Cue The Queue
So is it any surprise that more and more restaurants are abandoning the booking system altogether? The new branch of Polpo in London, Joà«l Robuchon, even uber-gastropub The Anchor & Hope are just a few of those that now prefer to let a Darwinian natural selection prevail where only the fastest and the most flexible get to eat. You want a table for 7 at 8pm – well you'd better come with some folding chairs because you could be in for a long night.
Some might say it's a cynical attempt to get you to spend your ready cash at the bar; some might say it's a beautifully egalitarian system that allows you to fully experience the bonhomie and ambience a good restaurant has to offer -- it's a wonderfully Mediterranean concept and we should enjoy rubbing shoulders with dozens of other like-minded famished people who choose to dine at the same venue; some might even say it's good for the soul to not be instantly gratified but to wait a little for pleasure.
Or you could argue it's a question of facilities. If the restaurant in question is going to have a larger bar with more seats to deal with the inevitable consequence of no booking (and you are of a similar carefree personality that can allow you to wait an indeterminate amount of time for food) then what's the problem? If, as seen many times outside a Japanese restaurant of certain standing in New York, you're left queuing in the street for hours, quite literally, shouldn't you start to question whether the whole experience is worth it? It's just food, y'know? There's loads of it – we'll just find somewhere else.
It comes down to what you value on an evening out. Do you value the food so highly in a particular establishment that you're prepared to wait however long it takes to get a bite? Or is your custom better served somewhere that values you enough to slot you into an ordered system focused entirely on your desires? Are you cued to queue?
No to cueing. There are more eating places than you can shake at stick at.