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People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

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#1

People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 1:30am

Do you like it? People found out that I sing at work and now I probably sing on average 6 times a night for birthdays, anniversaries, random teenagers, etc. It is usually never the birthday person requesting it, rather a friend or family member. Do you guys like being sung to? Do you hate it? What is your opinion?
#4

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 1:40am

I used to go to Macaroni Grill just to hear "Happy Birthday" sung in Italian.
"Writing is like prostitution. First, you do it for love, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money." ~ Moliere
#6

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 2:23am

I don't mind it. One time, while I was visiting my bro in SoCal, they took me to Joe's Crab Shack (of all places) for my birthday. When it came time, a few servers sang "Happy Birthday" to me backward (literally, with their backs turned to me) and then I was given a stick horse and ordered to gallop to the end of the restaurant and back. Clearly, my bros and his friends were trying to embarrass me, but I made the most of it and even slapped my ass a few times as I trotted to and fro.
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
#7

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 3:10am

Hah, I've totally been to Joe's Crab Shack on my birthday before. Trashy, yes. Delicious, also yes.

At the restaurant where I work (off and on), we're specifically briefed that we are not a singing restaurant. One or two of the waiters breaks the rule every now and then, but we're really supposed to just smile and refuse to sing.
"Why, I make more money than... than... than Calvin Coolidge! PUT TOGETHER!"
~Lina Lamont


My name wasn't, isn't, and will never be Scott.
#8

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 3:18am

scott, that reminds me. The Cold Stone in San Diego encouraged customers to tip by making the employees sing each time someone made a donation. Of course, I must do everything to the extreme and kept putting a dollar into the jar.
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
#9

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 6:42am

The worst is Applebees, when they start clapping and then go into this horrid limerick with Happy Birthday in it. One night when I was there, it happened 4 separate times. I think as a kid, I found it fun, as an adult, I am finding it annoying.
"Love the Art in Yourself. Not Yourself in the Art." -- Stanislavski
#10

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 8:33am

For me, this trend has gotten old (although amazingly, I haven't). However, we were recently in a restaurant where the staff sang Happy Birthday in a deliberately bad, slow, slurred, drunken manner. I have to admit I chuckled.
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson
#11

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 8:46am

I was personally stab anybody with a fork who tries to sing Happy Birthday to me at a resturant. Tony Roma's waiter/singers always annoyed me for some reason - more then any other resturants that do it anyway.
#12

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 11:10am

When I was in high school, and we were on school outings (where they always took us to some dump like Golden Corral or Ryan's Steakhouse), we'd always tell the waiters that it was the teacher's birthday so they'd go sing to him or her.

That being said -- not for me. If it was something classy, then fine. But to force a bunch of high school or college kids working at a chain restaurant for $2.50 an hour to sing said chain's ditty of choice to me when they'd probably rather be spitting in the ketchup bottles (never trust ketchup bottles on the table in diners, btw) just to get a free day-old pastry is cruel.
#13

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 11:30am

My friends always do this to me (which is almost making me dread going out for said birthday next weekend). I'm really shy and I get embarrassed because people tend to look at you while you're being sung to.
http://www.beintheheights.com/katnicole1 (Please click and help me win!) I chose, and my world was shaken- So what?
The choice may have been mistaken, The choosing was not... "Every day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life." - Lin-Manuel Miranda
"And when Idina Menzel is singing, I'm always slightly worried that her teeth are going to jump out of her mouth and chase me." - Schmerg_the_Impaler
#14

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 11:48am

I absolutely hate it! It is so pointless- the wait staff doesn't know you or care about you. However, friends and family singing to you at home has meaning.


Now, people that want to be sung to- Why? I waited tables for 7 years and I never understood this. Are they attention starved?
#16

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 11:54am

Only when I go to Rokbonkies (a Japanese steakhouse) when they sing in Japanese.
He's a faker, and you've been taken in by his con. And in doing so, you are enabling him. He is doing more damage to aspergers than papa's words ever could. -Chane/Liverpool on me having asperger syndrome.
#17

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 12:04pm

Calvin, that makes sense.
My friends know that I would kill them if they did this, and also, I always make sure when the B-day roles around my boyfriend or other host, takes me to a restaurant where singing doesn't happen. This not only ensures no singing, but also gets me a nicer meal!
#18

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 12:12pm

HATE, HATE, HATE it.!!!

Not only don't I like it if it's done to me and I have warned my friends not to try it. I hate it when I'm trying to have a meal and it's interrupted by loud bad singing.
"Smart! And into all those exotic mystiques -- The Kama Sutra and Chinese techniques. I hear she knows more than seventy-five. Call me tomorrow if you're still alive!"

Updated On: 1/4/08 at 12:12 PM

#19

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 1:21pm

I didnt even care for people singing happy birthday to me as a child.
"Carson has combined his passion for helping children with his love for one of Cincinnati's favorite past times - cornhole - to create a unique and exciting event perfect for a corporate outing, entertaining clients or family fun."

"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS

#20

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 4:35pm

It's embarrassing and should disappear.

I was at one restaurant that made the birthday person stand on the table wearing giant moose antlers the entire time they sang. Rediculous.
::bust a move::
#22

re: People singing to you on your birthday in restaurants

Posted: 1/4/08 at 4:44pm

An interesting bit of legal trivia: Happy Birthday is a copyrighted work, and technically, any public performance of it (including, for example, in a restaurant) requires the payment of licensing fees to ASCAP. Unlicensed public performances of the song constitute infringements of the federal copyright statute.

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