Sounds good. How would it work?

It's an excellent idea, but I'm sure many businesses would shy away from advertising this information because it would make you drive past them without stopping.

I thought, too, that businesses might shy away from it, due to people not stopping if the wait is too long. But what about the flipside? For instance if Applebee's, which is normally busy on a weekend night, is having a slower night than normal, this is a way to let people know that the wait isn't as long as they might think (people who might have otherwise assumed that it would be too busy to even stop). I think it works both ways and the benefits may outweigh the perceived downfalls of it.

I was thinking that it would be automatically updated from the host/hostess booth.

If this sort of system could provide *accurate* wait times, that would be fabulous! Unfortunately, the arena I would most love to see it implemented in - restaurants - is also the one that would give the system a bad reputation for being unreliable, as it is truly almost impossible to know when diners are going to leave their tables.

I love this idean and think it needs to be implemented prior to the Christmas of 2004! Keep them coming, I like your ideas!!!!

If I'm out for dinner, speed is not my first option, similarly haircuts are not something that should be rushed. relax a but [brykl], or book in advance

A good alternative which, in fact, is standard practice with restaurants in Beijing for customers who take a waiting number, is to call you on your mobile when your table is about to become available. You can quietly go for a beer or a little shopping or whatever. Nice.

Instead of relying on the restaurant's honesty, what about setting up a web site that would give you the average wait time at any restaurant, any day of the week, any time during business hours. It'd take a lot of "data collection"- sending people in to really eat there or at least monitoring and verifying how long it takes. You'd have to collect this over at least a four-week stretch to be fair. Once you've got that data though, you can say with reasonable certainty that (for example) the 16th Street Hard Rock Cafe has an average wait of 45 minutes at 7:30pm on Fridays.

When deciding where to eat, this information may also sway you into trying someplace new since there's no wait.

BTW, I've seen a lot of places that have add-ons to their sign that light up saying "No Wait" or "Immediate Seating".

In the restaurant business and many types of waiting rooms, it has been common practice to avoid clocks. The current goal for business is to occupy the waiting customer's time or somehow get them to commit themselves to stay (ie. giving customers pagers). As a consumer, I would love to know wait times in advance. As a business owner, I wouldn't want to set myself up for any type of negative criticism and lost business. There has to be some sort of compromise here where both parties win.

That is a good idea, not for restaurants per se, but for the BANKS. I have stood in line for 30 minutes to get a teller. Gordon Max

I have developed a mobile phone web site that, among other things, allows a host/hostess to update a form on her own cell phone browser that updates a mobile web page instantly. mobeezy.mobi. go there on a PC for the full website with explainations for how the whole site works. Then go to the same address on a mobile phone browser to see a small demo of what mobeezy can do.

Here's a compromise system that would be win/win. You get a timed ticket when you enter. Then, after n minutes had elapsed, a discount clock starts ticking. For every minute (or two, or three) thereafter, you get a 1% (or 2% or 3%) discount on your bill. There'd could be some maximum discount-limit. This would be good in doctor's offices.

PS: computerized cash registers and billing systems make this easy to implement accurately.