My story about the one time I dined and dashed. I actually forgot to pay
I stared at the bottom of my foam-stained coffee cup; silently mourning the loss of the soothing warmth the caffeinated beverage had so briefly offered me. Maybe just one more for the road, my conscience murmured enticingly. You’ve earned it. In reality, my sluggish mind was trying to find a reason to justify putting off the long walk back home, at least for a little while…
I abruptly cut my reverie short – another intern was expecting me on the other side of town before long and I was already running late. I refused to use being in Barcelona, Spain, where it is customary for people to be a few minutes behind schedule, as an excuse to dawdle any longer than I already had.
With a sigh, I pushed myself away from the wooden table and started to stand. My back was stiff from hours spent hunched over a professor’s lengthy comments on a friend’s dissertation – the dissertation itself, a whopping three hundred and thirty page treatise decorated with sticky notes and multicolored highlighter markings, had been dumped in a disorderly heap in the middle of the local bistro’s table. A few crumbs and two badly crumpled napkins were all that remained of the shared early-bird breakfast.
Reaching left and right for my scattered items, I quickly filled my Ivan Rolltop Chrome backpack (A green monster of a bag that happens to be a pain for both me and pickpockets to contend with). With everything seemingly in order, I gave my friend a hug and two besitos before preparing to take my leave of the homey, washed-brick establishment.
The second I placed my hand on the little restaurant’s gilded door-handle, a guilty thought struck me like a bolt of lightning – I hadn’t paid. The bistro hadn’t seen a single euro from me in return for my well-prepared meal. I then had a second thought, and this second thought was enough to cause my face to contort into a particularly hideous grimace – my friend could have been pinned with my bill.
Despite me sheepishly scurrying back to the counter to right my near-wrong (and to apologize to my friend), my amiga generously paid for my breakfast and café con leche that morning, explaining that it was the least she could do for me since I was helping her edit her dissertation.
In my (admittedly short) 21 years of life, I have never dined and dashed, but that day I unintentionally came dangerously close to it. I believe this phenomenon can be attributed to the comparative “attentiveness” of waiters. For example, I find that it is very difficult to enjoy a meal without being interrupted by a waiter every five minutes or so back home in the States. They always seem to time their visits to my table based on when I have food in my mouth, too!
On the other hand, dining in Spain (and most Spanish-speaking countries, it seems) is made an entirely different experience by the fact that waiters expect their customers to take a long time to enjoy their meals. After all, eating here is much more a social experience, a leisurely activity, than anything else. Typically, one eats at a slow pace while conversing with at least one other companion for an extended period of time.
Come lunchtime in Spain (between 1-4 pm) during the week, each and every café patio is overflowing with employed men and women chattering over cortados and or “menú del día” dishes. They have at least an hour to kill before going back to the grind; they are not in any rush, so why should their waiters be?
This very aspect – that waiters do not rush their clients through the dining process – happens to be the very best part of the symbiotic relationship between customers and Spanish waiters, however. There is no urgency whatsoever; the “we-need-to- kick-people-out-in-rapid-succession-upon-paying-in order-to-make room-for-new-consumers” practice does not exist.
I believe this phenomenon can be attributed to salary allocation differences. Waiters in Spain have a higher set income rate compared to American waiters, who are forced to rely on tips since their set rates are usually much lower. In order to make larger tips, therefore, American waiters will exhibit more friendly, attentive demeanors. Interestingly enough, Americans edge Spaniards out by a few thousand dollars when their annual restaurant industry salaries are juxtaposed.
Conversely, as Spanish waiters tend to be less over-the-top-friendly and “available”, it is much more difficult for customers to pay, and this makes it nearly impossible (in my experience) to leave an establishment in a timely fashion. Furthermore, after trying to catch a waiter’s eye for a half hour in Barcelona, one tends to A) give up; B) buy into the novelty of being left alone; and C) forget that he or she has to remind the waiter that he or she needs to pay instead of the other way around.
You are lulled into a state of contentedness (because the absence of waiters is so unusual and shockingly refreshing), so of course you forget what you are doing at that cute bistro and that you had 4 cups of coffee and a chocolate croissant two hours ago. Needless to say, I am convinced that Spanish waiters deliberately avoid making eye contact with their “wined and dined” customers.
