At my corporate day job we’ve perfected the art of eating out somewhere nice, fast. This is for those days when you have one free hour between meetings, but you want to eat something decent at a sit-down restaurant.

There are two methods of doing this, depending on how picky you are with the menu. The safest way is to look at the menu online before going to the restaurant, and choosing what you want. If you want to be risky you can look at the menu before the waiter arrives to the table, but be prepared to choose what you want quickly.

When the waiter comes, order your drinks, appetizer and meal at the same time. Make sure the waiter knows that you want your appetizer to come out first, but you’re on a time constraint, and you already know what you want to order for your meal. Telling the waiter at this time is a necessity as they will help the process move in a speedily format. Plus they know the turnaround will be quick, which means easy fast tip for them. If everybody ate like this, waiters would make at least twice their salary.

When your waiter comes to check up on you during the entrée portion of the meal, politely ask for the check. The check should arrive before your meal ends. If you are paying with a credit card, don’t let the waitress leave after he/she brings the check. Give her the credit card, by the time she gets back you will be good to go to the office.

We had a perfect example of this a few weeks ago when my team of 4 employees decided we should have our weekly team meeting at Sweetwater Tavern. The problem was a 1 o’clock meeting would only give us an hour to get to the restaurant (which was a good 10-15 min drive), eat, and get back. At 12 we all hopped in the car, and got to the restaurant at about 12:13. The tables were full, so we had to sit and wait for an open table. By 12:25 we were finally sitting down. We followed the techniques I discussed above, and were done eating and paying by about 12:43. We jetted back to the office, just in time to arrive for the 1:00 meeting…and that’s how it’s done.