the record: the fix is simple. SMALLER PLATES and maybe two servings, or better yet, let’s go back to the buffet!

Serve yourself. Put your App, Entree, and Dessert on the same plate. Yeah, it’s compromised, but at least it’s not Communal dining.

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