A couple of nights ago my husband and I went out for dinner. Since we had it in mind to eat in a very busy and popular area we knew we might have to try a few places before we found somewhere that would actually seat and feed us within 6 hours. We made some of the usual stops, 2 hour wait here, 2.5 hours there and finally ended up with a 10 minute wait - reasonable.

Our journey to find a decent dinner sparked a conversation about the endless waiting that occurs at most restaurants, especially chain restaurants. For example; if you have ever stepped foot inside an Olive Garden most likely you have had to wait more than 30 minutes for a table. Olive Garden is a decent restaurant, but it isn’t great and ”not great” does not warrant a 2 or 3 hour wait. Very little is worthy of that kind of wait.

So how do these restaurants get so crowded? Are that many people willing to wait for not bad but not great food for several hours? Yes they are. Part of the reason is that people don’t want to have to drive around and find somewhere else to go. They would rather wait 3 hours for ok food then spend 25 minutes finding a place that can seat them quickly. Another reason, is that many people only like bland chain food and aren’t willing to check out the more daring places. If you eliminate all ethnic food and only eat at American chains then you have much less to choose from. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In recent years I have become much more adventurous with food. The better cook I become the more daring I become as well. But I can’t expect everyone to feel the same comfort level with a chain like Ruby Tuesday’s as they would with Indian or Thai food. It is ok to be picky and it is ok to go to the same restaurant week after week if you choose.

But for me, every time I see a chain restaurant packed to the gills I just leave and find somewhere less crowded to go to. On a recent dinner outing we went out for an early dinner at our favorite sushi place. We were the only customers in the entire place. Bliss!

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