Re: conversations from nearby tables:
I've been to some restaurants where the tables are extremely close together. Several years ago a friend took me to an expensive restaurant for my birthday. The food was good, but not great, but the real problem was the noise level in the restaurant. We were packed in like the proverbial sardines! There were four people at the table next to us, in animated conversation, and I truly felt like I was sitting in someone's lap. I know this is a highly rated--and did I mention expensive?--restaurant, but it ruined it for me. I would have preferred to have gone out for burritos and an actual conversation.
John G, do you hear many complaints about this?
Noise is probably the largest complaint that diners have about restaurants, and yet the restaurateurs claim that the noise creates an energy that is desirable and highly valued. If a place is too quiet, people are afraid to talk or won't stay, so they say. It has long been a problem. The San Francisco Chronicle restaurant reviewers take a noise reader with them and record just how noisy places were and include the number with their review. Someone complained about a high reader, so the critics went back (anonymously) and reported even higher noise levels than before.
I, too, agree with you about the sardine atmosphere, especially at restaurants with a long banquette and tables sort of scrunched together. The table has to be removed for someone to sit on the banquette, which always makes people feel fat, regardless of what size they are. Then, you feel as if you're in somebody's lap, as you put it, because of the conversations going on. At a seafood place in town, very expensive and quite wonderful, my friend and I had to listen to the woman at the table next to us complain about every last detail. She was furious because she swore the waitress didn't tell her about a special that I had ordered that, of course, was better than what she got (the waitress had). Then she tore apart every last aspect of the restaurant before turning on her husband. I had no clue who she was, but I hated the fact that her bitterness, caused by something beyond the purview of the restaurant (like a headache or a cheating spouse or something) affected my meal.
