Too fat to fit in a booth

True story.

A couple of weeks ago I watched a host bring to customers into my section. My section only had booths, and there were no nearby tables open. As I watch the guests walk in, it becomes abundantly clear to me that there is NO WAY that the woman will fit into one of our booths. In fact, I don't think the booth has been invented that will take this woman. It comes as no surprise that our host would try to seat a person of this girth into a booth. Our guests regularly harass our hosts about being seated at tables when there are booths open. They reflexively are conditioned to seat booths at all costs to save being harassed. This is multiplied by the fact that this host isn't one of our brighter host specimens, and the host is also fairly new to the job.

When they arrived at the final destination in my section, the host put the menus down, and the hilarity ensued. The conversation went something like this:

"Here's your booth, Lobster Boy will be your waiter."
"This won't work. We can't sit here."
"Ma'am, this is the only open booth I have."
The lady tries to wedge herself into the booth. I begin dialing for the fire dept. to bring the jaws of life. I hear the table emit a audible creak (they are attached to the wall). The lady wiggles herself around, the table clearly digging into her gut, and her breasts rested on the table as well.
"Oh, this will do I guess. Roger, sit down."
Her husband is standing still, staring at her heaped upon the table.
"Darling, would you rather have a table?"
The stare of death, followed by the "whisper-yell."
"NO! Sit down!"

By now she's sweating. The effort of walking to the table, combined with wriggling herself into the booth has caused the need for her to start fanning herself. The AC is on. Her husband shakes his head slightly, sighs, and sits down.

She orders a Diet Coke, and proceeds to eat at least a dozen pieces of our bread. 12 of those is probably enough calories to meet most people's daily requirement. She asks for a bib when her food comes (we do provide them with Lobster and Crab, but she had neither). When I see her leave, I see her light up. She must have a death wish.

In another Red Lobster I worked at, we had special chairs for the enormous people who came into our restaurant. 95% of our chairs had a wrap around back that would come part-way around a person when they were sitting. We had a select few that had fewer uprights and had reinforcements on the remaining ones.

I'm a big guy, I played football in college and I come from a big family, but we're nothing like some of these people. It is hard to comprehend how much a person must have to eat to maintain the size that some of these people are. It's really quite sad that those around them don't intervene and speak some truth into their lives.

Related Tags: Red Lobster, Darden, GMRI, Restaurant, Seafood, Seafood Restaurant, Server, Waiter, Waitress, Service Industry, Food Service, Customer Service, Overweight, Obese, Fat, Women, Host, Customer, Weight Loss, Red Lobster Biscuit