The "regular"

Something that I’ve noticed with almost every tapa’s bar I’ve visited in Seville is the “regular” customer priority. At first I didn’t understand what was going on. I would be waiting on a list to be seated and other people would walk up and be immediately seated. Other times I would be waiting for food for what seemed like forever and I would see a person or group that arrived much later than me happily eating away. Thinking somewhat ethnocentrically, I thought they must dislike tourists here or treat the locals with much better service. After a lesson in my pop culture class, I realized that these bars and restaurants were simply taking care of their long-time regular customers, which is a very novel concept for an American. When an employee sees a customer that they have served many times before they are inclined to seat them first or treat them exceptionally well because the Spanish people are very big on maintaining relationships. In the states you would hardly ever see this behavior because employees are very concerned with tips from each and every customer so everyone is treated the same. Although I think both styles of interacting with customers have their pros and cons, I have enjoyed attempting to become a regular at certain places in Seville to enjoy this unique custom.