In the Seinfeld episode The Andrea Doria (season 8, episode 10), George’s father and mother are eating with him in a booth at the coffee shop. Estelle feels a draft and wants to move to a table; Frank says he will not move because they have a booth and “I didn’t take the subway all the way to Manhattan to sit at a table like that”.
And he’s right – people love a booth. What is that? I was in an Asda restaurant the other day and I sat at a booth. I don’t know why I sat there, I just did. There were four seats and only one of me, but there were also plenty of other tables and no two seater setups. So I took a booth. The last booth, incidentally.
A family enters. There are three of them. They hover around me, looking longingly at my booth. There are plenty of tables that will accommodate them, but clearly they feel that I should move and let them have the booth. I took so long drinking my coffee, it went cold – but it was worth it.
What exactly is so great about a booth anyway? You can’t move the tables, so if you’re tall and the seats are too close you’re screwed. If there’s gum underneath, you can’t just switch with a chair from another table, you have to move the whole operation to another location. And it’s a fixed number of table dwellers. A four seater booth only seats up to four people; a small table only needs one or two extra chairs to fit extra people.
Let me tell you – the booth is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Yet, they are universally loved. And until I solve this mystery, I will continue to sit alone at four seater booths, where possible, just to annoy other customers. And smirk.
Issues? Not me, sunshine.
Psych Babbler
October 5, 2011
Haven’t watched the Seinfeld episode mentioned but I know what you mean about some people and their fixation with booths! I don’t get it either (being a shorty who prefer a table and chair so I can actually pull myself closer to the table). But what gets me sometimes is people expecting you to move…aren’t you paying for the priviledge of sitting there just the same way they are???
kirbyakasid
October 5, 2011
Exactly! I wouldn’t mind if there were no other four seat tables, but there were. They just wanted the booth.
kirbyakasid
October 11, 2011
In the same coffee shop again: two mums, two big pushchairs, they still insist on a booth. Now no one can get around those prams. Idiots.