For line-waiting devotees and despisers alike, I recommend Vladimir Sorokin's 1983 novel, The Queue, as a peak into Soviet version of the QTBA Unknown Item.
I disdain those lines with a passion (that New York or Nowhere line you alluded to makes me laugh and smdh in equal measure every time). And yet, thinking back over the last few weeks, I’ve waited in line for La Cabra, outside the New Balance store before it opened for the Auralee collabs, at the Met briefly to go into the Raphael show (highly recommended while you’re here, if you haven’t seen it yet), and probably a bunch of others that I’m purposely forgetting. So yeah, I hate them but somehow let myself be drawn into them when they lead to something I think I need. (But I’m a Gen X-er, so at least I have Fugazi’s “Merchandise” running through my head while I wait, I guess.)
I think the four reasons you ID for QTBATs make sense, and they do give the line waiters a somewhat noble purpose, in a way, but the overlay of the virtual world on those lines does make them feel a bit fraught. I stood on a very short line for matcha a while back, at a place near CHCM that normally has lines down the block, and every single person who got their matcha ahead of me pulled their phone out to document and presumably post its latte art. I have to admit, I really enjoyed my brief conversation with the woman preparing my matcha, but when I left the place and took my first sip, I wanted to throw it away; it tasted chalky and terrible. But at least it looked nice.
I only do QTBATS when I am freshly jet lagged heading into an adventure or returning home. I find the jet lag somehow allows me to not understand time and just enjoy being somewhere around others.
I'm in Tokyo for a month, and it has always amazed me how people here wait in line (99% young women) to buy the newest, cutest "do-nut" or cookie! I have to admit today I waited for a donut, but only 5 minutes!
The situation is bonkers now in Amsterdam. Choosing to stand in line for anything in Amsterdam is cursed behavior, but especially so for fries you can get anywhere (but this is the place on Tik Tok!) or even one of the very good but basically normal sandwiches from Chun. You came to Amsterdam to stand in line for a sandwich? For real?
And the broader problem is it feels it's now the majority who won't go to a place unless it's been featured in this way, leading to a wild flattening of what's on offer. Enter the pistachio cruffin. You can't get a single damn slice of decent pizza anywhere in this city but literally every corner will sell you a pistachio cruffin. Make it make sense!
Hey I’m not above waiting in the occasional line every now and then, it’s just part of life being in a place like NYC. It is just funny to observe when you’re not standing in one though and the efforts line or not even people will make to do this stuff- saw a particularly deranged post on the nyc food subreddit recently on how to eat at 4 Charles, which involved/suggested showing up 3 hours before opening 😳
Another aspect of QTBATs is the effect they have on shop owners & staff. Check the beautiful sentiments of the owners of a now-closed QTBAT spot in my city: “As entrepreneurs, we’ve spent 15 years in hustle mode, always pushing for the next step, the next goal, the next level of security. And while we’re proud of what we built, we’ve come to understand that the cost of that pace is time, time with our kids, time with each other, and time just living.” So after grossing ~$1 million by the end of April this year, they shut down & moved to Spain. https://edibleindy.com/restaurants/cafe-babette-announces-permanent-closure/
yeah, i think any restaurateur's life stands a good chance of being grueling and full of not-seeing-your-kids while you hustle -- but the QTBAT has gotta take things into another register for sure. someone in the f&b business i talked to yesterday said getting QTBATTED is like "a sugar high"
Observing the pox of Soho line-formation, as what has become the neighborhood's defining feature on weekends, is enough to be convinced to eschew the practice altogether, forever. But when it then comes time to experience some thing (likely discovered online) that inevitably involves standing on line to attain, we can easily frame the subject worthy enough to justify surrendering our pedestrian patronage to the hostile gaze of the cynic.
Memorial Day in Baltimore, we decided to try Cafe Dear Leon in, I think, Canton. The daily scheduled rotation of the entire menu leads to an interesting dynamic. You are faced with the possibility of not only missing out, but being too early. FOMO and FOBE simultaneously! The line at 11am on the Sunday was, needless to say, fucking stupid, but we came back the following day and could pick and choose from, based on our expert timing and lack of tourist competition, two separate menus of hot commodities sequentially, leading to the possibility procuring both a sando and a crookie (croissant + cookie!). Imagine the feeling of refilling a half-full bag of goods with more goods, some of these essentially two goods in one! It felt dirty, almost criminal.
For line-waiting devotees and despisers alike, I recommend Vladimir Sorokin's 1983 novel, The Queue, as a peak into Soviet version of the QTBA Unknown Item.
