Dateline: the dawn of restaurants. When I'm strolling yon sidewalk and happen upon a queue spilling out an eatery I never fail to be baffled. A full lobby, couples, parents with squirmy kids, sitting or standing, doing fuck all. Correction, they actually are doing something: they're waiting. Yes, waiting for the opportunity to wait longer for a group of fat bastards to finally end their gorge & waddle out to their minivans to motor home & purge & resume the cycle. Then y'all get seated, wait some more for germy menus, peruse the menu as if written in Sanskrit (omg they have...sandwiches!), wait for the server to take the order on notepad as if this was the 50s, as in the 1850s, then...wait for it...wait some more.
Yes, wait for an anonymous unwashed unseen ex-con use their bare germy hands to assemble your plate whilst breathing all over it. There your food waits under heat lamps for the server with their bare hands to fetch & deliver to your lazy arse unable to participate in feeding yourself other then shoveling it into your pie hole.
Was that cranky?
Why am I baffled? People will say 'oh the food is so good there you have to go omg.' I've been duped too many times by others who fall for this crapola (usually that involves music not food). Or mebbe their threshold for being gluttons is that low. The food is good? Fun fact: food is identical everywhere at every restaurant. Sandwiches, pastas, steaks, pizzas, salads, omelets...they're all the same. It's a salad, it's not a Rubik's cube.
I wrote about an NYC eating experience I had a few years ago with side-by-side steakhouses. One was packed, a Capital Grill. The other 10 feet away, a Ted Turner steakhouse was seemingly empty. I was with 3 others, the startup co-founders who were paying ergo couldn't object when the main guy said 'let's go to the busy one' yeah where we have no reservation. I figured at Ted's they'd be keen to have our business. That's why when I do eat out I avoid 'hey it's the best breakfast in town' places. Gak. You go for it, yeah go wait a half hour for eggs & toast. I'll go elsewhere, sit at the counter, have witty ish banter with the servers and get service because they're right there.
Y'all live like animals. Washing your hands in the river. In a queue.
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Update 12.18.23: So just yesterday I dropped off several packages at my local post office. It was 4pm. Twas the week before Xmas, that time of year when white people lose their minds. Anyhoots, walk in, 2 long lines nearly out the door. One was to talk to humans at the counter. The other was the queue for the self-service kiosk, where digits are tapped on a display and label spat out. I waltzed in, put mine in the magic chute, waltzed out. Putting on my bike helmet in the lobby I stared at the queues. Thinking: wtf people. Do you not own a $50 printer? Or hell just create an online label as pdf then take it somewhere on $5 usb stick to get printed. I wonder if they were thinking the same thing which is 'gee I wonder if in this modern age there's a more efficient way to do this than stand in line like animale?'
