Heh. Seattle has Bakeman’s for sandwiches. That’ll prove that not every restaurant experience in the Northwest is overly solicitious. Note: the sandwiches are excellent and I love the service, and I’m a NW native – forewarned is forearmed.

As for this trend of chummy, I agree; it sucks. From the first restaurant to do it (one of the Restaurant Associates places in NYC, whose name escapes me) to the recent sit-down-a-spell-and-chew-the-fat thing at Outback et al, I’ve had it. Is it so wrong to want to stick to the business at hand? I come prepared for dinnertime entertainment; I bring interesting people to have dinner with me. *gasp*. I’m unfailingly polite to servers, I tip well, and the ones that I see regularly are people I like to chat with. . . but for Buffy the Random, three-week veteran of Ruby Tuesday, am I a horrible person for expecting relatively uninterrupted conversation with my dinner partners aside from a brief painless ordering process and perhaps a check back after each course arrives? (Note: this is one check back, and if animated conversation is occurring, looking for obvious signs of distress – barring any, skip it)…

Oh dear, I seem to have gone off on a rant…

Eric