Station Seven
The Line to Take Away
Station Seven The Line to Things to Take Away
The Program
When it’s time, sing the company song. When it is time, dance. Let the host pay (and tip) where required.
After-dinner Entertainment
The event host or hostess is to be able to decide after-dinner entertainment appropriate for the event. It can be cards. It may be a movie. It could be a conversation.
Station Seven -- The Line to Ways to Pay
The Line to Payment is to be visited only by the host. The event host is to be allowed to take care of the cost of the event: the meal, the tip, and the entertainment.
The method in which a bill is to be paid can be prearranged. The tip is to be minimum 15% - 20 % of the total bill minus tax. An increased tip can be provided for exceptional service. Treat your server as a valued employee – tip this person accordingly.
Establish an account with your club or favorite restaurant.
Give the Maitre d your card and instructions. Sign your bill as discreetly as you leave.
After arriving, pass the card to your server and have the bill delivered to you.
Signal the server and have your card ready when the bill arrives.
Decline any offer to pay. Their gift is being your guest or the guest of your company.
Let the host pick up the tab, the one who invites pays.
Station Seven – Things to Take a Way
The event host or hostess is to be able to decide how take-a-ways are to be handled. In a private home, the hostess may say
1. "Please take some of this with you." The serving dish containing the leftover is to be returned to the area in which it was prepared. Each person is to be given a filled plate that he or she may keep forever.
2. In a commercial dining room, the host or hostess can request that each person be allowed to take an unfinished portion of a meal home. This action may be requested quietly and discreetly. It could be accomplished in the same fashion. The "Go" plate or container is to be filled in the area in which the dish was prepared and placed, in a bag, to the left of the person who requested it. It can be set aside so that it may be picked up on the line to good-bye.
The go plate or container could be brought into the dining room and filled in the Russian service style: with the fork and spoon in one hand.
3. It might be filled Family style: with each person being asked to fill his or her own go plate. Both of these methods are observations more than recommendations.
4. A “To go” bag is to go with a requested “to go” container: it is a nice touch: a paper bag is a neat option.
In business and at a banquet, the line to the leftovers is usually omitted. Food is to be eaten or not in place. In business, avoid asking for or accepting invitations to take food home.
5. The take-way can be a party favor, a memento to take home: a menu card (have it signed,) a photograph, a small present, or newly acquired information: sales pitch – training – contacts.
Station Eight
The Line to Goodbye
Station Eight – The Line to Goodbye
The line to "Goodbye" leads to acknowledgment. It is to be used by each guest to say good-bye to the host and hostess. A guest can say, "Thank you for inviting me," or "Thank you for a wonderful evening." Make it so that your host or hostess is able to say, “I am so glad you came.” Avoid having to hear one say, “I am so very glad you came.” It is not the same thing. “Very” here is said only sarcastically. In a commercial dining room, you can say thank you to the staff.
The line to goodbye can be started by any person who has just received his or her glass of grapefruit juice, prune juice, or water. Each is a universal item served to indicate, "It is time to go now." Know a good time to leave when you drink one. The event is over
1. Right after the "Grapefruit juice, Prune juice, and Water
course."
2. It is over, whenever the host or hostess gives a signal that says so. In a private home, the host or hostess may yawn.
3. An event with entertainment is over whenever the orchestra or Disc Jockey plays any musical selection that contains the words, "Good night sweetheart," or “It is time to go."
Leave a maximum of forty-five minutes after the time stated on the invitation or forty-five minutes after dessert. Allow a maximum of four hours to any night event. For most, three hours will do.
6. Remember to take all of your belongings with you, including your party favor. Get the Menu Card signed. On a business card list of the names of people you have met and to who are owed a note saying, “Thank you.”
O.K. now is the time to enjoy that signature candy that was placed in that dish or added to your place setting. Breathe and revel in your new beginnings. “Education and sophistication are the air in which you rise.” The pump is a dinner table. You knew your ascension had begun when someone said to you more than once, “Let’s do lunch.” And now here you are at dinner.
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