An American man living in the UK has said he learnt an important lesson after dining at a UK restaurant for the first time, as one behaviour he was used to was deemed 'rude'
13:37, 28 Dec 2025
It might not seem like we in the UK are that much different from our cousins in the US, but there's more that separates us than you might think. We speak the same language and enjoy many of the same foods, but there are other parts of our culture, such as the holidays that we celebrate, and the way we pronounce or spell some words, that are entirely different.
Some of these differences are obvious and widely known, but as one American man who now lives in the UK is discovering, there are others that most people have no idea about - and they could land you in hot water when visiting the UK as an American person, or vice versa.
Russ regularly shares content on social media about his life since moving to the UK, and in a video on Instagram, he shared the key difference about restaurant culture that he had never heard of before travelling across the pond.
The man shared that when he first came to the UK, he was enjoying a meal at a restaurant with his girlfriend. While he thought everything was going smoothly, he couldn't understand why their waitress was giving him dirty looks - until his partner explained that one thing he was doing was "rude".
He said: "So, a hard lesson I learnt as an American living in the UK is that I really didn't have manners. I thought I did, but let me tell you a story. I was out to dinner with my girlfriend at this Italian place that we like to eat at.
"The waitress asked, 'Can I get you anything to drink?', to which I replied, 'We'll have some water'. She looked down at her pad and said, 'Sure'. My girlfriend kind of gave me a look, but I didn't think much of it."
Russ continued: "The waitress returned with our waters and asked if we were ready to order, to which we said yes. I said, 'I'll have the Napoli pizza'. The waitress hit me with a [dirty look], she took mine and my girlfriend's orders down, and walked away. After we were done and she came to take our plates, she asked if everything was good, and we said yes.
"As she was walking away with our plates, I said to her, 'We'll take the bill'. It was at this time that I caught my girlfriend staring at me as if I had killed somebody."
Russ said that he didn't understand what he had done wrong until his girlfriend pointed out that he had been "incredibly rude" - as he hadn't said "please" or "thank you" to the waitress a single time.
He added: "It was in that moment I realised that wait staff culture is completely messed up in the US. You could be the kindest, most respectful person, but in the US, it's almost never commonplace to throw in please or thank you where they should be. It's almost as if we've been trained like we're ordering from robots.
"This whole phenomenon is crazy to me, because if it were any other scenario, my pleases and thank yous would have been there. I do it at the grocery store, I do it at the bakery, but for some reason, that instinct with wait staff just wasn't there for me. Thankfully, I've learnt the error of my ways, and I always say it now."
Commenters on Russ' video appreciated his honesty, but many were baffled to learn that it isn't common to be polite to wait staff in the US by saying please when you order something and thanking them when they bring it to you.
One person said: "Absolutely. Just hearing the anecdote made me squirm with the lack of please and thank you."
Another added: "I would be very concerned if my partner was so rude to wait staff. I'm glad you were called out on it. For me, when dating, it was a massive red flag if a guy couldn't be polite to the waitress."
Some American commenters, however, argued that they do have the same manners in the US, as they insisted they always say please and thank you to restaurant staff.