Ever Seen A 'Table Buzzard'? And How Do You Handle Them?

[JerseyDad]

A well-timed soda-spill comes in handy, too...

-Rob

......as does a shot to the 'jimmies'.

 

[Communicore]

This always happens at the Mexico joint and Katsura, so we just eat slower.

 

[Megalodumb]

Would this be "Buse de la Table" at BOG? .

^Catchy.

 

[Prince-1]

Well its an animal name, just not necessarily "cute".....

View attachment 40104

Eeyore??

 

[Prince-1]

We played Balderdash (a board game involving definitions for obscure-but-real English words) the other night and I learned a word that might suffice for such people -- it's not an animal name but it is memorable: it means an idiot, or a person lacking in manners or breeding. The word is clinchpoop! There ought to be an entire forum devoted to Disney World clinchpoops.

I thought clinchpoop is what you do when you have to use the bathroom but there is not one close by.

 

[EvilQueen-T]

I am the evil queen...no one would dare circle for fear of finding their apple slices with an added touch of something special. We've been lucky and haven't noticed but disney seems to be doing a little better with this at least at the bigger places like pecos bills and cosmic rays during busy times helping get seating and having people wait until they have their food rather than lots of people sitting at tables without food while those with food are left without seats.

 

[BuddyThomas]

I would never be a so called table buzzard, but that said, let's flip this upside down for a moment.

Picture this. You just dropped seventy bucks or so for your family of four to have a fast food meal of dubious quality, only to head to the dining area to find not a single table available. What do you do? No, really, what do you do, because I have no idea. Just stand there in the middle of the dining room? Circle around while your mystery meat burgers and greasy fries get cold? I don't know. I'm just asking. The meal is paid for and there is no where for you to eat it? What then?

 

[Bairstow]

I would never be a so called table buzzard, but that said, let's flip this upside down for a moment.

Picture this. You just dropped seventy bucks or so for your family of four to have a fast food meal of dubious quality, only to head to the dining area to find not a single table available. What do you do? No, really, what do you do, because I have no idea. Just stand there in the middle of the dining room? Circle around while your mystery meat burgers and greasy fries get cold? I don't know. I'm just asking. The meal is paid for and there is no where for you to eat it? What then?

Especially when you've spent the entire rest of the day standing in line, waiting for other people to have their turn.
How is this any different?

I don't hear people complaining about ride vehicle vultures.

 

[JohnD]

I would never be a so called table buzzard, but that said, let's flip this upside down for a moment.

Picture this. You just dropped seventy bucks or so for your family of four to have a fast food meal of dubious quality, only to head to the dining area to find not a single table available. What do you do? No, really, what do you do, because I have no idea. Just stand there in the middle of the dining room? Circle around while your mystery meat burgers and greasy fries get cold? I don't know. I'm just asking. The meal is paid for and there is no where for you to eat it? What then?

Claim a table for the family first. Have someone from your party sit there while you get food and have others assist you to bring food to the table. Of course, that still makes you a buzzard in finding a table before you buy the meals.

 

[Tuvalu]

Claim a table for the family first. Have someone from your party sit there while you get food and have others assist you to bring food to the table. Of course, that still makes you a buzzard in finding a table before you buy the meals.

During peak periods at the MK, cast members will not allow anyone into the seating areas of Pecos Bills or Cosmic Ray's unless you have food.

 

[JohnD]

During peak periods at the MK, cast members will not allow anyone into the seating areas of Pecos Bills or Cosmic Ray's unless you have food.

If you want to "sit a spell", I get it, but you might get by if the person waiting at the table points to the others in their party standing in line for food.

 

[rt06]

It's no different than stalking someone for a parking spot. Unless that's frowned upon here like everything else in this forum.

 

[britlightyear]

I think the problem people have is not with families waiting for tables, it's the approach some of them take. If you are standing by clearly waiting for a table then we will wave you over when we leave. If you put your crotch 3 inches from my face or steal my child's seat when he gets up to get napkins then there will be a problem.

 

[Rob562]

Claim a table for the family first. Have someone from your party sit there while you get food and have others assist you to bring food to the table. Of course, that still makes you a buzzard in finding a table before you buy the meals.

