Serendipity for Dinner

We have some friends and family visiting from out of town, and so for dinner this evening we put our names in at Serendipity on 60th at about 3:45, after which we were lucky enough to be seated at around 5:15.

On the last visit I got the Catcher in the Rye sandwich; this time a burger. My rule from now on: stick with the sandwiches. Not that the burger was bad, although it was a bit overcooked. Just that the sandwiches are their strong point. The other couple of entrees we have tried (e.g. the Sheperd's Pie) have not been nearly as good. Of course that all pertains to the food items, which are obviously not the Serendipity specialty and are all there simply to give people some filler before jumping to to dessert.

On the dessert front, everyone agreed that the Humble Pie was without question the best dessert out of the ones we tried. My Forbidden Broadway Sundae was a close second, though. Next time I will be sure to try the Humble Pie in sundae form, which they also offer. Surely that would be the ultimate.

My only objection to Serendipity is the fact that they only give out a very limited number of reservations, particularly on weekends. We live close enough nearby that I can tell that on weekends there is always a big crowd outside their door, and the sidewalk outside on a Saturday or Sunday will be packed with people waiting to get in. If you enter during that time you are sure to here exclamations from some of the first-time visitors who haven't done any research beforehand when they are told it will be a two-hour wait.

My reaction on seeing all the people waiting is to wonder: who benefits from all these people wasting their time sitting outside on the sidewalk? Wouldn't it be better to allow more reservations if it would provide more predictability for both guests and the restaurant? How much is the ability to accept walk-ins really worth? I would argue that they don't really have the ability to accept walk-ins as it is, since "walk-in" in this case just means walking in and waiting a couple of hours.

Perhaps this would be the ideal place to experiment with a market-based menu pricing scheme, so that prices would dynamically adjust depending on the number of people waiting, and likewise decline when the restaurant has excess seating capacity.