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It is City Daily Photo Bloggers' first of the month theme day today: waiting. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.
What do you do while you are waiting? This was the weirdest wait I've had in awhile. There were at least 8 empty tables. It was a weeknight at 6 PM on a popular neighborhood shopping street. I had come way across town to enjoy dinner out as I have eaten at this restaurant before. After entering and standing unnoticed in the small entryway for two minutes, I occupied myself with reading the menu board and deciding what yummy things I might order. I stood there for another couple of minutes, and other patrons turned around to look at me when their partners kept looking my way. Now I'm feeling awkward and kind of invisible as wait staff pass back and forth to tables. I noticed a Glassybaby hand blown glass votive on the host stand in front of me and thought I'd like to get a photo of them glowing so prettily on all the tables while I'm waiting. I took out my camera to get a discreet shot. Click. A wait staff suddenly looked up from the kitchen and said she'd be with me in a moment. A host also appeared from the back. "Hi, how many?" said the host, and after checking her computer screen for quite awhile to find seating for one said with neither smile nor apology that she needed me to come back in an hour and fifteen minutes, and she could seat me then. I sort of have a version of that old college adage that for a TA who is late to class students should wait 15 minutes, for an assistant professor, 20 minutes, and for a full professor, 30 minutes. Well, I was hungry, and this wait wasn't worth two full professors and a TA :-). Having lived many years in the Gourmet Ghetto area of Berkeley, I realize how slammed with crowds a popular small chef-owned restaurant like this can get. With some, reservations are a must. But it has only been at "cattle call" large chain restaurants hoping for bar tab profits that I can recall a small party being asked to wait so very long, let alone to leave and come back. So, I moseyed across the street to another place I also enjoy, was greeted immediately and seated, and had a nice meal and finished before the hour and fifteen minutes of requested wait time were up. Funny thing was, some of these tables remained open the whole time I was dining across the street. In San Francisco in the 80s and early 90s we frequented a small seafood restaurant out in the Aves owned by the chef and a couple of the wait staff. They didn't take reservations and were always so packed there was a line waiting outside. We often hoped there actually would be a line as the owners would often serve a glass of wine on the house to those waiting. Ah, Pacific Cafe, where is your kind of spirit these days? :-) There were never any empty tables and everyone got served your wonderful food and had a great time despite (or because of :-) ) the wait.
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