I was at a El Torito Restaurant last evening...

[Kaieye]

and the restaurant was about half empty. Why did they ask my party of four to wait 20 minutes in the lobby??

I don't drink and neither does anyone else in our party so why is it they make us wait??


I understand that many restaurants do this cr*p. Is it to pressure us to buy drinks??

 

[bigrash]

maybe they only had tables for two available?

 

[The Stigenator]

nah.. I think its because each waiter has his or her domain.

 

[MacBaine]

If is a Sunday night and they aren't busy, they probably only have 1 or 2 servers, and they might not be able to handle so many tables at once.

 

[Luke1]

Or that can also happen when the kitchen gets gridlocked, then they will hold the door and put people on a wait until the kitchen catches up again.

 

[Looney]

Wow, that is bullsh1t. If i was in a restaurant and it was half empty, and they made me wait, i would ask them wtf was going on and leave. Without an explanation or anything? That's BS. The longest i've ever waited for a table was actually at Joe's Crab Shack in DFW area. That was a good 20mins or so. Normally if i need to wait for any large about of time, i would just leave. But that time the wait was worth it.

BTW, that place is insane... only place i know that makes their servers dance. I wonder if their wage is higher, i know i tipped them more than usual because i felt sorry for them needing to dance. The only thing that got to me that night was after 20mins waiting, and almost an hour eating (yeah we took our time), we heard the same songs OVER AND OVER again. There's only so many times you can listen to YMCA before you get sick of it. I wonder how they felt.