How to Get Your Server’s Attention Without Being a Jerk

Source: Bon Appétit
Category: Food
Originally Published: 2025-12-02
Curated: 2025-12-02 15:14

We’ve all gone to the dark place at least once, where we believe the person serving us in a restaurant has forgotten—or worse!—is purposely avoiding us. How else can I explain my perpetually empty glass, or that they haven’t deposited the bill even though they know I’m going to a show after dinner? Their prolonged absence is more likely unintentional—because the restaurant is overbooked and understaffed or the server is also juggling a table of 20. Or maybe, like me, they’re having a bad day.

But when and how should we speak up, as we battle feelings of indignation that our needs aren’t being met?

The perception of being ignored by waitstaff brings out some rather feral behavior in diners. Responding to a social media poll, a dozen-plus servers, general managers and sommeliers reported that customers trying to get their attention have snapped, whistled, clapped and thrown pens at them; waved their napkins around their heads and shouted infantilizing epithets like “Hey darling!” and “Little girl!” Diners have interrupted servers’ conversations with other tables, and—on rarer occasions—yanked on their clothes or physically grabbed them.

“We are at our worst when we are impatient and on our own agenda, and I see that in a lot of these behaviors,” says Lizzie Post, co-president of The Emily Post Institute, an etiquette training organization in Waterbury, Vermont.

Unfortunately, entitled jerks who mistreat service workers are eternal, she says. During the Covid-19 pandemic, people stopped flexing the muscles that dictate how to behave in public social settings, which may explain the recent uptick in bad behavior. Post is more concerned that people have yet to resolve their “quickness to impatience,” which provokes responses that are “too disruptive for what’s supposed to be a more toned-down atmosphere.”

Keeping your cool starts with being aware of what you don’t know (i.e., why the server is absent), then seeking the best avenues for getting what you want while still being civil. Say you were seated over 10 minutes ago, and the server hasn’t come over to take the drink order. Rather than seethe about their incompetence, politely flag down another member of the team to say, “It’s been a minute and we haven’t seen the server. Can we throw in a drink order?”

“The whole staff is supposed to be a team, so you should be able to lean on anyone out on that restaurant floor to help with a situation that goes wrong,” Post says. Plus, telling someone else sets a “second timer” on the issue, which will probably help resolve it quicker. “Don’t sit there being a victim! Go get the assistance you need.”

This article was curated from Bon Appétit. All rights belong to the original publisher.