If you've noticed excellent service at a restaurant lately, this may be the reason why.

Four-star New York City restaurants and chains from Denny's to the Cheesecake Factory are training waiters to read customers and provide service ideal for the patron's situation, Sarah Nassauer of The Wall Street Journal reports.

While some restaurants still give waiter scripts to follow, more eateries now want waiters to provide great personal service tailored to a customer's needs, Nassauer writes.

She lists several signals that waiters are trained to pick up. They include:

  • With a talkative table, a waiter can assume everyone at the table is friends and the group is there to have a good time. Expect your server to offer up more drinks, appetizers, and desserts.
  • If you say your meal is 'OK,' waiters are trained to read that as a red flag and that you are not actually enjoying your food.
  • If you're wearing a suit at lunch, the waiter might assume you want a speedy meal to get back to the office.

But service is mostly likely to improve if you act moody, Nassauer writes, noting, "several waiters said they are more careful to get every detail right when they believe a table is already in a bad mood (a couple fighting or a tense business meal perhaps)."

Read the full piece at the Wall Street Journal >

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