I disdain those lines with a passion (that New York or Nowhere line you alluded to makes me laugh and smdh in equal measure every time). And yet, thinking back over the last few weeks, I’ve waited in line for La Cabra, outside the New Balance store before it opened for the Auralee collabs, at the Met briefly to go into the Raphael show (highly recommended while you’re here, if you haven’t seen it yet), and probably a bunch of others that I’m purposely forgetting. So yeah, I hate them but somehow let myself be drawn into them when they lead to something I think I need. (But I’m a Gen X-er, so at least I have Fugazi’s “Merchandise” running through my head while I wait, I guess.)
I think the four reasons you ID for QTBATs make sense, and they do give the line waiters a somewhat noble purpose, in a way, but the overlay of the virtual world on those lines does make them feel a bit fraught. I stood on a very short line for matcha a while back, at a place near CHCM that normally has lines down the block, and every single person who got their matcha ahead of me pulled their phone out to document and presumably post its latte art. I have to admit, I really enjoyed my brief conversation with the woman preparing my matcha, but when I left the place and took my first sip, I wanted to throw it away; it tasted chalky and terrible. But at least it looked nice.
I only do QTBATS when I am freshly jet lagged heading into an adventure or returning home. I find the jet lag somehow allows me to not understand time and just enjoy being somewhere around others.
good policy
I'm in Tokyo for a month, and it has always amazed me how people here wait in line (99% young women) to buy the newest, cutest "do-nut" or cookie! I have to admit today I waited for a donut, but only 5 minutes!
The situation is bonkers now in Amsterdam. Choosing to stand in line for anything in Amsterdam is cursed behavior, but especially so for fries you can get anywhere (but this is the place on Tik Tok!) or even one of the very good but basically normal sandwiches from Chun. You came to Amsterdam to stand in line for a sandwich? For real?
And the broader problem is it feels it's now the majority who won't go to a place unless it's been featured in this way, leading to a wild flattening of what's on offer. Enter the pistachio cruffin. You can't get a single damn slice of decent pizza anywhere in this city but literally every corner will sell you a pistachio cruffin. Make it make sense!
Important on-the-ground QTBAT foreign correspondence, thank you
Headed to Amsterdam next month so this is great (if depressing) intel
Hey Jonah! Hey Erin!
What is the best way to contact you?
Hey I’m not above waiting in the occasional line every now and then, it’s just part of life being in a place like NYC. It is just funny to observe when you’re not standing in one though and the efforts line or not even people will make to do this stuff- saw a particularly deranged post on the nyc food subreddit recently on how to eat at 4 Charles, which involved/suggested showing up 3 hours before opening 😳
😵💫
Another aspect of QTBATs is the effect they have on shop owners & staff. Check the beautiful sentiments of the owners of a now-closed QTBAT spot in my city: “As entrepreneurs, we’ve spent 15 years in hustle mode, always pushing for the next step, the next goal, the next level of security. And while we’re proud of what we built, we’ve come to understand that the cost of that pace is time, time with our kids, time with each other, and time just living.” So after grossing ~$1 million by the end of April this year, they shut down & moved to Spain. https://edibleindy.com/restaurants/cafe-babette-announces-permanent-closure/
yeah, i think any restaurateur's life stands a good chance of being grueling and full of not-seeing-your-kids while you hustle -- but the QTBAT has gotta take things into another register for sure. someone in the f&b business i talked to yesterday said getting QTBATTED is like "a sugar high"
Observing the pox of Soho line-formation, as what has become the neighborhood's defining feature on weekends, is enough to be convinced to eschew the practice altogether, forever. But when it then comes time to experience some thing (likely discovered online) that inevitably involves standing on line to attain, we can easily frame the subject worthy enough to justify surrendering our pedestrian patronage to the hostile gaze of the cynic.
Memorial Day in Baltimore, we decided to try Cafe Dear Leon in, I think, Canton. The daily scheduled rotation of the entire menu leads to an interesting dynamic. You are faced with the possibility of not only missing out, but being too early. FOMO and FOBE simultaneously! The line at 11am on the Sunday was, needless to say, fucking stupid, but we came back the following day and could pick and choose from, based on our expert timing and lack of tourist competition, two separate menus of hot commodities sequentially, leading to the possibility procuring both a sando and a crookie (croissant + cookie!). Imagine the feeling of refilling a half-full bag of goods with more goods, some of these essentially two goods in one! It felt dirty, almost criminal.
Wow I can just barely follow what sounds like some 4-D chess qtbatting here 😂 Well done