Evening Star Newspaper, September 29, 1935, Page 110

Magazine Section L4 HIS article is written in re sponse to the many readers who have urged me to print the details herein given. \ \ In*a fashionable G ) o \\\ restaurant a man leaves his hat and coat in the coat room or checks them at the entrance of the res taurant. A woman leaves her wrap in the dressing room or if she prefers, she goes into the dining room and sits down at the table as she is. She then merely throws the shoulders of her wrap back of her, over her chair. ’ In the daytime a woman wears a hat and keeps it on. of course. Solely from the point of view of fashion, a hat should always be worn with a street dress (just as boots and not slippers are worn with a riding habit). At night she wears a hat if in daytime clothes, an evening hat if she chooses with semi- evening clothes, and no hat ever if in a ball dress. The fee to the maid in the dressing-room given when she returns the coat-check and 1s helped on with her wrap — is twenty-five cents ——in every restaurant or hotel that can be called luxurious. In a very simple hotel a woman, whose clothes are equally simple, might give a little less. The fee to the check-rack boy, or girl, who takes care of a man's hat and coat, is ten cents — or in a super-smart restaurant a little more. When entering a restaurant or a hotel dining room, always stand near the door. The head waiter, or waitress, will show you Jhere to sit. If you are staying at an Amer- ican-plan hotel, you usually sit at a small table in the dining room; and after your first entrance you go to your place at table with- out waiting to be shown - although the head waiter will hurry, if he can, to pull your chair out for you. The waiter pulls out the choice seat first that is, the seat that he considers choice because it is facing the room or the view or whatever is supposed to be of interest). A woman dining with a man naturally takes it, unless for some reason she definitely prefers another. In that case she stands beside the other chair saying: “I'd rather sit here.” A woman who has invited another woman to unch or dine with her, naturally lets her guest go first and take the choice seat. When a woman is lunching or dining with two men, they would of course sit on either side of her. A man lunching or dining with two women would sit between two who are not related to him, but he would sit opposite his wife, in order that the other woman may sit next to them both. In a restaurant that has sofa seats the women always sit against the wall (or parti- tion) and the man, or men, sit on the chairs facing them. If a woman and two men are lunching or dining in an alcove (a table with benches), the woman takes her place first against the wall; the man who is not related sits beside her and her husband or brother opposite. If this number is reversed, the two women sit next to the wall and the man sits beside her who is not related to him. The women follow the head waiter and the man follows them. If a man is giving a party of six or more, the women stand at the table until told by their host where to sit. If they are only four, and neither of them married, the women seat themselves facing each other without direction. Also, if Mary Lone and John Batchler dine with the Joneses, it is better that Mary and Mrs. Jones sit opposite, in spite of the tabu of seating a wife next to her husband, in THIS WEEK Good Taste Today Are you ever in doubt about the correct thing to do when you dine in a restaurant? Here the world’s foremost authority on manners gives you a safe guide by EMILY POST Author of “Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage,” *“ The Personality of a House,” Etc. order to let Mary sit next to Batchler instead « of between the Joneses. When the Joneses and the Gaylings dine together, husbands and wives sit opposite each other exactly as they do at a table for six or ten. (At a table of eight or other multiples of fours, a man sits opposite Mr. Jones with Mrs. Jones at his right.) In all first-class restaurants each dish is presented to the host or hostess, as soon as it arrives from the kitchen. The host is not expected to help himself, but merely to approve of its preparation. He nods ‘‘yes,” meaning that it is all right, and the waiter then serves it, or passes it to the guests. When invitations are given beforehand to a lunch party or to a dinner in a restaurant, the host or hostess should order the meal in ad- vance, and the guests eat what is put before them exactly as at a dinner in some one's house. But when the dinner has been made up at the spur of the moment, or when one woman lunches with another or dines with a man, and the meal has not been ordered, and the host or hostess asks what the guests would like, it is better frankly to name a dish or two than answer: ‘‘Oh, anything.”” That means nothing whatever, and leaves the host help- lessly staring at an @ la carte menu. In an a la carte restaurant, the check — meaning a list of what you have ordered with the price of each item and the total of the bill —-is brought to you by the waiter who serves you. In first-class restaurants it is always turned face down on a small silver tray. You turn it over and pay the waiter. He then brings your change, and you give him a tip. The conventional ten per cent of a res- taurant bill was correct in the days when people ordered an excessive amount of f ood. But today, when most people go to the other extreme and ‘‘diets’’ are in the height of fashion, ten per cent. of your bill must be qualified as “‘ten per cent” if ABOVE THE MINIMUM tip for the class of restaurant vou are in, and for the class of person you appear to be. That is, if you patronize restaurants of greatest luxury and wear obviously expensive clothes and valuable jewels, or if you are critical and difficult to please, greater “‘com- pensation”’ would be expected than if your appearance were simpler and your manners more kind. In New York, at an ultra smart restaurant of greatest luxury if you lunch alone, the smallest tip you can give is thirty-five cents for a bill of two dollars or less; forty-five cents for bill of about three dollars; fifty cents on a total of four dollars and ten per cent above this. For two persons, add about fifteen cents to each of these sums. A lunch or dinner party tip would be a minimum of twenty-five cents a person and ten per cent above this base. In an average first-class restaurant a reasonably accurate rule is a minimum tip of twenty-five cents, whether for one person or two, for a bill that totals less than two dollars ; thirty-five cents up to three dollars; forty cents from over three dollars to four dollars; and a minimum of twenty cents a person for a lunch or dinner party. If you are having a party of ten or twelve or more, ten per cent would be quite enough divided between the waiters who serve vou, if the bill comes to two dollars a person or more. Otherwise you would give two dollars, or two dollarsand a half, and perhaps as much again to the head waiter if he has taken particular pains to have the service efficient September 29, 1935 Hlustration by E. L. Dahlberg The head waiter will show vou where to sit and pull out the choice seat for the lady or if he made you an especial per person price. On the other hand. if he does nothing for vou. you give him nothing. Every one has at some time or other been subjected to the awkward moment when the waiter presents the check to the host. For a host to count up the items is to suggest parsimony, while not to look at them is dis- concertingly reckless, and to pay before their faces for what his guests have eaten is em- barrassing. Having the check presented to a hostess, when a man or men are among her guests, is more unpleasant. Therefore, to avoid this whole transaction, a hostess who has not a charge account should either order the meal ahead, and at the same time pay for it in advance, including the waiter’s tip, or else she should make arrange- ments to have the check presented to her elsewhere than at table. If she invites people on the spur of the moment so that she can make no pre-arrange- ments, she goes up to the head waiter and tells him: “I am Mrs. John Jones (or Miss Mary Jones), my address is sixteen Park Lane. Please notice when we leave the table, and bring the bill to me in the ladies’ dressing room." When one woman, passing another seated at a table in a restaurant, stops and shakes hands, the one who is seated does not rise, unless she is very young and the one passing is quite old. All the men at the table, of course, rise and stand until the visiting woman has departed, whether she is known to them or not. This detail of behavior is one that every woman should take seriously, since every man who is a gentleman MUST stand as long as she stands, no matter how incon- venient it may seem to be. Copyright, 1935, by Emily Post L