Several weeks ago Fabio pointed out a novel reason why restaurants might choose long lines intead of higher prices - the longer lines induce people in the restaurant to eat faster. This is an interesting suggestion but it misses quite a bit of the phenomena because it applies (presumably) only to physical, on-premises waiting. Many fine restaurants, however, have long waiting times to get a reservation. The French Laundry, for example, is perhaps the best restaurant in America and the wait to get in is 2 months or more! (2 months for a normal day - much longer if you want to book for Valentines or something like that.) This sort of waiting seems much more amenable to a Becker type explanation involving non-linearities and prestige factors.
Alex Tabarrok
