Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy you a space in a waiting line at a “hot” restaurant.
On a nice October day in San Francisco, we decided to join friends for the afternoon and an early dinner. They suggested State Bird Provisions, a favorite restaurant of theirs that has become incredibly popular. So popular that unless you are on your computer at the precise moment reservations become available, you’re out of luck.
As with other popular restaurants, unsubstantiated rumors are that automatic computer programs, known as “bots,” scoop up most of the reservations anyway. Yes, first world problems.
But State Bird Provisions also has a customer-friendly policy of saving tables for walk-ins. So since we would be in the city early, we decided to meet outside the restaurant and get in line over an hour in advance.
At 4:15 p.m. with a 5:30 p.m. opening, we were still behind seven people in line. Fair enough, although in the process of waiting we discovered that most of the seven weren’t actual diners, but were working for Taskrabbit. (While Taskrabbit isn’t unique, they’re one of the better known errand services, with the motto “We’ll do what you don’t want to, so you can do what you love.”)
The young woman in front of us, who said she was making about $14 an hour and should have been charging more, was holding a space for a party of three.
We ended up chatting with both her and the person who hired her. In this case, it was another young woman whose parents were visiting from out of town; she told us she didn’t want to make them wait in line.
Another “Taskrabbit” was holding space for a well-dressed middle-aged couple, who showed up and gave her a nice tip.
As it turned out, the restaurant seated about the first dozen parties quickly — both the prospective diners who had been waiting and those who used surrogates. However, we had no idea how many of the people behind us were also paid “waiters.”
It’s not as if people haven’t hired others to help them avoid lines in the past.
I remember in the old days of playoff tickets being sold at the stadiums hearing stories about scalpers who hired students and even homeless people to wait for them in line.
Ditto “Black Friday” sales and first releases of things like video games and other electronics. But clearly the Internet and all these new apps mean that buying your way out of waiting has been taken to a different level. Now you don’t even need to physically find someone to wait in line for you; you can connect online, pay online, and only meet up when you actually take the space.
And, in this case, the restaurant, which is moderately priced by San Francisco standards, has gone out of its way to encourage last-minute patrons, or those who can’t stay up late to fight for the reservations that fill up almost instantly when they become available every midnight — for 60 days out!
As its website says, “We welcome walk-ins on a first-come, first-served basis and set aside a significant portion of our seats every night, including our chef’s counter and several tables in the dining room, for those guests.”
Money has long helped buy access to restaurant reservations, whether by way of a concierge or through slipping cash to the maître d’ or host upon arrival. And Las Vegas resorts routinely give front of the buffet line privileges to regular guests and big spenders.
Apps such as Table8 are now selling reservations for popular restaurants directly. So I’m not sure how I feel about paid place-holding. And I’m not sure if a restaurant could stop the practice even if it tried.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
