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The Infatuation
Where To Hang Out Near 14 Restaurants With Long Waits
By Willa Moore,
19 days ago
Kate Previte
It’s Friday night, you just showed up to one of NYC’s hottest spots , and they tell you it’s going to be a three-hour wait. Going home is out of the question, and picking a different restaurant feels like accepting defeat. What you need is a waiting room: A place with good drinks within walking distance, where you can hang out for an undisclosed amount of time and not feel weird about it.
We took stock of the city’s toughest reservations —plus a few notorious walk-in only restaurants—and found the best places to wait nearby. If you’re ready to try for a table at Lucali , or Lilia , or Tatiana , here’s the game plan, plus a back-up plan.
If you show up at Lincoln Center by 4:30pm on a weekday, you might actually get a bar seat at Tatiana, one of the city's best restaurants , at 5pm. But it you can't make that happen, put your name in, make peace with your wait, and then do one of two things. If it’s before 8pm, go across the vestibule to the Lobby Bar at David Geffen Hall, where you can get a glass of wine and send a few last-minute emails (there’s wifi in there). Or, head across the street to Rampoldi . The Monte Carlo import has a long bar that's never too crowded, and if you want to start big spending, you can get a $45 martini with gold flakes.
The walk from Lucali to Black Mountain Wine House in Gowanus will only take you about 12 minutes, but feel free to take your time. Explore Carroll Gardens , or gaze at the Gowanus Canal—you'll likely have several hours to kill, so there's no need to rush. Then grab a seat at Black Mountain Wine House, on the patio or in the ski chalet-like space inside, and order a bottle of wine, and maybe a cheese plate. Alternatively, you might actually have the time to see a feature-length film, and Court Street is home to one of the most quaint neighborhood movie theaters— Cobble Hill Cinemas .
The best place to pregame a lively night out at this clubby Indian spot in the East Village ? At Superbueno , an exceptionally lively bar with cocktails that will take any long wait-associated pain away. Order a mushroom margarita and a tostada if you need one. Superbueno takes reservations, but there is a cancellation fee—so if it’s too packed, head to Commodore II , a bar where you can drink a frozen piña colada and eat a pre-dinner fried chicken.
While you mentally prepare yourself for the several-hundred-dollar bill you're going to receive after a dinner at Torrisi, might we suggest a relatively affordable drink at Tom & Jerry’s ? It’s 0.1 miles away from the Italian-ish Nolita hotspot, and it’s just sort of unremarkable in the best way. Bring cash and stick to beer at a table underneath a taxidermied deer head. Or, if you’re more of a frozen margarita person, try Botanica Bar —the frozen drinks are $11, and house cocktails are $12.
Don Angie and sister restaurant San Sabino are directly next to each other in the West Village, and in our wildest dreams, if we aren’t able to get into one, we just opt for the other. In reality, your best bet is The Happiest Hour , which can get a little crowded, but where you can drink a large format cocktail standing up, if need be. Or drink an Aperol spritz at Tivoli Trattoria —it’s technically a restaurant, but it’s easy to get into, and it serves Italian food in case you get too hungry to wait for your table at Don Angie.
From the team behind Miss Ada , seafood-focused Theodora saves some bar seats for walk-ins. But that’s only sort of helpful on a Thursday night, when every Fort Greene couple has decided that they deserve to eat some sexy little fish plates. Don’t freak out. Petit Paulette , a tiny wine bar opposite Fort Greene Park, is less than a 10-minute walk away. Slurp some pre-seafood oysters and sip on a glass of wine or two. If it’s too full of young people pretending they’re in Paris, head to Rhodora , a wine bar with frequent pop-ups and outdoor seating.
We have no idea how long it’ll take for you to get seated as a walk-in at this legendary Williamsburg Italian restaurant. Seriously, your guess is as good as ours. But instead of agonizing over your future table, might we suggest a vinyl listening bar? Mr. Melo is a four-minute walk away, and it’s where you should listen to some calming music and drink a feta brine martini. Alternatively, consider caffeine. Alcoholic caffeine, in the form of Rocka Rolla ’s Coffee Drink, which is sort of like a Frosty with brown liquor. That’ll keep you wide awake and ready for a dainty bowl of pink peppercorn pasta.
To gain access to Coqodaq—the Korean fried chicken hotspot from the team behind Cote —you’ll need to put your name in, and then hope they're actually ready for you when they say they will be. (We were once quoted an hour and 45 minutes, and ended up waiting three.) Head to The Tusk Bar to drink a mini martini or two. It can get crowded, so if you can’t get a spot, retreat to Old Town Bar , a classic two-floor Union Square institution where the martinis are not mini, and taste like rubbing alcohol in the very best way possible.
If you want to eat the most perfect roast chicken in Brooklyn, expect a wait, because Sailor in Fort Greene has been booked out since it opened in September 2023. For a waiting-spritz, snag a spot outside at Saraghina Caffe . Not only is it some of the best sidewalk seating around, but you can order a pizza, and it's also exactly one block away, so you can keep tabs on everyone coming and going out of Sailor. Not that you would. But you could. If it’s not sitting-outside weather, head to Karasu , a Japanese speakeasy in the back of a restaurant, where you can get a cocktail named Call Me Beep Me If You Want To Lychee.
Four Horsemen in Williamsburg appeals to small plate and natural wine bar enthusiasts, and unluckily for all of us, everybody is a small plate and natural wine bar enthusiast these days. When you've got some time to kill before your glass of pet-nat, it just makes sense to drink more pet-nat. Sauced is less than a half mile away, and even at its most crowded, you can find space in their backyard to loiter with a bottle. For something a bit more intimate, try St. Mazie , which has live music every night.
To eat some of NYC’s best Indian food in the West Village without a reservation, you should accept that it’s going to take a little while, then make a beeline for Talea’s West Village location. The women-owned brewery has interesting beer, and espresso martinis. Plus, if you get peckish, they allow outside food, so you could enlist the line-standing enthusiast in your party to pick up some slices from L’Industrie . Or, check out The Happiest Hour —it can get crowded, but you can always stand around with a $32 bucket of beers.
The team behind Via Carota and nearby I Sodi essentially opened a bar to deal with their overflow, and for that we are thankful. Bar Pisellino in the West Village is within a block of both Italian spots, and it's a picture perfect spot for a spritz and some arancini. Like its restaurant counterparts, this place can get pretty packed with everybody else who’s also waiting patiently for their insalata verde. If there’s a wait for the waiting room, head to Marie’s Crisis Cafe and sing some show tunes at the divey piano bar instead.
If Le French Diner were a walk-in closet, it would be large. But it’s a restaurant, so it’s tiny. And unless you arrive at this Lower East Side spot just before 5pm, you can safely bet that you won’t get a seat anytime soon. Enter Mary’s . There’s a disco ball in the back, a weekday Happy Hour from 3pm-7pm and lots of seating, so drink a martini while you wait for your dinner phone call. Or—if it’s nice out—head to The Ten Bells , which has a daily oyster Happy Hour and $20 carafes of wine.
Friday night dinner at Kiki’s in Dimes Square always seems like a good idea, until you show up and find a line of people in big pants and tiny shirts waiting to put their name in, just so that they can wait longer for an actual table. Follow suit, and then head to Le Dive . Chances are high it'll also be teeming with devout downtowners , but there's lots of outdoor seating, the wine is good, and the people-watching is even better. If you can’t score a table, try nearby Bar Belly , which has a very notable oyster Happy Hour.
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