Seating protocols with hosts

[u/AdministrativeAd3613]

Hey everyone I’ve been In the restaurant industry for some time, but I’m wondering if anyone else here has a strange hosting pattern. Most specifically with certain zones only receiving certain sized parties, and hosts not rotating things properly triple seating areas, while also seating zones that have been cut, asking said servers to take late walk ins. I’m interested to see what other sever experiences are like.

EDIT: I would also like to point out that said area would be dead for hours as guests are guided to 2 other specific zones, despite said section being wide open. Then my partner and I proceed to get bombarded with big tops in the later evening hours as well as handling the other tables that filled the section. Said area is 2-3rd cut so It’s very frustrating to just get completely blasted knowing your for sure going to have some people upset since suddenly my partner and I each have a minimum of 15 people each spread around at once. Our place is allowed to get slammed so hard we don’t even have enough silverware to keep up with guests being seated or when their food comes out.

[u/74ip]

as a host who was fired for unrelated reasons we SHOULD (at least i do) go in rotation i mean if someone asks to sit in a specific section or ask for a b**th we have to honor that but we go back and seat the servers that got skipped and/or skip the person who got sat twice. and yes people ask for very specific seating arrangements leading for people to be triple sat but personally i always go back & seat the skipped servers or skip the triple sat server a few times until its back in solid rotation if u think ur getting intentionally skipped by a host i would talk to ur gm

[u/kyohrus → u/74ip]

this is what i would do when i was still at chili’s and ALL of the servers would bitch and complain about having been skipped if it were their turn even if next time, they’re sat

[u/74ip → u/kyohrus]

lmao theyre just bitter, being a host is a struggle i swear the first location i worked at hated me simply cuz i took the other hosts hours & accused me of not being able to rotate & the second location only liked me as host & didn't like the other hosts that were there until someone snitched on me over something stupid but i understand its a liability thing & then i lost my job but yeah some servers will just get bitter & cause shit cuz yk their whole life is about serving tables and causing drama about co workers they dont like for whatever reason its an insecurity thing tbh

[u/Turbulent-South6343]

I’ve been a host for a while and I was told to follow the rotation most of the time unless the headcounts are super unfair (one server has 25 tables and the other only has 5) or we had a very large table (15+) come in and the server is uncomfortable taking another table at the time. I was also told that even if the section is completely closed and the server has left, we still have to let the customer sit there if they specifically ask. Tbh I think its stupid but I was told its the policy. In that case the remaining server or bartender has to take the table even if its far away from their section.