[124] confusing meanings of 여기 차리 있어요?

I always thought that when someone was asking me this question in a coffee shop, it meant Is this seat free?.

However, it’s quite the opposite… but not quite…

In short,

if you’re asking about a specific seat, it means “is this your seat?” but if you’re just asking about the room in general, it means “is there a seat?”

So, in my example situation above, the 있어요 actually refers to me having the seat. Because 있다 does not agree with the object particle, one always uses the subject and topic particle to form the sentence, where the object is represented by the subject (think of 있다 meaning to exist and not to have, from a grammatical perspective) and where the actual subject would then become the topic to avoid having two subject particles.

If the question is not about by someone pointing at the seat, but rather asking in general, 있다 refers to the existence of the seat: does the seat exist… is there a seat?

More clarification from the same Reddit thread where I initially asked the question:

여기 here / 자리 seat / “A” 있어요 ? do you have A ? is there A ? / hence, 여기 자리 있어요 ? is there any seat here ? /// so the confusion you’re having is based on how you interpret the “seat”, as 자리 can either mean seat (taken by sb else) or seat (available vacant seat). Generally, if you’re not referring to a specific chair or seat, it would mean “is there any vacant seat available in this place?” whereas if you’re pointing at a specific seat and asking the question to the person next to it, then it could mean “is this seat (that i’m pointing at) taken (by your company) ?”