I'll start with an apology for taking this slightly away from the original topic...

While this isn't being a Table Buzzard like the main topic of this thread is about, the problem with people saving tables is that it's a self-perpetuating problem that could eventually create the table gridlock mentioned by the poster holding food but without a table.

When large restaurants like Cosmic Rays are designed, the number of tables and seats is carefully calculated. They take into account the number of cash registers, how fast food takes to prepare and how fast people eat.

Just like an attraction has a general dispatch rate which can be used to calculate the theoretical riders per hour, a counter serving food can "dispatch" Guests from the counter with their tray full of food at a fairly constant rate. Those Guests will grab napkins, utensils, condiments and then find an empty table. They'll sit down and eat. Not everyone eats at the same rate, but the designers can come up with an average length of time that someone will spend sitting at that table. The person will then get up, (hopefully) throw their trash away and leave, opening up their table to be used by someone else.

So with a constant stream of people walking away from the counter, eating and leaving, the designer simply has to figure out the number of tables that are required to serve that stream of people with a bit of a buffer thrown in.

But then you throw a wrench in those calculated works when people start to save tables. Now, you effectively are diminishing the seating capacity of the restaurant by taking a table out of the inventory of tables that can be used for actively-eating guests. Yes, some people might just need to sit down in a cool, air-conditioned location to rest. And some might thing "Oh, well saving this one table won't hurt things". The problem is that you throw the human psyche into the mix because then you get people who see a busy restaurant, see people saving tables, and come to the conclusion that *they* should save a table so that they have one when they get through the line. Then *more* people think there's a need to save a table... The problem then snowballs out to the point where if you extend the scenario out to it's (admittedly unlikely) endpoint, you have table gridlock where every table is being saved and no one leaving the counter right at that moment has a place to sit.

If *noone* saved a table, there'd be no need to save one in the first place.

This is why you see places like Pecos Bills and Cosmic Rays employ the traffic flow on the busiest days where they only allow people with food to go into the seating area. They keep people from saving tables, and thus they keep tables for use by active diners and tables turn over fast enough so that people walking in with food have a place to sit.

Whew... Now that that's off my chest, I'll return you to your regular scheduled Table Buzzard discussion.

-Rob

 

[George]

So you're sitting at Epcot's Electric Umbrella, or MK's Tortuga Tavern enjoying a casual afternoon lunch. The place is packed. You are very fortunate to have a place to sit & enjoy your meal.

Lucky so and so. I can't believe you were lucky enough to be at MK one of the 5 days a year you can get delicious faux Mexican food at Tortuga Tavern. :lookaroun

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Oh oh funny! And yes I have, feel like saying shoo shoo! Go away, shoo shoo!

Similarly we were the table vultures at the Contemporary, Dinner at Chef Mickey's. My kids were older already so when we all got up to get a second round of food, our main course plate which takes a bit with meat carving, the table crows (bus staff) had cleared our table, removed our beverages (oy, my wine and DH beer). Followed up by the scavenger (hostess) seated another family at our table.

We returned to our table with full plates and were like new born chicks looking for their Momma (our table/server.) And there we stood hoovering around helplessly being squished by other guests trying to get on with their own food gorging and staff trying to pass us while we are squished up against the heads of fellow food peckers.

We head over to the head scavenger chick (hostess) and explain our perch has been removed from under our wings. And chicky says we thought you had finished. This Big Bird gets annoyed while were still hanging onto the grubs and they tell us we will have to wait until the scavenger can find us another roost as they are booked solid. Big Bird is no longer yellow and as red as a cardinal now. When head chick finds us a table, she says we are free to take our grub with us. We left it with her to peck at.

Then we wait and wait for a new hen (server) to once again take our drink orders and welcome our brood to Mickey's coop. We recap our dining experience and she flies the coop. Enter the Head Duck (manager) who wants us to recap our fraying feathered tale.

Yep never been back. We firmly press our feathers on our perch and don't get up and order our grubs from a menu.

The pure stupidity of this amazes me. They thought you were done and left without paying the bill???

