At Bits + Bites, 7x7 food editor Sara deseran ponders the psychology of lines ― that is, the act of standing in one of the city's notoriously slow-moving food queues. Deseran:
I often wonder if people in San Francisco might actually revel in the whole waiting game. Whether we're on the sidewalk outside Mama's on a Sunday, biding our time in the Bi-Rite Creamery queue or salivating at the aroma of porchetta wafting our way at the Roli Roti truck, I think there's something to the anticipation--maybe even the just slightly degrading act of almost begging for your food--that might make it taste all the better.Deseran queries proprietors of three perennially line-dogged establishments: owners or managers at Tartine Bakery, Roli Roti, and American Grilled Cheese Kitchen.
Interestingly, each defends his or her line as tools for community-building.
Captive line jockeys exchange knowledge about the pastries at Tartine, contribute to the corny culture of grilled-cheese lore at the American, and, well ― just feel as if enduring the 45-minute wait for Roli Roti's porchetta to be the least anyone can do to score a taste of the sublime.
Hmmm. Maybe Deseran's unwittingly unearthed a bit of psychology more interesting than customers' sense of delayed gratification: the owners' assumption that you deserve to wait.
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