I love all the ritualized behaviour, secret meanings and unexpected taboos - standing up when someone of higher status stands, elaborate rules for serving and eating, tapping the table to thank the server, never refuse a toast from a superior, stuff like that.
Whether it’s about meals or anything else, I’d love to hear about any uncommon politeness standard or similar social behaviour that goes on in your location, culture or restaurant!
I think this is a little over-simplified. If there are only a few tables it likely happens, but with current staffing, even before covid, if a servers section is full there’s no way they can watch for tiny signals from every table. Heck it’s hard to even catch your servers attention in most restaurants during busy times between when they are taking orders and actually serving other tables.