Reappearance of a large group of (younger) (Iranian) customers.

A few times at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, there’s been a huge group of (younger) (like 30s-ish) (Iranian) customers who come in, including one time when they came in in a group of 10-12 on a busy night and expected to be seated right away and were getting upset because we weren’t clearing and assembling some tables fast enough, and we had to tell them that it helps if they call ahead so we can prepare for a table that big.

(Again, people would never do that sort of thing with a [non-Asian] restaurant, but with a[n Asian] restaurant, it’s like anything goes.)

So, like a few months after that, we get a call from them, and they say that like 14 or so of them are coming in in like 20 minutes.

(Better than nothing.)

It was fine, but one (slim) (beautiful) (female) from them looked very prim and mannered and a bit emotionally fragile, and you could just tell she was very particular about everything, and before the meal had even started and anything had arrived and I was running around, she stopped me to request a napkin, and I pointed out that hers was rolled around her silverware, since it was sitting off to her left, unrolled.

And, like ten minutes later, silverware still unrolled, she requested more napkins again (?), which I then dutifully brought out, because okay.

(When we cleaned the table at the end of the night, those two napkins were still sitting there by where had she satten, unused except for a ring of water on one from where she had rested her water-glass upon it.)

Also, when you have a table that big, they can run you ragged where you bring something out and then someone needs something else and you bring that out and then someone has another request, etc., so, like I always do, I affirm each request, and then I ask loudly to the table at large, “Does anyone have anything else they need right now, while I’m making this trip?”.

And, this one (bespectacled) (bearded) (somewhat frog-faced) (Iranian) guy just kind of looked up at me, and he seemed confused by my asking that and also a little uncomfortable, like somehow it wasn’t appropriate for me to ask something like that of the larger table.

(That didn’t sit well with me, so I kind of avoided the table after that.)

Towards the end of their meal, too, someone wanted more rice, and when I asked them if they wanted a full bowl of it or a bit to finish their meal, they said full, but when I gave them the spiel that we charge for a full bowl but not a bit to finish their meal, they quickly corrected themselves, and they said that they wanted just a bit to finish their meal.

(Okay.)