No - at a rural roadtripper motel, the breakfast area would likely be clean and well-tended to by a staff member. @:-)

I won't claim to have the most experiences with Fairfield Inn (or Hampton, or HIX, or Motel 6 or 8, etc.), but when I have *good* experiences they're often the most rural locations. When I've had a bad experience, it's usually been some sort of suburban location.

I tend to bus my own table at RI or any brand with a similar setup, simply to let the table be available more quickly for the next guest. But I also agree that the hotel is responsible for keeping the place clean. People keep bringing up Burger King: even BK has someone wiping down tables, emptying trash, and keeping the place tidy.

It seems like a *lot* of NYC hotels have the issue of too-few lifts for the number of floors/rooms in the building. I'm not sure why, but I wonder if it's because many of the buildings were originally apartments that didn't have quite the same traffic patterns as a hotel, or were less-dense in terms of total guests in the building. (I'm thinking these 1920s-1940s buildings that have been turned into midscale hotels; not so much the biggest hotels in the city.)

Or maybe former generations were more willing to take the stairs?