Hungry diners line up in anticipation for Pok Pok Ny to open at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday as part of a strategy to avoid waits that can stretch for several hours.. (Christian Johnston)
Hungry diners line up in anticipation for Pok Pok Ny to open at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday as part of a strategy to avoid waits that can stretch for several hours. (Christian Johnston)
Hungry diners line up in anticipation for Pok Pok Ny to open at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday as part of a strategy to avoid waits that can stretch for several hours. (Christian Johnston)
Cindy Wu had her table-snagging scheme in place for months prior to going to Pok Pok Ny a few weeks ago.
First, she researched.
After vigorous crowd-sourcing and voracious food-blog reading, she determined the best arrival time for a minimum wait was 30 minutes prior to the Thai joint’s 5:30 Sunday night opening.
Then Wu, a 31-year-old credit analyst at Citigroup, chose a sacrificial place-holder: Chris, her friend who lives in lower Manhattan. He was tasked with arriving at Pok Pok, located on Brooklyn’s Columbia Street waterfront, at 5 p.m. sharp.
Wu and her boyfriend would join him shortly thereafter.
Needless to say, tensions were high.
“As we were walking there, Chris is like, ‘Please get here soon. There are seven people in front of me and 20 behind me!’ By 5:30, there were at least 70 people waiting behind,” says Wu, who lives in Gramercy.
They were the lucky ones. Wu’s crew got inside the cult restaurant’s doors in the first wave. The less prepared? They were left with wait times of up to two hours to eat the restaurant’s acclaimed chicken wings.
But who’s keeping track of time when culinary pride is on the line? Brooklyn’s Pok Pok Ny is one of the city’s current “winner dinner” spots — no- or limited-reservation restaurants where the buzz is so great or the food (and patrons) so delicious, that New Yorkers will wait as long as three or four hours for a dining bragging badge.
With more and more hailed eateries such as Mission Chinese Food, Rosemary’s, Brooklyn Crab, Murray’s Cheese Bar and RedFarm eschewing traditional reservation systems, customers are literally lining up for a lick (and an entree pic, because if you don’t tweet, how will pals know you got in to eat?).
“I think that there are a lot of people who are really dedicated to the food scene in New York and they want to be aware of what’s new and what’s getting attention,” says Matthew Adams, director of operations at Pok Pok Ny. Soon after opening in April, lines for the restaurant hit the three-hour mark.
“I think there probably is an achievement to making it through the wait and joining us for a meal,” he says.
Mara Claricia is certainly one of the city’s more dedicated restaurant patrons.
After hearing rave reviews of the Szechwan cuisine at Mission Chinese Food, 29-year-old Claricia tried to score a table at the miniscule Lower East Side spot “multiple times” since it opened in May, “but the wait was too long and we were too hungry.”
What is the longest you would wait for a table?
Claricia and her foodie crew remained undeterred. On a Monday night in mid-August, they arrived hopeful and hungry at 7. They finally got in. At 10 p.m.
“We got super-sloshed at the bar next door,” says Claricia of how they passed the time. (Mission will take your number and call you 10 minutes before your table is ready.)
“The food tasted a lot better,” the Queens resident laughs.
Most importantly? She got to dish about her dishes.
“I posted on my Facebook that it was a success and that we were finally able to eat there!” says the product developer.
That’s a phenomenon restaurateur Ken Friedman is well acquainted with: “The thing New Yorkers do more than any other people in the whole world that I know of [is] they will pass by five or six empty restaurants and go to the one where there is a wait,” says Friedman, owner of the Spotted Pig in the West Village, one of the original no-reservation culinary destinations with three-hour waits.
“I think the younger the audience, the more willing they are to wait,” he adds.
And many have resigned themselves to hanging around, factoring it into any decent New York dinner out.
“When I go out for dinner, I expect to wait . . . especially if it’s a popular place,” says James Ferrarone, manager of Brooklyn Crab, where the average wait for seafood is 2 ½ hours, though it regularly creeps toward four.
Brooklyn Heights resident Alexis Anderson has refused to let anything stand between her and a besought table at Rosemary’s, Greenwich Village’s latest whitewashed, pretty-people den.
Not her booted-up stress-
fractured left foot, on which she hobbled by the bar. And certainly not the hour-and-45-minute wait time she and a co-worker were quoted for a Thursday night two-top at the no-reservations restaurant.
“This is the third or fourth time I’ve been here, and I still have never gotten a table,” admits the 27-year-old, who does marketing for media company PureWow, as she stands at Rosemary’s bar, nibbling on snacks while hopefully awaiting the hostess’ good news.
“It’s the see and be seen. Everyone wants to try something their friends have tried,” she reasons.
But for every person willing to bunker down with a glass (or three) of wine for the length of the “Titanic” flick, there’s another who can’t shirk the irk.
“I would love for it to be more easily accessible,” says Bonnie Lemon about Rosemary’s, which claims its table policy is meant to facilitate a neighborhood feel.
“There’s always a wait. It’s a little discouraging,” complains Lemon, 32, who lives a few blocks away and lingered bar-side for 90 minutes (the average prime-time wait, according to owner Carlos Suarez) for a table-for-two last week.
Stuart Willson, a 35-year-old SoHo resident who works for an investment firm, just flat-out refuses to play the rush-and-wait game.
“Two and a half hours is crazy . . . there’s no chance for that. My time is too valuable,” says Willson.
Others try to beat the system.
“There have been a few people using their pregnancy as a reason to get a table faster. It sort of worked,” Pok Pok’s director of operations Adams admits, “but in [nearby] Carroll Gardens, you’ll find that a lot of people are having children, so we are tip-toeing on thin ice with that one.”
Vanity Fair editor and restaurateur Graydon Carter concedes it’s a win for the hot spot that can pull off such a policy. (Not only do customers drink more — that is, if they can find space at the bar — but tables are turned over more quickly.)
“Most restaurants that have the luxury to not take reservations know they’re going to be full from open to close,” explains Carter, who is overseeing the opening of the Beatrice Inn, set for later this month.
While tables at the Beatrice will be available on OpenTable, a number of seats will be reserved for walk-ins to give it that oh-so-desired democratic, neighborhood feel.
“New Yorkers are pretty good at making inconvenient things work for them,” says Carter of city dwellers’ willingness to endure the hassle.
“If you want convenience — there’s always Belgium.”
TABLE TRICKS
Rosemary’s
Less is more. According to owner, Suarez, “We don’t really seat parties over six.” Thankfully, Rosemary’s is testing out a new software platform that will allow them to text waiting patrons when their table is ready.
Mission Chinese Food
The restaurant doesn’t require the full party to be there to put your name on the list, so designate a chosen one to go early and leave a phone number. Then just drink. Mission provides a keg of free beer for waiting patrons. Or be prepared to spend an hour or two at a nearby LES bar while you wait.
Pok Pok Ny
Show up 30 minutes before they open at 5:30 p.m. Sure, there will probably be a line, but unless that snaking crowd of hungry New Yorkers wraps around the bend, you’ll all be seated in the first wave, no extra wait, no hassle. To help customers pass the time, Pok Pok Ny is planning to open a bar nearby come winter.
Murray’s Cheese Bar
Make a bunch of new friends: Murray’s, which opened in July, will take reservations for parties of six or more.
Brooklyn Crab
The kitchen opens at 2 p.m. on weekends, but the bar opens at noon. Go early, have a few drinks, and you’ll be the first one in. Starting Oct. 15, Brooklyn Crab will take off-season reservations.