My family says I’ve become impossible to eat with because I started timing restaurant service interactions, are they right?
After years of bad dining experiences I began quietly tracking:
drink refill response times
appetizer-to-entree transition efficiency
table visit frequency
unnecessary “checking in” interruptions
Last weekend our waitress introduced herself and I instinctively started the stopwatch on my phone.
My sister noticed and asked what I was doing, so I explained I maintain a personal database ranking local restaurants by operational consistency.
Apparently things escalated when I informed the waiter that his “bread basket deployment time” was strong but the beverage management showed “concerning gaps.”
My family says I make every dinner feel like a failing corporate quarterly review.
Personally I think restaurants charging modern prices should expect modern performance evaluation. Does my family have a point here?
Posted May 12, 2026, 6:10 AM UTC