Louisville-centric questions...

I'm with Justin on this (and thus find myself in agreement with Jeremy as well).

I would rather have someone spank my ass with a butter knife than to wait for a table. I absolutely will not go anywhere that I have to wait to be seated. No where...no time.

As for the 7pm thing (and hearkening back to my first statement) We get around not waiting by either (a) dining very early or very late (that later which serves to help us avoid Eliza's children ) or (b) we dine out during the week.

The 7 pm dining is universal...if we weren't at a restaurant by 6:30 in Detroit, we were better off staying home as it would turn into a whole night at the restaurant. In Knoxville, it was the same kinda thing...my parents schedules usually meant that we didn't eat until 8 anyways, so crowds were thinning when we were ready for dinner. When their schedules changed, we learned fast to meet somewhere right after work or we were in for a long wait...though that was still a better alternative than my mom's microwave cooking!

Louisville doesn't have a shortage of impatient people. We'd run into them in other places, but I've never seen so many people get upset over a 15-20 minute wait until we moved here. Not just passing on the wait and moving on to another place, but getting truly upset over the wait and making a scene. No one likes to wait, but a simple "thanks, we'll try another time" is so much better than showing your rear by insulting the hostess/management as you stomp out the door like a child. The jerks really seem to like (or hate!) the Outback in Fern Creek, seem to see at least one temper tantrum everytime we go there. In retrospect, it's the disrepect towards strangers and self importance that's more grating than the actual impatience...

I don't mind to wait, but how long I'll wait is directly tied to how badly I want to eat there. Though I'll have to learn to wait on the brunch thing a little longer...went to Selena's yesterday and had Mimosa on the mind only to find out that you can't serve alcohol here until after 1pm on Sundays! Breakfast was great, but a Mimosa would have really been good!

On recent Saturday night were busy but not totally slammed. Two couples walk in and I new from the first few seconds that they were going to be a bit challenging. I asked if they had a reservation- no. Okay no problem. give me a minuet to clean a table I say. I find the table for them and get a server to clean it and set it up. In the mean time I do about five things while the table is being cleaned. One of which is to seat a table that had a reservation. The two couples kept starring at me. I turn around and they are out the door. I have their menus in my hand. I walk out and say - Your table is ready. At which point one of the gentlemen says- You can take your table and shove it up your ass. Sir please do not use bad language in front of my customers. (There was a nice family with kids eating outside) This joker then says- I am taking my dollar someplace else. My reply- Please do and have a great day.
Not sure what the deal was with them but the other three folks looked a bit embarrassed. I know that time can get away from me but these guys were only waiting 10 min. while there table was being cleaned. I think it bothered them that I made three cocktails, sat another table and ran an appetizer while the watched. I am glad they left as I really am over that kind of attitude.

One of my food vendors was there and saw the scene. I asked him how long they waited and he said about 7 min.

Jeez...That guy sounded like a real jack wagon. Hope my comment above wasn't misconstrued as my having the same degree of impatience. In our case, we'll usually walk in and if we're told there is a wait we'll just politely tell the hostess that we'll "catch them another time".

I guess when you are ItB you see it all.

On recent Saturday night were busy but not totally slammed. Two couples walk in and I new from the first few seconds that they were going to be a bit challenging. I asked if they had a reservation- no. Okay no problem. give me a minuet to clean a table I say. I find the table for them and get a server to clean it and set it up. In the mean time I do about five things while the table is being cleaned. One of which is to seat a table that had a reservation. The two couples kept starring at me. I turn around and they are out the door. I have their menus in my hand. I walk out and say - Your table is ready. At which point one of the gentlemen says- You can take your table and shove it up your ass. Sir please do not use bad language in front of my customers. (There was a nice family with kids eating outside) This joker then says- I am taking my dollar someplace else. My reply- Please do and have a great day.
Not sure what the deal was with them but the other three folks looked a bit embarrassed. I know that time can get away from me but these guys were only waiting 10 min. while there table was being cleaned. I think it bothered them that I made three cocktails, sat another table and ran an appetizer while the watched. I am glad they left as I really am over that kind of attitude.

One of my food vendors was there and saw the scene. I asked him how long they waited and he said about 7 min.

Jeez...That guy sounded like a real jack wagon. Hope my comment above wasn't misconstrued as my having the same degree of impatience. In our case, we'll usually walk in and if we're told there is a wait we'll just politely tell the hostess that we'll "catch them another time".

I guess when you are ItB you see it all.

That stuff happens all the time, at many restaurants.

Jeez...That guy sounded like a real jack wagon. Hope my comment above wasn't misconstrued as my having the same degree of impatience. In our case, we'll usually walk in and if we're told there is a wait we'll just politely tell the hostess that we'll "catch them another time".

I guess when you are ItB you see it all.

No misconstrootion here. Seriously - they were waiting 7-10 min.

As a native Louisvillian, I think we are born thinking that dining after 7 is just not done. As a restaurant owner-- I am amazed that on a game night ( we are located in Slugger Field) people are surprised that we almost always have a wait going during the hour before a game. I've come to think of it as almost combat training for the front desk to continue to smile & be pleasant when many nasty things are said about the lack of seating.
We try very hard to have tables ready for our reservations, but yes, sometimes they may have a wait a few minutes---- but like all restaurants, we are trying our best to control the chaos!

