Inching forward, popping up on your toes to look over their heads, rarg! How much longer?! Waiting in line to get into a restaurant can be excruciating. Or a time to catch up with friends and engage in some delightful people-watching. Depends on what kind of person you are. So, how patient are you? Or busy? Or hungry? What’s your upper max for how long you will stand in line at a restaurant? Sound off in the comments!
How long would you wait in line? [Fat City] (Thanks to Kyle!)
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15 minutes. If the wait is longer than that and they don’t take reservations I am gone. If it is a really nice restaurant they usually take reservations. The chain restaurants that have constant 45minute waits on the weekend and no option for reservations are just not worth it. I have better things to do with my time than be treated like cattle. I also determined that most of the time I can make whatever said restaurant is offering in 30-45 minutes but maybe I have different threshold because I can cook.
I don’t.
15 minutes, no matter how good it is supposed to be
It will vary. If it is Friday night at 7 pm, I hope there is a wait. If not, that tells me the restaurant is not very good, or won’t be in business much longer. I tend to look at the time it would take to go back to the car, decide on the next place and see what their wait is. I tend to eat at restaurants that have bars, so as long as I can have an adult beverage of my choice, it can be as long as I remain legal to drive.
Most of the time, only 15 minutes. If it’s a really good place, and we’re a large group … so that packing it up and going somewhere else will be more of a problem than it’s worth … maybe an hour.
I will happily wait forever for Sunday morning brunch at Cora’s, thankfully they opened another one like 20 minutes from our house so that cut down on the wait time! Otherwise, we do not wait at chain restaurants. For a good meal, we almost always have a reservation, but if not, I would wait like 45 minutes.
In a drive-thru: 5 minutes, max. Even if I placed an order, but haven’t paid yet.
(brief aside: Stop putting newbies on the drive-thru window, you jerks!)
Sit-down: depends on The Beloved Wife. When she gets tired, I get tired. Typically, if she sees a long line, she’ll spend literally three seconds thinking about it before she suggests something else.
Yes, and the guy who has been looking at the menu for all that time and doesnt know what he wants never slows down the line. OR the guy who fumbles through his car looking for the correct change so he can get a $5 bill back instead of $4.62.
If you know ANYTHING about trhe restaurant business, the drive thru is where they usually put more skilled and faster people (McD BK, Wendys) because that is their bread and butter during busy times
Sorry, dude… in my experience, the backup is always at the pickup window where customers have already paid… rarely at a pay window and never at the order point…
Giacomo’s in Boston is worth any wait, even if it’s February, snowing and cold.
I don’t wait, I make reservations.
If it’s new to the area I’ll wait 45-60 minutes, but if I have been there countless number of times, I will drive by and if I see the entrance crowded with people I will go somewhere else, even if it is Taco Bell.
I wouldn’t. I’d find somewhere else to go eat. If you’re waiting in line FOR a table, just think how long you’ll be waiting AT the table for service. Pass.
Depends on how hungry I am and how much time I have. If I’m on a time limit obviously, I won’t wait that long. If I’m hungry and I have no time limit, then I’ll wait as long as it takes. Especially if one of my favorite restaurants. People on here are impatient lol.
I don’t queue for a restaurant.
The only exception if if I’m in a company that I care for and they insist and have booked in advance (however, if a place is booked for 9 PM I expect it to be ready at 9 PM so moot point).
Seinfeld. Four!
Here in NYC, people routinely queue up to order at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park for thirty minutes. Then you have to wait another twenty minutes for your food to be ready. That’s about forty-five minutes longer than I would ever wait for an okay, but not exceptional burger, served by a surly staff. Granted most of those in line are young folk who must find some amusing novelty in the ordeal that escapes me as an old.
If it’s just my husband and me? 90 minutes. It seems like a lot, but honestly, I’ve got two small kids at home. Hanging out in line at a restaurant, something that seemed like a big hassle when I was childless, now seems like a luxury. I can spend that 90 minutes reading, or goofing around on my phone, or *gasp* having an adult conversation with my husband without anyone interrupting. Sign me up!
We don’t generally go to restaurants with the kids. It’s such a hassle, and the cost is rarely worth the bother. But when we do, like when we’re traveling? We don’t go to places that have waits. I suppose I’d give them 5 minutes to get a table together if need be, if it was somewhere like Applebees, but that’s about it.
No more than forty-five minutes, and then only if they are super busy. Any longer is too long. I’ll find another place to eat.
Bob Chinn’s out here has a loooong wait on Friday and Saturday nights. Hell, even a Tuesday night will see people camped out, waiting to get in. The wait’s long, but at least you can get a drink while you stand there.
I take back my earlier post; when I lived in Delaware, there was a cheesesteak place named Ginello’s, or Ganettos, or something like that. They delivered but sometimes it took two hours because they were so busy all the time.
We would order by phone and starve to death waiting for those cheesesteaks. They were SO GOOD.
30 minutes. Anything longer and I can generally find someplace else to eat. Anything shorte and going somewhere else takes about the same amount of time.
I refuse to wait for a chain restaurant. Absolutely refuse. Then again, I don’t really go out much, soooo, it’s kind of moot for me.
30-45 minutes tops. I justify it by figuring that yes, even though that’s a long wait, by the time i decide on another place and actually get there, most of that time would have passed. Plus whatever the wait would have been at the second location.
