New Yorkers are always waiting in the row of something.
Do you want a table in Lucali, a pizza restaurant in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, frequented by celebrities? Clean your afternoon to align early. Do you long for a Bakery radio dough? Wake up at dawn because some cakes run quickly.
From the pharmacy to a Stoop sale, the lines in New York City can appear everywhere, but what happens when it is at the door of your house?
Avoiding them is part of Max St. Pierre’s routine, a 34 -year -old architectural designer, who moved in 2022 to Park Slope. Goteing sweat, he took out his things from a U-Haul truck, carrying the frame of his bed while weaves through people’s horde. He quickly discovered that Miriam, an Israeli restaurant in the store of his building, was a great attraction.
“It’s more or less than I open the door and then there are bodies in front of me,” he said, and added later: “Even if the line is three people, it seems that he has 100 people long because he is in front of my door.”
Rafi Hasid, the owner of Miriam, has tried to lighten the inconveniences for residents such as Mr. St. Pierre. After long lines began to appear about 10 years ago, he decided to open the restaurant an hour before the weekend. Changing at 9 am from 10 has helped them move through the tables more quickly. “We try to be very cautious with our neighbors,” he said, encouraging neighbors to alert the restaurant when the line is disruptive so that “pay more attention.” Mr. St. Pierre said the crowds “have been less lately.”
When Printemps, the French department stores opened their location in New York in the Financial District of Manhattan, it was another step to be a good neighbor.
Residents who are in the same building on One Wall Street can skip the line, not a small gesture since the store had lines in the block on the opening weekend. Using an application, residents can show a QR code to print security at the door or establish special services, such as a private purchase appointment or a home adjustment.
Residents “are now the friend who can get his Friends to jump the line as the hottest clubs, “said Anna Zarro, president of sales at One Wall Street.” I think there is a little street credit now that comes with being the person with the application that is probably fun. ”
And yet, there is a conflict in every corner of New York. Leaving the line. Crossing the line. Drawing the line. Even the slightest discomfort could lead to beef.
Last year, an owner threatened to evict Apollo Bars of his location in West Village, arguing that his long lines interfered with nearby businesses. In East Village, a neighbor recently threw some water to some people waiting in the row of Mary or’s Irish Soda Breta Shop, where waiting times are more than an hour for a bun with jam.
People have aligned to try the most viral foods in the city for years. After Cronut’s debut in 2013, people lined up at Spring Street in Soho in the morning to try to hook one of Dominique Ansel’s hybrid candy.
But today’s crowds outside the restaurants, bars and bakeries can often be attributed to social networks. The newest platforms like Tiktok are full of videos promoting the “most popular” restaurants in New York. Even some of the less forceful restaurants still attract lines.
One of those dear social networks is Radio Bakery, who was named one of the best bakeries in the country for last year. Look in the bakery in Tiktok and Instagram, where you will see many influential and fans of the bakery that show their sets.
Radio Bakery opened in 2023 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Customers swarmed, while the smell of fresh cakes floated on the near Metro platform. The lines have not dissipated, sometimes winding halfway through the block, which has less than a quarter -long room. The white signs hang from a tree protector and the door of a house next door with the same message: “Please respect our neighbors, noise trips. Thank you, Radio Bakery.”
Will Fagan, 44, and his partner moved to the same week the same week that opened the bakery. “You live in New York and you are a bit open to, as, New York inconveniences, but it is not an inconvenience for us,” said Mr. Fagan, who works in musical marketing. At least, it is close if you want a dough and can verify if the line is long, but try not to go too frequently, only a few times a month. (His favorite is Pretzel’s bear cheese).
The proximity to cakes is not the only advantage. A business teenager who lived near Radio Bakery began a slope sale, selling clothes and toys to people in line.
When Radio Bakery opened a second location in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, the crowd followed it. The day of the inauguration, the line folded the corner and felt around 200 feet. The waiting times were more than an hour that day, and the staff passed the hot chocolate to those who queue in the cold. In the new location, barriers to six feet were installed from the entrance “to ensure that the line would not go directly in front of the apartments or businesses of people in the direction in which it was the line,” said Ben Howell, partner and director of Operations of Radio Bakery.
“It forces the line to be six feet away from the facade of other buildings, so there is no situation in which someone has someone right in front of them when they leave,” said Howell. He pointed out that they have been in contact with business in the same block where the line is extended.
As many New Yorkers can attest, a line can be annoying for people who do not necessarily live directly to the side.
Julia Feingold, 27, lives in an area of ​​Greenpoint that she described as “quite quiet” until last October, when Chrissy’s Pizza arrived with his highly anticipated brick and mortar shop, which is about 3 minutes at the foot of his apartment. The lines followed. In March, Hordes of People aligned in Chrissy’s for a collaboration with Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez to promote their new album.
“In the first days I was open, I thought: ‘My God, there are 30 people waiting in this block that there is usually no one,” said Mrs. Feingold, a graphic designer.
The Citi bicycle station in front of the pizzeria is now sometimes inaccessible, which makes you grab or save a bicycle, its main way to move, a task. People, he said, will wait for their pizzas on the bicycles or eat them there, and have had to move them away to grab a bicycle. Other times, he has a audience while putting the helmet and gloves. “I only have 30 strangers looking at me, which is great,” he said, laughing.
Chris Hansell, the owner of Chrissy’s Pizza, said the Citi bicycle station is accessible from the street and pointed out that the line that blocks its neighbors “has not been a problem.”
“I have not seen a problem in which someone was blocked to access a citi bicycle,” he said, and added later: “We are a small store, just like five, six people can really sit there at the same time to order and then have no choice but to wait outside because we serve complete cakes in my place, and take 10, 15 minutes to cook.”
Although she is anxious to try it, Mrs. Feingold has not yet been in Chrissy, mainly due to the line.
Mr. St. Pierre has been in Miriam and his location of food to carry a handful of times, but it is not “a great brunch.” He has tolerated the lines for three years because his rent is affordable and likes the area. “I have had some successful apartments and some Miss apartments, and I feel that it is one of these things that does not bother me enough to make me move,” he said.
He compared it with another classic experience in New York: When you find a mouse in your apartment, he said, you learn to live with that.
Of course, as New Yorkers know, there is never one.
