Can I Memorize Your Order?

Tuesday, 31 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Are you impressed when your waiter shows up with no notepad and memorizes your order? Or are you just worried that they’ll mess something up? The New York Post says there is an ongoing debate in the restaurant business between the pads and the not pads. The padless contend that looking at a customer in the eye while committing their order to memory creates a more intimate experience. It also allows them to appear more knowledgeable, “transform[ing] a server from mere subordinate to trained virtuoso.” But pen holders say going padless has nothing to do with customer-server relations—it’s about ego. Explains one waiter: “I’ve noticed with more pretentious places that those servers are like, ‘Well, I don’t use a pen and paper, I’m not a waiter.’”