Originally Posted by
KoKoBuddy
Restaurants want customers out of there as soon as possible to make room for the next one. Sitting at a table for 20 minutes, taking up space while not ordering is just bad for business. I blame restaurant managers more than waiters for this.
Not true in huge swaths of Europe where I think they'd let you sit there until they close up for the evening.
When we dine in Europeans with locals they seem to be able to get the check through some secret signal that we haven't figured out.
The most amazing thing to us are the places where once they've served your last course its like you no longer exist - impossible to even make eye contact to let them know you need something. One could scream, I guess. Waving one's arms around won't work since you "don't exist".