Hats at the Restaurant

[Belegnole]

I just had a flash back of something I believe my father did. If not my father then someone else from my childhood. He kept a handkerchief in the crown of his hat. I can remember going out and when the hat came off so did the hanky come out. It was placed under the hat when it was set down and I remember it being used to wipe the hat as well. For some reason i also remember a hat being draped with a hanky while sitting on it's crown.

 

[harbilly]

Yes univibe88. I did make it. Necessity is the mother......
It's easy, takes no room hardly in the pocket. Gives you freedom of action when needed.

 

[harbilly]

Belegnole: that hanky info is brilliant. Useful, practical and brilliant. What else did the old boys know that we may have lost??? I'm adopting that right now.
Kudos for sharing.
Makes a hazmat portable expanding and collapsible hat storage device redundant.

 

[jpbales]

people think I'm goofy enough with just a hat

then add to it a hanky I have to keep up with and stash in my hat, then fold out and pamper my hat... people are really going to think I'm obsessed then! haha I'm sorry, but I must vote against the hanky idealol

Leaving the hat at home, or in the car is a good idea too, but if you're just cruising the streets or stopping by a restaurant and so happen to have your hat with you, that doesn't always work. I think the best and most practical ideas in case of no hooks (which I have yet to see anywhere) are just sit it carefully on the floor (last resort, of course), place it in your lap (second to last resort), and the best things are in a booth next to you or on a ledge or in a spare seat. I'm not going to try to over-think the subject too much! lol

 

[Belegnole]

lol, I don't think he used it all the time just when needed' though he may have carried it all the time. It is funny though how reading certain things can bring a memory to the surface. Like that my father wore hats. I didn't think about that since he stopped which had to be 30+ years back until I started reading these forums. Or, that he had one hat that was real soft and a bit fuzzy, green with a gold and brown feather. I can remember playing with it and being told to leave it alone. I think I may have been messing up the feather....that would have been close to 40 years ago....

 

[harbilly]

jpbales: I bet you lost the battle with friends already. ie: You wear a hat. You're weird. This may be already decided. I would put money on this. The hanky, well, to each his own. I think i would toss it down in a rumpled partially folded over careless way and drop my hat on it if I chose to use the floor or something. I guess if my buddies were making food and libations fly I would just put the hat back on and grin and bear it. I don't think I would wrap the hat in a hanky. I have folded my coat over a hat though.......

 

[59Lark]

no accomadation for feodoras in a modern world.

My favourite diner has room for hats above the coat rack in the back of the diner and since my entrance is usually from the back door ie parking lot , the coat and fedora are deposited on the way to a booth. The best one that I remember is the upscale chinese restraunt with overcoat and fedora in hand and this elegant chinese lady dressed in silk and my question is where is the cloak room and she asks in good english what is a cloak. Some places have hooks and ledges and objects such as bric, brac ie farm implements , outdoors stuff that you have hang a hat on . My worst is, the mandererin where i have too put my hat on the floor under our table. As far as wearing a hat in a restraunt, my opinion is liken a church you dont wear a hat in a dining room, one of my favourite old time dining rooms in LONDON ont was a place called THE SEVENTH DWARFS, REALLY IT had stain glass windows with the dwarfs on it, stone floors in the entrance, wood logs , it was neat and it had been there since 48 , must have had a old deal with walt disney to use the name. There was a cloak room when you came in with explicit instructions on not wearing hat wear in the dining room, and that they would remove it if you did. The restraunt suffered the fate of new owners, burnt and changed name and never reopened. 59Lark./fftopic:

 

[Mr. Paladin]

Great ideas and humorous discussions! I too use the booth idea and for those who don't want to bother with a handkerchief, I often use one of the spare cloth napkins on the table (before the wait staff remove them) for the same purpose. I haven't figured out how people can get food and drink spots on a chair they are sitting in but it happens often enough not to want to put my hat down on an adjacent chair unprotected.

 

[Ordinary Guy]

Don't think I would go so far as the hanky thing.

I have been lucky, mostly always an empty chair and the chairs have been clean. Once I had to put my hat under my chair and I wasn't happy about that but I thought it better than my lap, Not that I have EVER dripped or dropped anything on my while eating :whistling

But all went well and my hat and i left unscathed.......

