I recall standing for over an hour in a queue at Tartine Bakery on a Saturday morning - kind of ridiculous when I was only buying one of their famous Morning Buns and a coffee (but the bun was delicious). Another time, I simply joined the back of a queue as I was walking past a place called Dottie's, presuming that the breakfasts must be good if there were that many people in line. As I was on my own, I really didn't mind these queues and often got to jump ahead in line as I was dining alone.
There are numerous places in London that don't take reservations and you need to queue if you don't happen to turn up just before they open. Some of these queues move quickly, others can take a couple of hours. I find that I am not really prepared to queue in London unless it happens to be somewhere like Barrafina, that serve drinks to you while you are waiting, as there are so many other places to try.
As a rule I don't really like to stand in a queue for more than thirty minutes - whether this is to get into a bar, restaurant, art gallery, museum, or a sample sale. I may at times wait for up to an hour, I guess you have to factor in how much you want to try/see the thing or place you are queueing for and then also consider the time it would take you to find and go to an alternative place. As much as I love tennis, I don't think I could ever face the legendary queueing that takes place every year for tickets to Wimbledon.
If you are going to be visiting a city and hope to take in some of the major sights, it is worth doing some research on how to avoid long queues. For example, you can check to see if a gallery has extended opening hours in the evenings in summer. Once I attempted to go see Michelangelo's David at the Accademia Gallery in Florence only to find that the queue extended for a few hundred metres in the hot midday sun. I found out that the gallery stayed open until 10pm on Tuesdays so ended up going in to a near empty gallery after dining out that evening.
You can also look out to see if places have alternate entrances like at The Louvre, or if they have an entrance that families can use like at the Musee d'Orsay.*
Last weekend in Paris we had a dinner reservation on the Friday night, but on Saturday we decided to join the back of the queue at Le Relais de l'Entrecote. Just as MP asked me how long I would be willing to queue for, a lady came down the line and told us that for a table for two it would take approximately 10 minutes. Sure enough, we were seated not long after that at a cute table outside.
The waitress simply asked us how we would like our steak cooked and what we would like to drink. Everyone at the restaurant is served salad and bread followed by fries and steak with their famous secret sauce. There is a menu if you would like to order dessert. It is all pretty efficient, yet the food was yummy and the waitress was quick without making us feel like we were being rushed. It's a touristy spot - but somewhere that we would recommend.
On Sunday we headed to L'As du Fallafel. The queues here are also often extremely long - luckily we arrived just after they opened and were able to grab a table inside.
What are your thoughts on queueing? I think I have rarely been disappointed on the occasions that I have decided to queue for something, but long queues are something I would definitely avoid if I was with my husband and/or daughter.
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Images: 1, 2, 3
*I read that tip in this trip report from the littlest.
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