We do seem to have an impatient group of diners, yet, almost every time I drive by IHOP, there is a large number of people waiting outside. I admit-- it scares me to think you will wait an hour for a pancake, but not 15 -20 minutes for craft beer & freshly prepared food?? What am I doing wrong?

I find waiting to be stressful... Often we will call while enroute to see if there will be a table available... if a restuarant has a significant wait, then they have more business than they can handle... at least to the level of service that I desire. So, what's wrong with me getting the service that I want...giving my business to a resturant that is not doing as well?

Oh, hallellujah! Teach us, brother!
Dead nuts on the money. We currently have 82 restaurants programmed into the cell. We just run down our order of preference for the evening and go to the first one that says there's no wait. And we, too, figure we are doing a service to the local indy eateries by spreading our business to the ones that have tables that need filling on a given night / time slot. And we do a service to ourselves by going to a place where the kitchen is at least somewhat less if not significantly less slammed so the food is likely to get a bit less rushed attention.

Keep Louisville (metro) weird - don't wait for a table. Spread the love to other deserving places that have them waiting for you!

As for slobs who show up and complain about a wait when they've not checked in advance - they've STILL not been weeded out of the gene pool?

I love a wait. We want a wait. I don't like to walk into a restaurant and be seated right away we have even let them skip us so we can wait awhile. No hurry, relax and enjoy it. We don't eat at 7 even on the rare occasion i'm at home. In the biz so we feed you at 7, then we eat later. We make a night of it. We love to people watch, have a few drinks, relax, then we eat.

I don't really mind waiting for up to 15 minutes at place that doesn't have a bar seat to enjoy while we wait. Unfortunately, my wife's regular scheduled feeding is around 6:00pm; whereas I like to eat later at 8:00pm or so. So we usually split the difference and wind up trying to eat at 7:00 like the rest of the planet.
Being in the "Bizz", I tend to notice lots of little things in the operation while I'm waiting to be seated that generally annoy me. So If I don't have the distraction of a seat at the bar, depending where we are eating, I have the tendency to get in a bad mental state before I get seated.
I feel that you receive certain levels of service depending on where you go. I certainly don't expect the same level of service at Steak and Shake that you would get at Varanese. So if I'm eating at a nicer establishment (one where I'm going to pay $20 or more for an entree) and I'm waiting for a table in the "Holding Corral" and I see dirty unseated tables, busboys playing grab ass and bunch of servers going into the kitchen empty handed, It kind of ruffles my feathers.

Burger King is the culprit, with that "have it your way" ad campaign back in the seventies. Empowering consumers was never a good idea.

Actually, I'm half serious in saying this. I have friends who fit the description of some tales here, both impatient and angry, with the attitude along the lines of "here's my money, now come and grovel and perhaps I'll let you have some of it."

I view all of it as symptomatic of far larger issues -- how it's all about money for so many Americans, and materialism usurps all other belief systems, and how the Man amputated senses of empathy so long ago -- how we insist that price point is the sole barometer, so hey, screw the wait staff and cut corners so the chains don't get all the business from people who refuse to think ... and so on.

But let's leave right wingers out of it, shall we?

Then again, I hear that I'm a Communist.

Then again, I hear that I'm a Communist.

Hmmmmmm....That's a new one. I've heard you called the "Beer Nazi" but never a word about being Communist.

I'll sit at the bar for dinner more often than not. If a restaurant's bartender/beertender has the personality of an egg yolk, then it's definitely not me who has the problem in this equation. But that's getting off track of the thread.

I think it's important to note that not all dining situations are the same - even given the same person involved.

Sometimes I want to make "an evening of it," so I'm more than happy to sit at the bar and have a few drinks while waiting for a table.

Sometimes, I've just burnt dinner and am beyond starving. In situations like that, my biggest concern is getting food as soon as possible.

I guess it is different strokes for different folks, but Lonnie's situation cracks me up. I don't see dining out as some big puzzle to solve. More times than not, I'm not "solely" focused on getting food as quickly as possible. There's much more to the experience than that. But, like Dan, I tend to get annoyed, at times, while waiting when I see certain actions occur. Hell, if you ask my gf, she will tell you that I get annoyed with these things happening in a restaurant even when I have been seated.

Such things include - inappropriate waiting area, a hostess that does not know how to properly work through a "waiting" list, being lied to about how long the wait is going to be (really, this helps business how?), bartenders who are so in to themselves that they can't tell that their self-attention is holding up drink orders, seeing people sat just to sit them all the while swamping a particular server, etc.

Such things include - inappropriate waiting area, a hostess that does not know how to properly work through a "waiting" list, being lied to about how long the wait is going to be (really, this helps business how?), bartenders who are so in to themselves that they can't tell that their self-attention is holding up drink orders, seeing people sat just to sit them all the while swamping a particular server, etc.

I agree with all of this...I think since we put in the theater chairs in the front of our restaurant that our waiting area is drastically improved, we have wait seating for 8, a bar, and a little bit of standing room now. And I could not agree more on the wait list lies...if anything we are over conservative here. I'd much rather seat you before you expected it than underestimate...that never ends well.