Punting a restaurant off my list
 

The victim: Bahama Breeze, KoP Mall area.

The offense:

My wife, myself and a mutual friend were interested in going there Saturday night. I'd dealt with them before on a Saturday, and the wait time is usually horrendous, as they have Call-Ahead Seating. The last time we tried it, we got there at 4:30 on a Saturday and were told "two hour wait" with a near-empty lobby, because tables were reserved for callers.

Note that the restaurant does not accept reservations. They reserve positions on the wait list for tables for those who call ahead. This is an important plot point.

So around 3:30, I called up to put our names on the list. The host says "We have no wait now, so we can't put you down on our wait list for tables. Try calling about 30 minutes before you're going to arrive." Sounds reasonable.

Around 4:45, standing in my friend's kitchen, I called to put our names on the list. The hostess says "We have no wait now, so we can't put you down on our wait list for tables. Come on in." I shrug, and we drive directly from Exton to KoP, about a 15-minute drive.

A few minutes after 5, we park and walk in the door. The place is mobbed. We reach the hostess and she says "It'll be about an hour's wait." I pointed out that I'd tried to play by their rules and call ahead _twice_, once within the past 20 minutes, and she sniffed and said "Well, we must not have had a wait then."

No, fuck YOU, ma'am.

We walked over to the sports-bar restaurant next door, where we had zero wait for a table. While standing in line to speak to the hostess there, we noticed a familiar-looking couple in front of us. We compared notes; they'd been standing in front of us in the Bahama line, and Bahama did the same "we do call-ahead seating, if you call ahead in a specific three-minute time window, but you'll wait for an hour if that window occurs during your commute" stunt to them.

OFF THE ACCEPTABLE RESTAURANT LIST with them. Outback does call-ahead and people don't deal with this shit there.

On the bright side, if they keep this up, there won't be such a long wait in the future.

The last time I tried call-ahead at Outback, there was a 2 hour wait. At 4 in the afternoon on a Sunday.

My friends and I went to The Sumney (a stand-alone local restaurant with a mild sports-bar flavor (i.e., you can see a TV from every seat in the place, but they don't overdo the sports thing)) which had immediate seating.

I wasn't impressed with Bahama Breeze anyway. The food was "meh" and the drinks were watery. And, honey, I know when drinnks are watery.

Plus, they were OUT of Key Lime pie. WTF?