How do you sit beside a girl (rather than across from her) if you're getting food and it's the first date.

Before I even begin, I get that getting food as a date isn't ideal and a bar/drink is better. I know they'll be people commenting saying that you should never ever do food dates. However, right now let's just assume you got a food date planned. So let's just get past that.... Cool, we're past it now.

How do you sit beside a girl at a restaurant to assist in kino escalation (rather than across from her) if you have a booth table without it being weird? Most people sit across from each not, not beside each other. If a girl happens to calls me out on it or asks why I'm sitting next to her when there's a seat available across, what's the best response?