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Nov 23, 2003 - The Longest Wait
  On Saturday, the dedicated staff of edhat.com did not go out. No movies, no dinner, no dancing, no complaining. We didn’t even wash our hair. What we did do was pick up the phone and call some of the most popular restaurants in the county. We talked to gracious hosts and hostesses. We conversed. “Yes, I was wondering how long the wait is for a party of four right now?” we asked. And then, clutching our number 2 pencils, we waited for the answer.
Sometimes we were put on hold (Palazzio’s hold music is “That’s Amore!”), and sometimes we were just given a straight answer. The vaguest answer came from The Palace Cafe, where they don’t even have a list ... you just gotta stand in line. “It could be 45 minutes to an hour,” she said, “but I can’t really say for sure .... You gotta come by and check out the line.” Not very good information, but they do bring the liner-uppers tasty munchies while they wait (which makes the wait shorter no matter how long it is).
Well, it looks as if giving up a Saturday night to work came with a sweet reward for the awesomely dedicated edhat.com staff. You see, even though edhat subscribers consist of some of the brightest local minds, not one single person correctly identified Cold Spring Tavern as the restaurant with the longest wait. No correct answer means no one to give the movie tickets to! Fair is fair, and the dedicated staff at edhat.com will get the tickets. We think we will see the Cat in the Hat (get it - HAT?)
The TTT (time-to-table) for a party of four was two hours at Cold Springs on Saturday ... 15 minutes more than the Montecito Cafe (which was another one nobody in the contest selected). Many subscribers guessed Pascucci as the longest wait, but the hostess there said it was “only” an hour and a half. Chads, where they often make their customers applaud the chef (!?), also had a 90 minute wait.
The real shocker came from Brophy Bros, home of the best clam chowder and fish-and-chips in SB - and traditionally long waits (that aren’t really so bad ‘cause you can take the buzzer they give you and have a nice walk on the breakwater). A whopping 50% of people who entered the contest guessed it, but an honestly surprised hostess said there were only 2 parties waiting. She guessed the TTT at 10 minutes!
Below is a listing of all the wait times we found. We also created a
cool color-coded map where you can identify the restaurant and wait by mousing-over icons.
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