The Rudest Way Customers Order Drinks, According To Servers

Being a restaurant server is a stressful job. Once your tables start to fill up for a shift, you can expect to be running back and forth, taking orders, running plates, clearing tables, and processing payments. The constant activity can get to the point where the job can make you feel like less like a person and more like a robot. For that reason, it's generally pretty nice to have a few moments that let you feel a little more human. For this to happen, though, the customers actually have to treat you like a human in the first place.

This is why it can be truly grating to put on your friendly smile and saunter up to a table to take customers' drink orders only for them to brusquely bark a drink order at you like a dog being told to go fetch. With zero pleasantries and no manners, customers simply grunt "Gin and tonic, no lemon. Glass of white wine," like you're one of those drive-thru speakers. It's a bit dehumanizing and makes customers look, frankly, a bit unpleasant. This is particularly true if the server offers a friendly "How are you?" or a similar greeting that customers simply ignore. Customers who try to engage instead can make the experience more pleasant for everyone.

To be clear, it's not just blunt and unfriendly drink orders that harsh the vibe for a server. Polite manners and a friendly demeanor are always good, regardless of whether it's when you're placing an order or paying the check. It's perhaps a little worse during the initial drink order, however. This is because In many restaurants (although it can vary), customers will be seated and a host will distribute menus before a server takes over for the rest of the meal. So, a server's first encounter with the customers tends to be the drinks order (food orders are usually later unless it's a faster service kind of place). Drink orders can set the tone for the whole meal as even fast-food restaurant workers hate rude customers.

To be clear, bluntness and not saying "please" or "thank you" isn't a crime. Most servers aren't going to go home and lose sleep over the fact you ignored their "how are you" question. By establishing rudeness as the baseline, though, a server might be inclined to avoid you and focus their attention on friendlier people (gravitating towards warmer, friendlier people is arguably just human nature after all). Simply demanding your drink is a behavior that can make servers wary of you as a customer.

Although this is a little bit like asking if bad manners are actually good in some cases, there may be some situations where you can drop the small talk with a server. Obviously, if the server launches straight into asking "What can I get you to drink?", then there's no need to force a conversation. Plus, if they seem overly stressed out and rushed, it might be good to just keep things short and sweet. That person might be juggling too many things at once. If this is the case, chances are they're not going to initiate much small talk anyway.

Even in these instances, there are still a few baseline etiquette rules to follow. Firstly, even if a server is rushed, "please" and "thank you" take no time at all to say, and make the interaction a bit more human. Secondly (and perhaps lesser-known among customers), let the server speak first when they come to the table, rather than yelling an order directly at them first. Many restaurants want their servers to follow a specific order of service, so let them do their job. For example, maybe they're coming to tell you about the specials but then before they leave ask if you can place that drink order with them. As long as you're friendly and polite, you're more likely to get what you want. Restaurant servers (like you) are only human.