Went out with the family to On the Border in Cary tonight. The food was awesome (mmm...avocado enchilada) and the drinks were pretty good, too. Unfortunately, that's where the praise ends.
The problems started when we got there. We arrived on the early side of the dinner rush, since Friday night restaurant waits are notorious for their length. We asked for a table for five adults, two high chairs, and a sling (for a carrier carseat). This is a few people less than when the whole family goes out, so we were pleasantly surprised to hear that the wait was only 20 minutes. Awesome. So we snagged some chairs, and commenced with waiting.
20 minutes passed. The kids were starting to get a bit fidgety. Okay, no big deal, they underestimated the wait a little bit. Maybe if one of the four hostesses standing around up front was actually serving or bussing tables, and not just holding the wall up and chatting, but, okay, cool whatever. We'll give them a few minutes.
30 minutes. My son has started to throw intermittent hungry/bored tantrums, and my niece keeps trying to wander off towards the bar, and I'm very tempted to follow her. My 2-month-old nephew is starting to stir, and my sister had really hoped we'd have a table before he woke up so she wouldn't have to feed him on a booth in the entryway. We ask the one hostess who actually appears to be working if they have any idea when our table would be ready and, oh, don't worry, a big group just got their bill, they'll be clearing out in just a few minutes.
We finally got sat after forty minutes of waiting. Now, I know that forty minutes really isn't a terrible wait for a Friday night. The problem is that it was
twice as long as they originally told us. If they had just told us at the beginning the wait was forty minutes, no problem! And I'm not just hating on restaurant workers, here. I've waited tables, and I know that you always tell the customer the worst-case scenario on wait time; you never undershoot it!
