Good comments from wait staff

[Mano]

After years of the perfunctory, "How is everything?" a waiter asked, "Is everything prepared to your satisfaction?" For some reason I really liked that, maybe because he appeared sincere and looked at all the people at the table. It took no more than 15 seconds.

Any others?

[liuzhou]

"Dinner is on the house" usually goes down well.

[CalumC]

After years of the perfunctory, "How is everything?" a waiter asked, "Is everything prepared to your satisfaction?" For some reason I really liked that, maybe because he appeared sincere and looked at all the people at the table. It took no more than 15 seconds.

Any others?

When i'm serving, I usually go with what i'd like someone to say to me, the above would just annoy me. It almost sounds sarcastic, though i'm sure tone has a big effect on it. Personally I don't mind "is everything OK?" but I know that some people feel as if OK shouldn't be what we want, rather great or excellent.

[threestars]

Any sincere question or comment will do. I can't remember the last time I heard such from a waiter or staff. Hoping I'd stumble upon soon.

[Broken English]

A decent sense of humour goes a long way. Taking an interest is a good thing too, especially when dining alone. A waiter in Chicago took the liberty of realising I was visiting without me telling him, then took out his iphone and showed me via map a few places I should have a look at while in town. He was well rewarded with his tip.

[Mjx]

A decent sense of humour goes a long way. . . .

Definitely. I was thinking about this on a recent flight, when the plane hit some impressive turbulence as the beverage service got under way: The person sitting on the aisle in my row was clutching the seat rests, and generally looking tense, when the flight attendant looked at him, smiled, and said 'Hi! May I spill hot beverage for you?'. The passenger laughed, and relaxed visibly. If this had been a tipping situation, I think he'd have tipped well for that alone (this seems sort of relevant, since the the flight attendant was functioning as a server at that moment).

[Gregg]

Once heard, "better'n road kill, ain't it?". Probably not appropriate in every situation, but it cracked us up.