What's the most interesting traditional or formal politeness behaviour or table manners in your culture? Or for any service personnel, in your restaurant?

Here in the upper Midwest, it's highly impolite to ask guests to leave, or for guests to directly announce that they're leaving. The accepted way for hosts to hint is to say, "Would ya look at the time?", or steer the conversation toward things the host has to do later, e.g. clean up, or get up the next morning. For guests, stereotypically you slap your knees and say, "Welp, I suppose..."

Then you don't just leave, there's the goodbye, the doorway goodbye, the offer of leftovers to take home, and the driveway goodbye.

This is just a small thing and I don't know if it's exclusively Swedish (or even done in the entierty of Sweden) but anyways. In the grocery store all customers generally turn all products so that the barcode is facing forward, aka the way that's the most convenient for the cashier. Partially done to pay respect I guess but also makes the whole thing go faster.

One thing that I think is very foreign to some people, that Americans take for granted, is that a table server is always watching you when you dine. If the patron looks unhappy, or us even just sitting up and looking around, a good server will be there as soon as they can to see if something is needed. Hand-in-hand with that, signalling a server, especially with a loud noise, is extremely rude, basically an accusation that they're not doing their job. Which, okay, sometimes we aren't and it's appropriate. But to wave or stand is an indictment, and to snap or whistle is way over the line.

Correspondingly, a good waitress doesn't interrupt a meal or conversation, but merely glides by or hovers until the party is ready for his attention.

In a busy restaurant in the New York City area, it is considered rude to waste people's time in not knowing what to order. If you don't have your order or questions ready about the order when it is your turn, you're going to piss everyone else off.

“No elbows on the table” is one older one. I never really got it anyway

Not my culture but if you want to see this kinda stuff, try going to Japan. I exited a restaurant there and the waitress very excitedly went arigatogozaimasu (thank you very much) and made a full 90 degree bow. The service culture or like... I dunno how to describe it, like there's a certain honor in upholding your job/duty there that is just very different from Denmark (which tbf is very much a polar opposite to Japan when it comes to work culture).

Don't salt your food before tasting it, it's insulting to the chef/cook since it looks like you don't trust their cooking.

There's a popular story of someone being taken to a restaurant for an interview with their potential boss and the candidate being rejected because they salted their food before tasting it. The interviewer took it to mean the candidate wasn't trusting, was opinionated, and didn't respect the food or the chef and they didn't get the job.

One of the many things I loved about Taiwan was that people leave the left side of the escalator free for those who want to walk up or down.

There's one single file line of people standing on the escalator. Even during the evening commute, there's a single file line snaking back down into the station. But then as you get close there's a much smaller line to the left moving much quicker of every who plans to walk up.

It's so civilized.

standing up when someone of higher status stands

There's a great story about this. It's probably apocryphal, but it's a fun enough story anyway. Like any such myth, there are variations, but this is the one I first heard.

There's a tradition in classical music of standing when the Hallelujah chorus of Handel's Messiah is performed. The story goes that the reason for this tradition is that at its premiere, King George II was so enthralled by it that he rose from his seat. And respect dictated that if the king was standing, so must everyone else be, so the entire audience stood.

We don't have tipping culture but praising the meal to the waiter is considered polite at the end of the meal.

This only applies to the elderly generation but they tend to put "quite" at the start of any praise.

So, saying food is "quite good" is actually higher praise than "good". But to people not from here it sounds like the opposite.

In Denmark pedestrians will politely wait for green light even if there's nobody around.

It makes sense if you're teaching your child to walk safely, but otherwise it's just a tradition of doing things proper. It's so ingrained that police could probably stop a criminal on the run simply by following them until they hit a red light.

Also, never walk on the bicycle lane. That's taboo.

I feel like this is a global thing but here it goes When serving dinner the women are served first, then the men. They do this from oldest to youngest.

So, first person to get food/wine/water/wtv served is the oldest woman, and the last person to be served is the youngest man...

Edit: I got the tittle wrong I thought it was only formal setting stuff. This is only done in very formal settings. Like an extremely important ceremony on the military branches of my country for instance.

Etiquette is one of the things that really annoys-to-infuriates me. Especially if someone gets offended over me not following it. I just can’t be bothered thinking about arbitrary rules without any good merit behind them.

Now I am not talking common sense things where a behaviour might normally be considered offensive, but things like “ a man is supposed to verbally greet a woman first, while a handshake should be initiated by the woman if she wishes”.

Ive actually had this exact exchange with a superior (by standing, I wasnt actually working with/under them at the time):

Me: quietly walking past a superior about 2h after I have areived at work

Them, visibly and audibly annoyed: So I guess you dont greet people?

I just said good morning and said I don’t really keep track of who I have already met that day. But like come on, where is the disrespect if not projected from your own head?

I also hate the custom of wishing someone a good meal / good appetite. Like if it is 1x when everyone sits down, whatever, ill begrudgingly follow, but I cant be bothered to do it at work every 2 mins when someone new walks into the kitchen.