Your dining experience at a restaurant is enhanced significantly by the interaction with your server. They are there to guide you during your meal - placing your order, delivering your food, providing what you need, and addressing your queries. However, there’s an art involved in posing the right questions without crossing the line.

While you might think asking your server about their favorite item on the menu will aid your decision-making process, experience suggests the contrary. Their food preferences may differ significantly from yours, hence their recommendations may not align with your taste. A better approach would be asking them about the most popular choice on the menu. This would offer you an insight into what a majority of their patrons enjoy.

Appealing to the taste preferences of the server to decide if a certain dish is good is not always a wise move either. Instead, ask your server how a dish is prepared, or if other guests seem to enjoy it. Remember, your server may not have tasted every remarkable dish on the menu, so their input on its taste could be based on second-hand feedback.

Questions with definitive answers, such as how a dish is cooked or how much it costs, put your servers at ease. On the contrary, inquiring about reasons for a dish's cost or why your meal is taking too long are imprudent questions that a server wouldn't be privy to.

Lastly, refrain from asking personal questions, particularly about what else they do for a living. This implies that their job as a server is temporary or not financially rewarding, which can be disrespectful. They might have aspirations outside their current job, and that should not be held against them. After all, almost everyone maintains a job with the hope of a better opportunity.

Above all, a positive question that every server is always willing to answer is: "How are you today?" Such a warm inquiry can make both your dining experience, and their service time, more pleasant.