We recently had dinner with friends at the Aviary, an excellent restaurant in Kinderhook, NY, when the husband beat me to the best seat at the table. In other words, my seat. Being a gracious person I didn’t protest, mostly because the second best seat wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t as good as his seat. But it sufficed.
What’s the definition of the best seat in the house? I realize it’s a matter of personal preference. One friend who suffers from agoraphobia requires sitting with her back to the madness as well as somewhere that will allow her to bolt for the exit in case of emergencies.
But as far as I and the other guy at our table were concerned – we bonded over our agreement on the subject, even if I continued to resent him slightly for grabbing the platinum seat first – it’s the one that faces the entrancing tumult of the establishment.
You want to see everybody and everything that’s happening. People watching is half the fun. Sitting with my back to the action constitutes a form of torture. He agreed wholeheartedly. By the way, he’s a lovely person. You’d have to look far and wide to find anyone more generous or public-spirited. He’s just got this one character flaw, though I prefer to think of it as a striking personality trait. Like bright blue eyes or an inclination toward risk-taking.
I’d go so far as to describe it as genetic. My father was the same way that I am. He always hogged the best seat and was unpleasant when he had to relinquish it to somebody else. I’m actually better – though I prefer to leave right and wrong, good and evil out of the discussion – than the guy we had dinner with. He confessed, without evident remorse, that at important business lunches and dinners with clients he, nonetheless, requires the primo seat. He’s a reformed New York real estate executive who these days devotes his time to philanthropy and the arts. He framed the issue, if not in so many words, as something resembling a biological imperative.
I’m marginally more flexible. I recently had dinner with a friend and relinquished the banquette to her. I suppose chivalry had something to do with it. Call me I’m old-fashioned but I’m willing to admit that it’s not a good look to commandeer the inside seat when you’re having dinner with a woman. Also, I didn’t want to make a scene.
But I didn’t have as good a time as if I’d gotten the seat that I wanted; I wouldn’t have had to worry about what was happening behind my back. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that my family doesn’t always countenance my boorishness. They seem engaged in a perennial, if losing, battle to make me a better person; one of their ploys is to shame me into giving up the best seat to another family member on occasion.
The wife of the gentleman we had dinner with at the Aviary admitted that she’d given up. The issue wasn’t worth an argument. It sounded like her husband’s pathology might have served as an irritant in their otherwise excellent marriage. Perhaps my family’s strategy is preferable, if misguided. They must think I’m not beyond redemption.
What I find inexplicable is that everybody isn’t always jockeying for the best seat. Forced to suffer a meal without a view reminds me of Margot, the little girl in Ray Bradbury’s haunting 1954 short story, “All Summer in a Day.” It takes place in a schoolroom on cloud-socked and rain drenched Venus where the sun shines for only one hour every seven years. As a malicious prank, her fellow students lock Margot in a closet and she misses that precious single hour of sunlight. That’s how I feel when I have to sit with my back to the show.
In my younger years I used to travel frequently with my cousin. It took a couple of weeks into one of our vacations abroad before it dawned on him that I always scored the best seat, no matter what restaurant or café in whatever country we were visiting. He made me let him have it on occasion but that was mostly to teach me a lesson. His heart just wasn’t in it.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that a willingness to submit to my foibles influences my choice of friends. But it’s a factor. My friend Aris always surrenders the best seat to me. I frankly don’t think he could care less. Then again, I don’t go out of my way to find out.
More curious is my brother Jamie. It would take an entire column, if not a hardbound compendium, to document aspects of the dining experience about which he’s fanatical and becomes scary if his needs aren’t met. For some reason, where he sits isn’t one of them. Perhaps he’s simply a better person than I am, more interested in conversation than the roar of the crowd. I contend there’s room for both – being an interesting, engaged conversationalist and a voyeur.
Jamie also suffers from youngest son syndrome. There’s a world-class people-watching restaurant, Harry’s Bar in Venice, where Jamie always got the worst seat, brushed by waiters trying to maneuver among the crowded tables. That’s because he’s perennially late. But on the rare occasions when he was the first to arrive, our mother would unceremoniously kick him out of any decent seat because he was the youngest and, even as an adult, continued to suffer under the ancient order of things.
I felt bad for him. I still do. But not bad enough to give up the good seat.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
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