 

[Mrs.Toad]

I can tell you where I have experienced this…

Pecos Bill
Columbia - first floor
Tomorrowland Terrace back in the day
Casey's
Cosmic Ray's

Surely there are more. Also, I love the people that swoop in like MacGyver in the race to procure condiments at the stations especially at Pecos and Columbia. A few times I thought I needed hockey gear for safety. I have seen people do practically the FBI roll with burger and fries spilling over trays to steal a table from people who were first. Whatever...

I have seen for example, 10 million ketchup packets out at a stand, and more hands than I count from behind, grasp packets in front of me, (I was next in line.) There was no chance of them running low.

I can't go there. I am in WDW to relax.

 

[Wall-e]

Hate this.....to me Cosmic Rays is place where this happens most....only thing worse are people who swoop in right before parade and try to squeeze you out....don't have a cute animal name for them

I read a few boards about the "save your seat before you have food versus wait til after" debate before our trip in August and now reading this board reminds me of an incident at Cosmis Rays.

I'm on the side that says wait til you have food before you sit, so here I am holding our 1 yr old son as my wife approaches with our food, I spy a table and amble thru the maze of tables with son and diaper bag in hand, careful not to hit any fellow diners. Out of the corner of my eye I see this mongoloid man racing thru the maze to beat me to the table and sure enough we reach the table at the same time and like a child he sits down to claim his spot. I explain my wife is right here with our food and its only right and polite to allow us the seat and made sure to mention to the oaf that he practically stole it out from under me and, in a more PG way of saying it, he told me tough cookies and turned away. I wanted to go off on him but thought better of it, turned around to my wife and explained the actions of this wonderful Neanderthal.

The greatest part of the story came when the people right next to this table saw what he did and cut their meal short to give us their table. Thankfully the human spirit is alive and well in some.

 

[WDW 3]

During peak periods at the MK, cast members will not allow anyone into the seating areas of Pecos Bills or Cosmic Ray's unless you have food.

I'm so glad we don't go during the peak season. I personally would prefer if they let families sit and wait instead of 5, 6 or 7 all in line individually placing their orders and having not decided during the 5 minute wait until they are asked by the poor CM. Round everyone up, make them decide and one person order. Please.

 

[Monkee Girl]

I hate to sound spoiled, but my family does sitdown dinners so I am never hungry for lunch. Therefore, I don't see the lunch rush. Also, if I DO eat lunch, I eat at off times. Should I have a light breakfast or no breakfast at all, I am ready for lunch at 11 so the crowds are minimal.

However, I was a table buzzard one time. And it was embarrassing. Not my choice, believe me. But it wasn't at Disney, it was at Sea World. Due to some unexpected circumstances, we gained a day in Florida and instead of buying another day at Disney, we opted to go to Sea World. Well, we had no dining plan, no reservations for lunch no nothing so we got to experience the buzzard experience first hand. First, I would have chose to eat at 11 but my cousin wasn't hungry so waited to 12pm. Yea... So of course, the little quick service place we found had a very small amount of tables so not enough to accommodate the lunch crowd. We couldn't find ANYWHERE to sit. While walking around with our trays a few minutes, we ran into a really nice CM...er...employee? and he found a nice empty table to clean. He cleaned it and waved us over. We were so appreciative of this guy because he didn't have to do that. We went to sit down and BOOM another family just slid past us and took our seats! I mean, I was half bent down to sit in the chair! The employee even tried to say something to the family but they weren't having it. We told the worker, thank you, but we will find something eventually.

It finally came down to us having to wait under the tents and wait for someone to finish their lunch. I don't think we were being rude, we hung out waiting but it just seemed like everyone at the tables knew we were waiting for tables and so took their jolly good time to sit there. Even when they were done eating. It was ridiculous. It's like "table rage!" I mean...we're not trying to steal your first born. It would just be nice to not have to eat standing up! lol

Finally a family saw us waiting patiently and told us we could have their seat when they were done (which was only going to be a few minutes). They were so nice we actually stood and talked to them a few minutes. I mean, we had no where else to go, lol

After that my cousin pretty much swore off haveing QS ever again, lol I still eat QS but I eat at 11. No problems then.