More Restaurants Are Asking Customers To Sit With Strangers

The number of communal tables is growing "exponentially," according to Nation's Restaurant News.

Shared seating was originally popularized by European cafe Le Pain Quotidien.

Chains like Starbucks and McDonald's have adopted communal seating. So have independent chef restaurants like A-Frame in Los Angeles and The Publican in Chicago, restaurant analyst Nancy Kruse writes for NRN.

Panera Bread has offered shared tables for years.

The appeal of communal seating is two-fold, according to Kruse.

First, it allows restaurants to cram in even more paying customers. It also could make customers feel like they had a more social experience at a restaurant.

Bret Thorn, NRN's senior food editor, believes that communal seating can only work in certain situations.

"When does alienating customers for short-term gain ever work?" he asks.

Thorn notes that communal seating works in certain situations.

"But there are times and places in which communal seating is part of the experience, such as at Joe's Shanghai in Manhattan's Chinatown, where I go every Black Friday with friends to eat crab and pork soup dumplings," Thorn says.

Communal seating is particularly appealing to millennials to seek social connections while they dine, according to Restaurant Development + Design Magazine.

A December opinion piece in The New York Daily News notes the shortfalls of communal tables.

"Dining out should be a combination of enjoying both the food and the company, not an uncomfortable evening spent making forced conversation - that's what college dining halls and cruise ships are for," the Daily News wrote.