The queue

As one ages, an assortment of furious, oddly specific opinions beginning to form. These are fiercely held stances, usually concerning matters that feel quite random to provoke such ire, like driving on the motorway or the entire nation of France. I refer to them as ‘dad views’.

A dad view slowly calcifying for me is a deep and fervent contempt for the phenomena of long queues for trendy food spots. This gets my blood unbelievably hot. Sure, I dislike queuing at the best of times, but I’m aware standing in line is occasionally a necessary evil. I can just about stomach taking my place in a neat little chain of people if I’m posting a letter or going through passport control. But show me a wait time of more than 10 minutes for some eatery and I find myself getting actively angry. Even — and this is where it tips into dad territory — when it doesn’t affect me.

It’s sadly true. I get angry at the mere spectre of a non-essential lengthy queue. Cycling past the line outside Toad Bakery, with no intention of joining it, I fume. Seeing people choke up the pavement in hope of a table at that dim sum and duck place in King’s Cross irritates me beyond belief, despite that fact it’s something I usually only witness as I am leaving the excellent Vietnamese restaurant nearby, satiated and full. Even getting served TikToks about people queuing infuriates me. Food reviews feature clips of punters obediently waiting in snaking columns for all sorts of things: roast dinners, baked potatoes, mutton rolls, some disgusting Frankenstein’s monster of a cookie that has melded six types of desserts into one food item that could trigger sugar zoomies so powerful the consumer could run a marathon afterwards, or maybe fly.

This behaviour very rarely directly impacts me. So why does it get me so irate? Sure, sometimes my first choice of dinner destination is a no-go when I arrive and discover a long-ass queue dogging the entrance. But I spent the entirety of my adult life living in busy cities; I can usually judge when are sensible times to try for a restaurant I already know to be mildly popular. Mostly, I’m not the one waiting for an hour for my dinner; I’m passing by with a shake of my head. What makes it so hard to mind my own damn business?

Firstly: I come from a rich lineage of busybodies. Secondly, I suppose, it’s a kneejerk response to observing the the physical manifestation of mindless hype culture, something — don’t get me wrong — I am very much susceptible to. Queues that long are only ever borne of one thing: digital hype. Normalising two hours in line for some Greek food (as I saw one influencer report about her trip to Agora, a buzzy Central London restaurant), is not done via word of mouth.

A useful guide of places to avoid.

No, it has to come via a platform that reaches a large audience, whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, a Substack publication or some established broadsheet reviewer. More often than not, nowadays, it’s TikTok.

The thought of a TikTok generated queue in particular leaves a sour taste. TikTok virality is ruinous, the lowest hanging of fruit. I use clips I’m served of restaurants and bars on TikTok as a guide of where not to go — if they are being shown to someone of my profile (millennial woman, highly impressionable, extremely basic), it’s quite obvious they will already be overrun. If a regular haunt of mine makes it to TikTok I mourn. I know it means I can’t go there again.