Full-service restaurant server - order-building and the "that's plenty" script - size the meal to the party and the occasion, and learn the one graceful line that stops guests from over-ordering, because ordering it right is why they come back

You are a server-training coach for a full-service restaurant. Write me a script card set for "order building and the stop line". Scene: guests seated, menus open, server pours tea and begins. This restaurant serves multiple party types (business dinner / family gathering / friends out / couple), and I will provide the menu sections (starters / mains / soups / sides) and representative dishes per tier, plus our house ordering basis.

House ordering basis (our own variable - mark with [ ] placeholders):
- A party of [N] orders [N+1] to [N+2] dishes total, including starters, soup, and sides
- Starters to mains roughly [1:2]; with a centerpiece dish (whole fish / large roast) count it as two
- Business dinners build for "a table that looks generous"; family tables build for "finished, not wasted" - exact counts set by the house and printed on the card

Script structure (five cards in service order):
1. The two opening questions: "How many are we tonight - and is this a family get-together or are you hosting friends?" - party size and occasion in one breath. Note: the occasion question is not nosiness, it is the input to the build; a hosted dinner and a family table differ by two dishes
2. Ask before recommending: "Any allergies, or anything the table doesn't eat?" - this question lives before any dish is named, never patched on afterward
3. Walk by structure: offer two or three starters, then ask about the centerpiece, close with soup and sides. Offer choices at each tier; never recite the page. When guests order straight off the menu themselves, the server only speaks at structural gaps ("that's three mains so far - a soup to share?")
4. The stop card (fires when the order exceeds the basis): "You're at X dishes for your party - that's honestly plenty for our portions. What if we start with these and add as you go? Everything here is cooked to order." - "start with these, add as you go" hands them a graceful exit. Banned phrasings: "that's too much" / "you've ordered enough". One stop per table; if the host insists, take the order gladly
5. "What's good here?": answer by table type - family tables get two easy crowd-pleasers; hosted dinners get one presentable centerpiece plus one signature. Never the most expensive item, never "everything's good"

Variant cards:
- Tables with seniors or children: offer the soft, mild options and kid-friendly picks unprompted
- Drinking tables: suggest grazing plates start first (cold plates, nuts ahead; mains paced to the drinking)
- Time-pressed tables: recommend only fast dishes, avoid live-tank and slow-braise items, and state expected timing
- Parties of two: mention half portions where they exist and flag the big-format dishes ("that one runs large - two may be a stretch")

Forbidden:
- No upsell-to-the-top scripts - this set's position is order it right, not order it big
- "Whatever you like, it's all good" - that is a non-answer
- Stopping a second time
- Skipping the allergy question
- Script language stays spoken and plain - no "it is my pleasure to serve you" openers

Why it is written this way

The set takes a position before it takes a script: ordering is the exact trade-off between "two more dishes on tonight's check" and "this table coming back". Choosing "order it right" is itself mercenary logic - in full service, the regret of a table buried in leftovers outlasts the memory of any single great dish. Stopping one over-order sells one less dish and buys the guest's belief that this house does not pad the bill, and in this business that belief is worth many return visits.

The two opening questions are the information gate of the whole set. Party size and occasion set the ceiling of the build; skip them and everything after is guesswork - and servers guess high. The occasion question can read as prying, which is why the card fixes a natural phrasing and states its purpose: "a family get-together or hosting friends" costs the guest nothing to answer and moves the build by two dishes.

The stop card's "start with these and add as you go" is the core line of the set: it translates "stop ordering" (confrontation) into "trust the house" (a graceful out). Whether the food is enough becomes the restaurant's guarantee, topped up anytime, so the host carries none of the social risk of under-ordering - and on hosted tables that risk is the real reason hosts over-order in the first place. The once-only rule is hard-written: a second stop flips from helping the guest into rushing the guest.

"What's good here" splits by table type because the question means two different things: a family table wants easy and satisfying, a hosted table wants something that lands well when it reaches the table. Answering one with the other (pointing a family at the priciest dish) tells the guest this house is fishing - and that trust is spent in one transaction.

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