My dad will not wait longer then 5 or 10 minutes max, unless he really really wants to eat there. We have left places with 20 minute waits only to drive around 20 minutes to find a place with a zero to 5 minute wait. Its pretty silly, I’m used to it but it drives my husband up a wall when we eat with my folks. Sadly I’ve gained a little of that. I will wait, but I’m more likely to want to leave the most people i know.
Its the same way at weddings or parties with food lines, my family is either the first one in line so we don’t have to wait, or the last ones.
My immediate response was “20 minutes,” but actually, I’d wait an hour if it were a place that had something I couldn’t get anywhere else, like vegan Buddhist cuisine or a particular dish I was desperately craving. But it should be said, I’m a really unfortunately picky eater and also vegetarian, so most restaurants pretty much suck for me anyways and one of them isn’t much different from the next.
Under most circumstances, 35 minutes, unless waiting in line is considered part of the dining experience, as in a place like Shake Shack in New York – I’m willing to wait up to an hour for a Shack Burger, fries, and one of their fancy custards (the best is sweet corn).
Not at all.
15 minutes for a table. in san francisco there are endless choices so why wait?
Screw that noise. If they don’t take reservations I won’t eat there. Life is too short to stand in line for sit-down dining.
When I lived in Phoenix, Arizona there was some buzz about a new restaurant in the Heritage Square neighborhood called Pizzeria Biancos. Now the word was that it was rated by some publication (which escapes me) the number 1 pizza in America. You would think that such a prestigious award would live in a city like Chicago or New York; my choice seemed clear that I should give it a try.
The word was that you are going to have to expect quite the wait when getting in line at this restaurant. Unfortunately they didn’t accept reservations, you had to show up, put your name on the list and wait. If they call your name and you’re not there then epic fail and all that. Now here’s the real kicker: Average waiting times run around 3 hours. Even more suspicious is the wine tasting room next door where they allow patrons to wait and drink overpriced drinks.
In the final analysis I think I can rationalize waiting the three hours to give the place a try. From what I remember the food was pretty good, maybe even under some circumstances excellent. However that is the extent of my willingness to wait that long — only to give it an initial try. I never returned to said restaurant ever again. Not because the food and service isn’t good but it’s just not worth waiting three hours.
If I’ve got a table booked for a certain time then I expect to be served within a few minutes. As for places that don’t take reservations, why bother?
I was with some friends on a Saturday night and had stopped to eat at Cheeseburger In Paradise. It was beautiful outside, so we asked the greeter about the patio…she told us it was first come, first served. We waited about 20 minutes for a table on the patio to finally open up.
Shortly after we ordered our drinks, the manager comes outside to our table with a small group of people in tow….he tells us that these people had called ahead for patio seating and that we needed to find another table because we were at the one saved for them. After a heated exchange with the manager where I brought up that CIP does not do reservations, we were still told to move and wait for another to open up. I told him where he can shove what and how and we left, never to return.
A call and email to corporate offices did nothing and I will never return.
20 minutes is usually my threshold of pain; it depends on whether there are alternatives close by.
I’ve waited an hour to get into Melt in Cleveland, then there was a forty-five minute wait for sandwiches, which I waited because the food is so good.
10 – 15 minutes tops. If a crowd is waiting, I just go somewhere else. It’s just food and someplace else usually has something similar without waiting for the atmosphere (noise).
For me, it depends on the restaurant, location, size of my party, and how that restaurant handles the wait. I would also consider my schedule, how hungry we are, the day of the week, and time of the meal. I wouldn’t wait longer than 90 minutes under any circumstances. I think 20-30 minutes is acceptable. Longer than 30 is only acceptable if they stick with their word.
5 mins at most, if its more then 5 mins i will leave and go elsewhere not all restaurants will be packed
I wouldn’t do it now, but in my early 20s in Boston, we wouldn’t think twice about waiting 2 hours for the No Name Fish House, or for Hilltop Steakhouse. But the waiting lines were almost parties at those places. Time went by pretty fast, and then the food was great and pretty cheap.
I cannot wait more than half hour in any case. (If I would have to wait longer, I would just as well (do grocery shopping if needed and) cook at home.) Else, I won’t be enojying the dining.
I won’t wait at all.
Never If there is a line I will leave. this is just a lot of bull. Stand in line to pay for overpriced merchandise or food is stupid.
Fifteen or Twenty minutes, no more. And only that long because I’ve already gone to the trouble of finding a parking spot.
Fifteen or Twenty minutes, no more. INSIDE on a seat. Only that long because I’ve already gone to the trouble of finding a parking spot. There are a thousand places to eat – not one of them is worth standing outside for.
I work odd hours at times and don’t think eating before your hungry is normal so I go nowhere I have to wait.
You might possibly get me to wait 30 minutes if I’m in a good mood, or my wife is insistent that we eat at that particular place.
Otherwise, I make it a point to eat during off peak times (usually after 8 p.m. when I travel or mid afternoon when I don’t), and I do this specifically to avoid having to wait.
If you want my money, perhaps you should have a place for me to sit when I arrive (or provide some sort of methodology by which this is possible, such as reservations or call ahead seating). Otherwise, I’ll find another restaurant that will.
30 minutes, no food is that good, sorry.
cheese cake factory and pf changs at the mall(I’m a classy broad, what can I say?) are usually 45 minute wait…on a weeknight. I just cruise through the borders sandwiched in between the two eateries while keeping an eye on my little buzzy thing.