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If I see a line, I won't go. I go somewhere else. But, we always go off-hours/off-season everywhere we go. Our go-to time down here is 4:45 when going out. The locals like to eat very late so we miss any busy times.
It's not that "my time is valuable"---I'm retired so it's not. I just hate waiting in any lines. Even at the airport, we wait until everyone is called then go last, lol.
30 minutes. There are very few places that are even worth waiting that long. I'd only wait longer if there were other things for me to do nearby while I waited, but I sure wouldn't just stand there like a fool when there are food options all over the place, especially when reservations are a thing. I'm also in the habit of going to popular spots during unpopular times so this isn't much of an issue for me.
Maybe I’m coming at this from the wrong angle, but if I was strolling around a town, any town, at home or abroad and felt the need for a coffee and a sandwich or piece of cake I’d expect to get served within 5 or 10 minutes of being seated, if I was told that there’d be a wait I’d thank them politely and go elsewhere.
I almost invariably make reservations when we go out to dinner and if we arrived on time or maybe 5 minutes early, to be told that our table wasn’t quite ready, I’d accept that and go to the bar until called.
If the wait stretched into 25-30 minutes it would depend on how good the restaurant was, I’d either take it on the chin and have another drink, or tell the maître d’ that we’d see him another time.
If we took a chance and walked into a restaurant without having a reservation and was told that the wait would be 90 minutes plus, then we’d go elsewhere, a place that busy would be breathing down my neck with the check while we were still finishing our coffee.
We took a chance on a really good restaurant in central Madrid years ago, going in at 9.00 p.m., (Spaniards like to eat late), the maître d’ said that they were full and there was no room at the bar.
He said, “Go to a bar across the street, give me your number and I’ll call you as soon as I can seat you.”
He called at 10.15 p.m. and gave us an aperitif and a bottle of wine on the house, now that was worth the wait
There is an amazing BBQ place about 2 hours from us that we go to every summer. Part of the fun is the wait, you sit on the grass, have a beer and hang out with people from all over the place. The wait for take out can be about an hour and a table is usually two. The only type of place I will wait for is something like that, sunny day in the mountains on a grassy lawn talking with people who are in the same mind set. I can't think of a place I have waited for other than that, if I'm hungry I want to eat and will happily find some where to do that, if it's a more upscale place I make a reservation.
I would say about 45 minutes to a hour, depending on the situation. A lot of places now just ask for your phone number and will text you when the table is ready, so you can walk around the immediate neighborhood if you’re lucky enough to be in an area that has a shop or two nearby.
Usually when you are waiting 45 minutes or so, the other places in the neighborhood also have waits so it’s kind of like by the time you end up getting on and off another list, you would already have been seated at the first place. I went to one fairly well known place recently and had to wait 30-45 minutes. That place was pretty remote, so by the time you got back in your car and drove to some other place, you’d definitely be seated at the first place.
On the other hand, when you get to well over an hour, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to find some other place to offer seating earlier even with a drive.
Not always the case in very small towns separated by many miles, especially when no similar restaurants are around at all. Or tourist towns during high season.
...Unless you’re willing to eat at a fast food chain.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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It would be rare for me to wait more than 20 minutes. If the greeter says "30 minutes" or more I'll walk and find another place. The exception was a now defunct restaurant in Berkeley, CA, Spenger's Fish Grotto. It closed after 128 years as an icon in the Bay Area. That place was so good back in the 1970s-80s that if we decided to go there and found it was a two hour wait, we would go to the bar and have a drink until our name was called.
20 minutes max wait for us because can't trust the person telling us over that amount of time.
If they have a bar area where we can get seated while waiting and it's a place we really want to eat at them it's a "maybe" for longer wait.
I used to be a hostess 50 years ago and tell people what their wait time was. In high season in Florida people waited because they'd have to wait wherever they went between 7-9 pm. That's the reason for Early Bird prices, get them out and tables open for the big spenders/big drinkers.
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