A good friend of mine is a longtime waiter and, in my opinion, an expert in the field. He's worked at very high class restaurants and at TGIFridays. He has worked as a head waiter and has trained waiters in many of those restaurants. He has always told me that it's a matter of reading your customers, just as you would if you were any other type of salesperson. First impressions are paramount. The type of service he gives is always dependent on the response he gets to his greeting. Some people love it when the waiter sits next to them at a table or squats down to make eye contact with them, others (like some of the repondants here) hate it. A good waiter can identify one from the other immediately, and adjust his "routine" accordingly. But he also knows that the #1 thing peope want is fast, efficient, service. Everything else is simply window dressing. BTW - to go slightly off topic - when upselling, a good waiter will nod his head slightly when offering you an upsell. There's even a name for the move, but I can't remember it at the moment. It's a very subtle move, and I've seen it work with my own eyes countless times.