Table for one, sir?

Aha - I didn't put this on my original list of possible blog topics, but food is, of course, another hobby of mine. Today, I was reminded of that particular joy of the single person - eating out alone.

My prompt for this post was my visit to The Jolly Postie here in sunny Royston earlier this evening. The place only opened yesterday, in the building that was the Old Crown, which had been empty for some time. It was great to see building work going on over the past few months, so I thought I'd give it a trial. On my own!

The venue (Is it a pub? Is it a restaurant?) is very well themed, with an old Royal Mail delivery van in the entrance lobby and huge postcards hanging from the ceiling. The sign outside has the eponymous postie freewheeling on his bike, legs akimbo, with letters flying all over. All very enticing, especially when the signs outside identify pizza as a speciality! Mmmmmm! Pizza!

There is clearly a lot of interest among my fellow Roystonians, but can I just say that it doesn't engender the most welcoming atmosphere to tell a single diner "well, we can sit you on this table, but you need to be gone by...". As I was walked to my seat, I noticed that the majority of tables were for four people or more. There were some two-seaters squeezed in, but these were being used by larger groups.

I took my seat at the end of a long table supported by those two-wheeled trolleys for shifting stacks of, erm, things. The handles protrude a good foot above the tabletop. If you suffer from "airplane wings" when you eat, watch your elbows! So - I sat down and ordered my drink and pizza.

Next little point - get the customer their drink pronto. It was nice to have three apologies for the time it was taking to get me my Long Island Iced Tea, but I'd rather have had the drink...  When you are there on your own, it makes you feel much less self-conscious if you have a drink in your hand. Or, perhaps more effectively, in your stomach where the alcohol can get to work on those pesky social inhibitions! Anyhow - I'm pleased to say that the cocktail was lovely, but gone too soon, so I followed it up with a welcome pint from the Camden Town Brewery. The pizza was excellent - very thin and crispy crust all the way across (which makes a real change) and the fries were nicely random, rather than identikit replicas of each other. And my third point - when bringing the food, check to see if another drink is needed! I'll definitely be back again - but I'll save it for when I have visitors as there are too few spaces suitable for us single diners.

Ironically, the long tables at The Jolly Postie would have been great if it weren't for those trolley handles sticking up through the tabletops and dividing the surface into four-seater chunks. They could have gone for the Wagamama approach and had everyone sitting along the long tables wherever there was space. There seems to be a great community atmosphere in the Jolly Postie - this would enhance that atmosphere greatly.

That was today's experience, but it wasn't the worst by a long shot! Ed's Diner (Rupert St, London)  is the only place where I actually left without leaving a tip, and that's an absolute first for me. You have a counter with individual stools along it, Ed's! How difficult is it to arrange a location for a lone diner? I'm sorry that the people sitting in a booth were using the stool on the end for their coats, but that's your problem, not mine and I really don't appreciate being asked to move halfway through my meal just because another group come in. The counter was empty when I entered your restaurant that day...

The other issue I have when eating or having a coffee on my own is facing a queue for service in a busy venue and having groups joining the queue behind me before sending one of their number off to nab a table. If you're on your own, you can't compete there...

Ah - my first major post has turned out to be a bit of a rant, so I'll end on a positive note with my best-ever experience of dining on my own. Yes, it was on holiday at Cedar Point, so I'd spent the day riding some of the best roller coasters in the world, and I was staying in Hotel Breakers on the Cedar Point peninsula just yards away from the special gate that got you into the park an hour before everyone else. But - there was a TGI Fridays on the ground floor of the hotel. The staff were brilliant - rapid service, nothing too much trouble, friendly banter but not too intrusive, they always sat me in a six-seater booth with no fuss, and I sat there, still buzzing from the day's coaster riding, drinking too many frozen Margaritas, eating pretty much everything on the menu and reading "The Life of Pi". My happiest single-diner memories on record!