 

[Hoss & da Posse]

I don't have all that much experience in this but there have been a couple times I've had to deal with the "what'll I do with my hat while I eat?" dilemma and I've learned a couple things...A) in Atlanta, even in October, it can get hot enough to shrink the sweatband if you leave your hat in the car during lunch and B) when eating Italian, up and away from the table is probably the best policy. As an aside, one tip I have found to be helpful is to keep my keys with my hat when its not on my head...I've gotten out the door, but no further...:eusa_doh:

 

[Rev Tom]

I don't have all that much experience in this but there have been a couple times I've had to deal with the "what'll I do with my hat while I eat?" dilemma and I've learned a couple things...A) in Atlanta, even in October, it can get hot enough to shrink the sweatband if you leave your hat in the car during lunch and B) when eating Italian, up and away from the table is probably the best policy. As an aside, one tip I have found to be helpful is to keep my keys with my hat when its not on my head...I've gotten out the door, but no further...:eusa_doh:

I live in Georgia also, and I agree - leaving your hat in the car here except in the dead of winter is not an option. I usually try to keep my hat in the seat next to me, or if there is not one, on my knee. But that last option has gotten me a salad dressing stain on my Akubra Banjo (any ideas on how to get it out?). I like the keys idea - I have almost left my hat a couple of times.

 

[Peaceful John]

Most commonly if we're eating at the average run to the mill type of eatery, I keep my hat on my head. If we go to someplace nice where I expect the bill to be high and where I expect better service, I'm most likely to ask for a chair for my hat if there isn't one already open at our table.

I do the same, Bob. It seems the best general solution to a contemporary difficulty.

 

[charlie farley]

Just a thought...

I don't know if this idea would be any good, but could someone who is good at making stuff possibly combine a hat hook with a suction disc and since hats are not usually that heavy,it wouldn't fall off? You could pop it on the nearest wall.

 

[Mrs. Merl]

Next thing you know all of the fellows here will be purchasing those temporary 3M hooks I saw on the television the other day! If they hold up stockings at Christmas...

 

[donCarlos]

When I go to pub/restaurant, where is no place to put my hat, then I usually keep it on my lap. Or if there´s place, then to an empty chair. Or when there is a hat rack, I always keep an eye on it.

And one extra trick, which is very usefull for example when you have a whole club reserved for some celebration - I just ask the bartender whether he/she can keep my hat behind the bar. They are usually very helpfull.

 

[Tomasso]

When I know that I'll be visiting a venue (reconnaissance required ) where hat storage will be problematic I wear either a roll-up fedora or a flat cap and store it in my coat pocket.

 

[pplepic]

I hadn't thought about this before, and depending on the restaurant, I either place my hat on an empty chair, or on the seat in a booth, or sometimes, right on the table, but what rings a bell in all this is that I clearly remember that there used to be restaurants not only with hat hooks, but some with under the counter or chair drawers for hats, and others has small clips where you could hang your hat while dining. I guess that's all gone these days and it's up to us (who most of our wives call nuts) to be big hat boosters and get the nation back on the track. President-Elect Obama is right: It's time for a change and we need to wake these bare-headed losers up. I say the new president's motto should be: A hat on every head in America!
(Did any of you see the picture of him doing a FDR pose in his convertible? Only lacking the jaunty cigarette holder, but that's passé now.):eusa_clap

 

[NonEntity]

There is an extra hat rack in my basement I now know exactly how I'll put to good use.

It's a floor-stand type, about 5 and half feet tall, made of chromed metal--heavy chrome metal.

I plan to take it with me to the next restaurant that does not provide a place to put my hat and place it right next to my table

 

[Belegnole]

There is an extra hat rack in my basement I now know exactly how I'll put to good use.

It's a floor-stand type, about 5 and half feet tall, made of chromed metal--heavy chrome metal.

I plan to take it with me to the next restaurant that does not provide a place to put my hat and place it right next to my table

Please, please, please take pictures.......lol

You know I just realized that the "favorite diner" has a hat rack now. I never paid attention to it because I have never worn a hat there....pancakes and syrup don' mix well.

 

[Dr Doran]

There is an extra hat rack in my basement I now know exactly how I'll put to good use.

It's a floor-stand type, about 5 and half feet tall, made of chromed metal--heavy chrome metal.

I plan to take it with me to the next restaurant that does not provide a place to put my hat and place it right next to my table

Genius idea. I love it.

I was dressed up in 40s attire for a meeting of the San Francisco Atheists Society about a year ago and then went to a Japanese restaurant that specializes in Scotch for a colleague's birthday. I go to the Japanese place, which was very trendy and cool and full of highly attractive waitresses, and I took off my hat and made a pantomime of looking for a hook. I pantomimed trying to hang it on a pillar. After about a minute of this, complete with grimaces and gestures of despair and anguish, an extremely fine waitress, probably the floor manager, came over to our table and very nicely and politely asked if she could take my hat.

It worked.

I was thinking that, as much as I like the clips and suction cups and such, how about a piton with a hook on it? You pound the piton into whatever surface is handy and screw a hook onto it, and that way the hook will be there the next time you go to that restaurant. You've done them a great favor.