Waiting in Line to Eat: Really?

He Said:

Fair warning: this rant has been steaming downhill in my brain for some time now, so please look for reasonable discourse elsewhere.

Waiting to eat is like kissing your sister while simultaneously enduring a prison-shower. Well, actually I think I saw a movie about that once. I digress.

Waiting to eat is not good.

If you need proof that the antichrist is loosed upon the world and all manner of biblical ass-thumping approacheth, look no further than this from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University:

Part of the Outback experience is the wait. Management believes that a wait makes the restaurant more desirable because it signifies popularity and quality. This is exemplified by Corporate’s quoted standard waiting time of 2 ½ hours.

WTF? So…Outback, in addition to being cursed by God with the mark of Cain by the simple virtue of being a chain restaurant further waves a red flag in front of Karma by deliberately engineering 2.5 hour waits.

For bloomin’ freaking onions.

Do you really need any further evidence to justify rounding up the other villagers with torches and pitchforks?

Part of the Outback experience is the wait.

I felt the need to write that again. Savor it for a moment, if you will, but be careful not to let any of that hubris get on you, ’cause it can be messy.

Ok, I can’t resist: for the Outback impaired, please allow me to translate:

Part of the pre-packaged, mediocre, lowest-common-denominator experience is us having the nerve to actually force you to wait for more than two hours in the parking lot for the right to fork over your dollars in exchange for a parody of Australian culture so ridiculous it makes Crocodile Dundee look like La Traviata.

If you ever set foot in an Outback again in your life, I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

So, we’re agreed that lines suck, right? Good. I’m glad that’s out of the way. Let me just throw a little gasoline on the fire by pointing fingers and naming names: here are the NOLA places with inexplicable lines:

Note: in most cases, I don’t blame the place; I blame the diners. It’s not the fault of the restaurant if you line up around the block in a queue so long that degenerate gangs of lemmings point and make fun of you. But, there is a special circle of Hell reserved for restaurants who deliberately and grossly overbook (I’m not sure which one, but I think it’s between the check-splitters and the scheduling-a-wedding-during-Jazzfest people).

Coop’s: A textbook internet casualty. Coops always had pretty good bar food, but somehow the foodie tourist sites blessed it with culinary holy-water. The result: slightly better than average bar food that has attained mythic status and generated stupefying lines. To clarify, I have no beef with Coop’s: I’d take the money too if people were lining up to give it to me, but nothing I ever had here changed my life, and with these lines it should.

Port of Call: Coop’s is the French Laundry compared to this, one of the most overrated establishments in NOLA. This was one of the first places to reopen post-Katrina, and it was at that time that Port of Call went from merely busy to insanely crowded. Let’s get real: POC smells bad; really, really bad. The best thing that could happen here is a one-day shutdown accompanied by a serious power-washing and disinfectant. You think I’m kidding? Lay off the kool-aid, walk in, and you tell me if I’m wrong. Port of Call is the definition of resting on one’s laurels.

Mother’s: Laughing all the way to the bank, somehow this temple of unremarkableness induces otherwise intelligent people to stand in line outside and wait for I’m not sure what. Much like Port of Call above, don’t blame them. Keep riding the horse until it throws you off, right? But who are the people who are going? What are they thinking? I am frightened by this lack of  discretion.

Irene’s Cuisine: Perhaps the worst offender. I’ll pay 125.00 for dinner and actually make a reservation only to have you toss me into a converted garage with no A/C to wait for more than an hour ’cause that’s how we roll at Irene’s? Seriously?

I love Stella!, but I’d politely (ok, maybe not so politely) decline if Scott Boswell ever suggested a similar experience at his place. And let’s be clear: Irene’s is not bad, but comparing their food to Stella! is like comparing John Fourcade to Drew Brees. So, I am waiting for what, exactly?

Irene’s has cracked the code, somehow able to get away with what would not be tolerated in any other French Quarter restaurant, so I suppose there’s some twisted brilliance at work there, but it’s a bad sign when you have to be sure to pre-eat before going out to dinner.

Jacques-Imo’s: Legendary wait times, particularly during Jazzfest. No reservations for parties of less than six. Why is it that  managing two- and four-tops, SOP for other restaurants everywhere, appears to be a challenge on par with cold fusion for these guys? I like Jacques Imo’s pretty good, and they do have the huge advantage of a built-in waiting room in the form of the Maple Leaf next door, which is something of a saving grace. But a little more effort on the reservation side would be a huge improvement.

What do you think? Am I crazy? Is the wait part of the ‘experience?’