Busy queue in a cafe. About 20 minutes to get to the front. Student comes in, grabs a seat and gives his order to his friend in the queue

[cakeorwine]

Should the cafe staff have said anything?

It's really rude to do that - DS could easily have done the same thing whilst we were in the queue but it was busy and it would have been pushing in.

Is it just entitlement? Selfishness?

Or smart thinking and sod everyone else?

Fuck knows there's a 20 minute wait to order and an unspecified wait for food to actually appear. No cafe is that good honestly.

If you can’t find a table when you get there then go somewhere else.

common sense says you don’t order food unless you know you have somewhere to eat it!

Well that was a gamble because even if they were all eating they could have eaten very slowly, my MIL was a champion at that, could make a sandwich last an hour she talked so much between mouthfuls or sat chatting for an half an hour after finishing.

Sorry op - but why wouldn’t you get a table before queuing?
I genuinely don’t know anyone who would queue up for 20 minutes in a busy cafe without getting a table first, on the assumption a table will be available by the time they’re standing there having paid for a tray of food?
If there aren’t any tables, surely you wouldn’t purchase any food? Why would you buy food without knowing you have a place to sit & eat it? (Unless you’re planning on eating elsewhere or on the go).
It’s not entitlement, selfishness or table hogging, just common sense.

Personally I think waiting in a queue for 20 minutes is daft anyway, regardless of whether one of you sits. Why didn't you just go somewhere else?!

Queuing for 20 minutes, in a sit down cafe without a garunteed table is madness

Any cafe nice enough to be queuing 20 minutes for is a cafe nice enough to sit down before you order. The only way to guarantee everyone who orders gets a table is to sit down before you order, anyone who's stupid enough not to do this really does not deserve a table

If I went in the cafe and saw no tables free I would leave a go to another cafe, I am not queuing 20 minutes to find I have no table

It's not even a tray of food. It's table service. You turn up to the desk and order proper food to a table, and then apparently haven't haven't sat down at a table. Imagine them trying to bring food to your table, without any table number or any indication of where you are sitting, only to find you still loitering by the counter?

Its madness to queue for proper bought to the table food without a fucking table. Anyone's welcome to take that gamble but if you get to the front and find no free tables that's your own stupid fault

This thread is hilarious!
I'm imagining OP wandering pathetically with food and no table after queuing for 20 minutes

Turns out she got a table fine anyway and all the drama was irrelevant but still a fun image.

This is a very very busy and popular cafe with a queue to get into out and a barrier separating the tables from the queue.

Then the cafe needs to implement an efficient system and have signs which display what the queue, order and table system is.

To avoid lengthy queues which must take up half the pavement outside, they should be addressing the issue anyway. It sounds like a table service system would be more appropriate.

It really is daft of the cafe to not be dealing with this issue tbh. It cannot make sense to have groups of people queuing outside a cafe for 20+ minutes, for counter service.