Originally Posted by
HawaiiTrvlr
That always puzzled me too. It's happened at several similiar restaurants. You can see that it is half full/half empty and are told to wait 5-10 minutes. Uh, I can see plenty of open tables. The only thing I thought about is that they were waiting for a service person for that section to be ready.
That's exactly why it happens. If a restaurant has, say, 24 tables to handle peak business but only enough staff to serve 16 tables when you arrive, it does nobody any good for them to seat you at table #17 right away. Doing so would overburden the wait staff and slow down service for everybody. Staff would feel run ragged, customers would feel frustrated and complain, tips would be poor, and the restaurant would develop a reputation for slow service. Much better all around to limit the seating so that customers feel well taken care of once they sit down for dinner.