Specifically, how long are you willing to wait to be seated at a restaurant? This morning, I happened to remember the time we were taking our daughter and her then-boyfriend out to eat on his birthday. He wanted to go to Outback. We got there and the wait was 2 hours. :eek: Needless to say, we left, but there were people putting their names on the list. We went a couple of blocks down the road to another steak place and were seated immediately. And it was quite good.
But, back to the topic - how long is too long? Does it depend upon the meal or the restaurant? Does a family meal including kids change your limit? Or are you one of them smart folks that calls ahead??
When it’s just the two of us, 30 minutes is pretty much the outside limit. If we’re with a larger party, we accept that we may have to wait longer for a table of adequate size. However, in our area, there are really only a couple of sit-down breakfast places that aren’t obscenely expensive ($13 for French toast? I think not) so we may wait 45 minutes for breakfast.
Lucky for us, we prefer to dine early, so we generally arrive before the crowd and are often escorted right to a table. Yep, us old folks love the Early Bird Specials!
We have many, many restaurants in Calgary (and I’m good cook, too), so we tend to not wait any longer than five or so minutes. We will usually go somewhere else if the wait is much longer than that. We also try not to go out right at the same time as everyone else; we eat earlier when going out to beat the rush.
If we’re with a group who HAVE to eat a particular restaurant, I guess we wait as long as the group decides, but I won’t like it much. There’s always another restaurant.
Without reservations, no longer than 20 min to have my happy ass in a chair. I’m fine with waiting for service and food but I’ll not wait long simply to be seated.
With reservations, I had better not wait more than 5.
It definitely depends on the type of restaurant, whether we are walk-ins or have reservations, and if there is a bar where this waiting is taking place.
I hate being steered to the bar instead of to my table. It’s a trick of the restaurant trade to encourage you to run up a bar tab in addition to your meal tab. They also figure that preprandial drinks encourage you to spend more on your meal.
Little do they know I was going to drink all that anyway! (she said, fiendishly). I can see how this would definitely be annoying if one does not care to be at the bar at all. I am the kind of restaurant patron who usually builds in 1/2 hour at the bar when I am making a reservation, so I’m not too flustered if that turns into 45 minutes.
We’ll put our names in for a 30 min wait or less, and generally that turns out to be closer to 15 minutes than thirty. I don’t mind having a drink at the bar, either.
More than five or ten minutes, I’ll generally go elsewhere. That’s the nice thing about living in a big city – there’s usually plenty of “elsewheres” to go to.
It depends on the night of the week, the makeup of my party, and if anyone had their heart set on THAT restaurant.
If it’s just my SO and I on a week night, 15 min is about it.
Weekend with friends, 40 minutes. It’s going to take us at least 20 to get everyone back into the car, drive to another restaurant, and get in the next line.
Someone’s birthday, and they picked the trendy new Italian restaurant? Don’t even tell me, just put me on the list.
If I had my way, we wouldn’t wait anywhere. I’m just as happy to make my own dinner and find the whole dining out process a waste of time. My SO LOVES eating out though so I usually end up waiting up to 30 minutes.
Here, I am willing to wait for up to an hour. It’s a small (half a dozen tables) artisinal gourmet restaurant that doesn’t take reservations. It’s worth it.
At the Outback and other chain-type places, on the rare occasion I go to one, if I don’t get a table immediately, I don’t stay.
I’ll easily wait 30 minutes if I’m with a decent-sized group at a popular restaurant. Many of the restaurants in downtown Santa Barbara don’t take reservations, so the only way to get a table is to show up and wait. And on a Friday night at 7, there’s a wait for every decent restaurant. It usually takes less time than they say, anyway.
10 minutes max. If the place is good enough for me to be willing to wait, then it probably accepts reservations and keeps them. The other places aren’t good enough for me to wait in line for, I’ll go elsewhere.
Depends on the price and the occasion. For regular, everyday meals we’d better be seated within 15 minutes. If we just walked in off the street and were trying to get seated at a good place without reservations, I’d be willing to wait 30 minutes. For something special at a place that doesn’t take reservations, maybe 45 minutes, but that would be unusual.
The ultimate coup we ever scored in this field was getting into Olives at the Bellagio without reservations in 2 minutes. At the beginning of the dinner rush. At Christmas.
Well, I likes my alcohol so if the place has a good bar that isn’t too loud so I can chat with my friends; I don’t mind waiting an hour or so. (two hours is a bit longish tho’)
But if it’s the Outback we’re talking about I wouldn’t wait five seconds for those guys.
If I have reservations, I won’t wait more than 5 minutes, because I came before everyone else who just decided to bum rush the place. I don’t go to places that take reservations very often, though.
As for walk-in, it depends on the place. Olive Garden, which doesn’t have any way to entertain yourself, 15 minutes tops or I leave and go elsewhere. A casino coffee shop or steak house, I’ll wait up to 45 minutes if I’ve got some money to gamble or play video games with. It also depends on how hungry I am and how bitchy I am because of that hunger, how many people we have waiting on it (in our party), and whether I have things going on afterward. Generally, I try to make reservations when I’ve got a schedule. If we have a large group we’ll go with the general consensus, which is sometimes to wait, and sometimes “Fuck this.”
One time, I was part of a group that wanted to go to a particular fish camp. I’d been there once before and wasn’t impressed, but everyone raved about the place, so I assumed we caught them on a bad night and I agreed to the choice. There were either 8 or 10 of us, so we knew we’d have to wait for a big table. Upon arrival, we were told one hour.
OK, fine. We could entertain ourselves for an hour. The standing around got old but this was supposed to be such a great restaurant…
After an hour, one of our party went to the podium to see how much longer. We were told another hour. :mad: Our protestations were ignored - we could wait or go.
We left. And instead of having seafood, we went to a steakhouse where we had to wait another 20 minutes. And I never again agreed to go to that lousy fish camp.
