A Devoted Reader often forwards news articles looking for Etiquetteer’s insight, for which Etiquetteer is always grateful. Today it happens to be a piece from The Takeout about just how to sit with your date at a restaurant table for two. Must a couple sit face to face, or is it ever really OK to sit side by side? Etiquetteer will confess to a weensy bit of impatience — the soufflé will fall while you just stand there debating where to sit — but with more people returning to restaurants during whatever period of the pandemic this is, it’s Perfectly Proper to review.
The Takeout article reveals some current problems with restaurant dining, specifically acoustics. If the music is so loud you can’t hear each other except by applying one’s mouth to the other’s ear — and too often it is — then of course you’re going to sit next to each other. The convenience of sharing portions with someone sitting side by side is also referenced.
But it does point out that some restaurant tables were designed for couples to be seated next to each other. Think long narrow Manhattan restaurants. Lila Haxworth Wallace brings up exactly this in The New American Etiquette of 1941. “In those restaurants with a cushioned bench against the wall the woman always takes a seat facing out with the man across from her. In some cases they will sit side by side. In such a case one man would sit between two women and one woman between two men,” preserving the traditional boy-girl-boy-girl seating plan. Mrs. Wallace also observes that “Young couples like wall tables, two seaters.”
Once upon a time, restaurant seating was determined first by gender, then seniority. Ladies always sat against the wall because that gave them the better view. Gentlemen sat across from them because that gave them a view of the lady. The New American Etiquette makes it clear: “The waiter . . . pulls out the most desirable chair for the woman. It is usually the one that has the best view of the room as women take great delight in seeing everyone who enters or leaves. If, however, the woman desires another chair, she simply stands beside the one she prefers and the waiter will quickly pull it out and seat her.” And later, in uncompromising bold, “The woman always has her choice of position.”
In this century, individual preference is greater than gender stereotype, so if you are a couple on a date night and you prefer to sit next to each other instead of across, Etiquetteer has no quarrel with you. Once you add more people to the party, however, it’s Perfectly Proper to sit next to your companions — on the theory that you can sit next to each other at home.
And with that, let Etiquetteer wish you Bon appétit!