Poll: wait time at a casual restaurant

[livinitup]

I clicked yes bc I have and will wait for food at busy restaurants. I grew up in a ridiculously congested area. I also don’t go to places bc of the wait times. I factor it into whether I want to deal with it or not.

I don’t know if it was discussed here or somewhere else but a couple was in an empty restaurant (I think it was Valentine’s Day) and the food did not come out for an hour. The kitchen was super busy. The waitress was apologetic. It was because of to-go orders. That would make me so mad ! I would never ever dine in again if I was sitting and waiting for food for an hour in an empty restaurant.

So, I guess the reason why matters to me.

[kadams767]

May 13, 2024 12:05:44 GMT -5 livinitup said:

I clicked yes bc I have and will wait for food at busy restaurants. I grew up in a ridiculously congested area. I also don’t go to places bc of the wait times. I factor it into whether I want to deal with it or not.

I don’t know if it was discussed here or somewhere else but a couple was in an empty restaurant (I think it was Valentine’s Day) and the food did not come out for an hour. The kitchen was super busy. The waitress was apologetic. It was because of to-go orders. That would make me so mad ! I would never ever dine in again if I was sitting and waiting for food for an hour in an empty restaurant.

So, I guess the reason why matters to me.

This is a double-edged sword though, right?  You have people right in this thread saying they wouldn't wait in the restaurant, they would just order takeout next time.  And what you've described, perhaps not quite to the degree of an otherwise empty restaurant, but the insane amount of takeout orders places are handling now, is, IME, a big reason for these waits.  I think more people are ordering takeout than ever before rather than dining in - probably vestiges of the pandemic but also the rise of Uber Eats and DoorDash - and places are somewhat ill-equipped to handle that.  Whenever I am out and see the insanity for takeout, I frequently have visions of that scene from The Bear when they forgot to turn off online ordering and the tickets just kept spewing from the machine.  I truly think some version of that is reality for a lot of restaurants right now.  They can't go back to not doing takeout, because they won't survive, but they also can't really handle that plus the in-person dining.  

[Roc A Bee]

My answer is it depends. But at a fast casual where I’m ordering at a counter and they call a number or bring it to me? 30 minutes is too long.

A sit down place with a server, I think 30 is ok to wait.

I’m also notoriously impatient.

[kaneen]

We finally have a place by us with amazing pizza. It’s good for takeout but over the top amazing when you dine-in. Their takeout business is crazy causing long waits for food when you dinr-in.we still dine-in but factor in the wait time.

[ksun]

It's timely that you asked this - we were in ABQ this weekend with friends and went to a highly recommended spot (along with 2 locals). There were 8 of us so I understand that plays a role. BUT we were there at opening and were the 3rd table they seated when they opened for the day. It took an hour for us to get our food, and some of it was wrong and a lot of it wasn't nearly as good as what we were promised (it was on Triple D with Guy Fieri at one time)

I want to chalk it up to being busy and being a party of 8, but when I looked on Google and Yelp when we were done I see that it seems to be a thing happening there lately. Anyway, if you're used to service usually being 10-15 minutes and now it's 30+, yeah, I'd probably either go elsewhere or just make sure my schedule accomodated a longer wait time.

[MDmomof2]

DH and I went to a wood-fired pizza restaurant that also had pasta entrees. They were busy and the server said "a pizza will probably take 20 minutes as we've got a little backlog going." I appreciated the heads up and we ordered the pizza anyway - it was worth it!

[sandandsea]

We have kids and are always short on time so a shared wait time of 20 minutes is our max limit. If a restaurant is off 50% and we are at 30 we can manage but after 30 minutes it’s a waste of our time and patience so we always go somewhere else if they estimate a 30 minute wait. We also purposely eat at weird times when we can to avoid long waits or go to places with call ahead seating.

If I had already ordered I would probably wait it out but wouldn’t go back after being burned twice.

[wanderingback]

30 minutes doesn’t seem that horrible and if I’m already there I would not leave unless I had time sensitive plans. Our 18 month old is pretty good at restaurants but if the food is taking longer we’ll ask for some bread or other side to entertain/tie her over until entrees came. I definitely wouldn’t go back if they continually had slow service that was problematic to my needs.

I think I posted a similar story but our meal took about 2 hours for Mexican food. I haven’t gone back.

[fivechickens]

I know it’s different but we wait 40-60 minutes on pizza delivery so I am not sure I would care. It would annoy me if I was used to 10 minute wait that ended being longer and they didn’t tell us.

[sapphireblue]

I voted yes.

For me, it would be dependent on the company I was with, so generally I would be out with someone or a group of people I like and enjoy so it wouldn't bother me. If I were feeling super socially awkward (as I do at times) or was hangry, or something like that, it might feel like too long.