Lesson in Lone Dining

We have a lot of lone diners. We always wanted the restaurant to be welcoming to all group sizes, but it took some constructive criticism from a regular guest to understand how to make it a great destination for those dining alone.

At first we thought that lone diners would feel more comfortable if they sat at the rear of the restaurant. We had one regular guest who often came in as part of a group, but sometimes dined alone too. On one such occasion we sat him at table 42 at the back of the room and at the end of the meal he wrote a really long note on the back of the bill, saying how wonderful the food was but that he was really upset that as a lone diner he was sat down the back. He also felt that our staff didn’t engage with him enough. We were devastated, and he didn’t come back for six months.