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Modern Restaurant Dining Room Sets

Recently, a chef called me on the telephone and posed a question: "When is the correct time to remove a plate after a customer is finished eating?" The chef who asked me the initial question had been sitting at the bar of his restaurant watching the dining room service on his off hours. There were three people at the table, one person had completely finished the plate of food, but the other two customers were still eating their plates of food. The chef felt that the "one finished plate" should have been cleared immediately by one of the business or waitstaff. His inquiry was a simple restaurant dining room service question (quite legitimate) that may actually have more than one answer. It depends on the the restaurant's "level of service," the "situation at the hand", and/or what the customer desires "at the moment." Certainly in any restaurant service situation, before clearing a plate, the staffer obviously must wait until the customer is finished eating from their plate. Whether it is a completely empty plate in front of the customer, or if the customer has placed their knife and fork side by side in the middle of the plate, or if the customer hasn't touched their food in 20 minutes, the staffer must make the proper decision to clear the plate or not. But to really answer this question in full detail, I had to ask some preliminary questions of my own, as consultants often do, especially about the desired level of service in the restaurant: Were there white tablecloths covering the tables? Was the floor completely rugged? What are some expensive items on the menu? After receiving the some answers, I concluded that, yes, it was a fine dining restaurant. Therefore, my immediate answer to the chef's question was to wait until all of the customers are completely finished eating, then start the process of clearing. In most cases for a fine dining restaurant, if the one plate only was cleared while the other