KEY POINTS

After serving plates, checking in, and knowing everyone's happy, I leave them alone to enjoy it, but continue scanning the table.

Some restaurants will require you to wait for every person to finish completely before pre-busing. If that's their policy, you'll respect that. But I get finished plates out of the way when it seems appropriate. For example, some guests have stacked or pushed plates to the side.

I ask guests how everything was when pre-busing so I can further build my knowledge base of menu for future recommendations.

My general rule of thumb about pre-busing when it's less obvious if they're done: If I've passed by a few times, and the guests haven't made progress on plates, I'll ask if they're still working.

I'll wait for everyone at table to finish before pre-busing if:
1) only two people are eating (especially on a first or second date).
2) the guests that are still eating appear to be close to finishing.
3) it's a more formal vibe and it seems appropriate that I intrude as little as possible.

Some tables want to interact with me quite a bit, but I operate under the assumption that they don't, that they're out to interact with each other, and stay low-key.