At the Cheesecake Factory in Walnut Creek, Calif., waiters are trained to adjust service to suit each table. The Cheesecake Factory

What looks like a convivial scene is a waiter’s nightmare: people at a table, chatting away, menus closed with drinks in their hands.

Yet when Alex Martin, a 26-year-old waiter at Blue Smoke restaurant in New York, tried to take their order “they didn’t even look up,” he says. “If you are standing there for more than three seconds it’s like an eternity.”