Eating out at Tampa restaurants with friends and family is always supposed to be a fun and pleasant dining experience. After all, you’re with loved ones enjoying a delicious meal that you don’t have to clean up afterward. It’s a great combination.
However, there may be times when we find ourselves dining with people who you find are less than pleasant dining company. Perhaps they might be rude to the waitstaff, or they might find fault with everything that they eat. Either way, rude dining companions can make an otherwise pleasant experience into an unenjoyable one.
It might be challenging to deal with these types of companions, but the night is not a lost cause. Here are some ways to help you handle rude dining companions when you’re eating out at Tampa restaurants.
Let them be aware of their behavior
There may be times when your dining companion might be inexplicably rude to the waitstaff while you’re dining out. If you’re the host of the dinner, this is considered rude as it is not the job of the guest to criticize the waitstaff, even if there is a legitimate problem.
If this happens, the best thing to do is to politely call out their behavior to help them be aware of what they’re doing. You can then suggest that they apologize for their behavior to the server.
Sometimes they are not even aware that what they’re doing is inappropriate. However, if they refuse to apologize for their actions, it is up to you to take the server aside and apologize for their behavior. It also helps to leave a nice tip after the meal.
Read the situation
While this certainly is the most polite way of diffusing the situation on hand, there are times when you have to tread lightly with how you handle it. If you’re dining with friends and family, then there are no problems with calling out the behavior of the rude person.
However, if you’re on a business meal, this might not be an appropriate setting to ask your companion about their behavior. This is one of those times when you have to find the server to talk to them in private and apologize on behalf of your dining companion’s behavior.
Don’t hold it against them
There are times when people tend to act harshly because of something that has happened to them. While this in no way excuses rude behavior, it still helps to be more understanding of the situation.
If you know the person well, you can take them aside and let them know about their inappropriate behavior, as they might not even have noticed what they were doing.
If it’s someone that you’re not particularly close with, you can choose to not take their behavior and actions personally for the sake of letting the meal go on as planned.