seated like royalty (or) it's all about the small town

Last night a group of us returned to Karaoke. It's been awhile since I've seen my friends.
Myself and another arrived a little early, and we wandered the bar looking to see if anyone had gotten there before us. The back half of the place was filled with old friends, and I chatted for a bit as they prepped themselves for a night of competition ($500 up for grabs).
Seeing there wasn't room for the group we were expecting, we headed back to the front to wait to be seated, we hadn't been there (as a group) in forever... so we didn't want to take our old seats (remember this?) without checking.
A "newer" wait-staff came to us and asked for how many, we guessed about 5, and she asked if we wanted a booth (as it's pretty loud by this point). As we were shrugging our shoulders and taking the offer, a woman comes barreling down between the tables (the head waitstaff).
"what are you doing?" (she says to the waitress) "They NEED their table!"
waitress, looking flushed "uhh?"
the barrel-er "They haven't been here in 5 months! they NEED their table!"
waitress looks at us for some sort of clue
"We'll sit over there." I point at our table.
The barrel-er grins."Welcome back", she says, and walks away.