When is a Line Worth It?

If you arrive at Ambassadors Clubhouse around four o’clock on a Thursday evening—an hour before opening—don’t be surprised to find a line of hopeful would-be diners.They scroll, bored, on their phones, intermittently murmuring to each other about their chances of getting a table. Only a very rare few will succeed; walk-ins are only granted tables of day-of cancellations. No cancellations that night? You’re out of luck.There are other fantastic Indian restaurants with availability all over the city—some in the same Nomad neighborhood—but they’re not Ambassadors Clubhouse. Tomorrow evening, this line will form again, the ritual beginning anew.When the restaurant opened in early February, the reviews were stellar. But the hype around Ambassadors Clubhouse was baked in before the write-ups were even published. It’s among the many recent much-discussed British restaurant imports to hit New York—that name recognition only turbo-charged the success of this NYC outpost. The original location popped up in London’s Mayfair in 2024, won its first Michelin star this year; it has inspired reddit threads dedicated to the desperate art of snagging a table. This after a long run of acclaimed London restaurants—for which it is also very difficult to nab tables—by the restaurant group, JKS Restaurants, founded in 2008 and helmed by siblings Jyotin, Karam, and Sunaina Sethis.The international buzz has made New Yorkers positively feral. The well-oiled hype machine means tables have remained profoundly difficult to nab since Ambassadors Clubhouse’s opening. Reservations for the 150-seat restaurant drop two weeks in advance on Resy; many reddit threads will tell you they disappear almost immediately. The restaurant also notes “we are currently limiting guests to one reservation per month to ensure we can accommodate as many guests as possible.”The restaurant's sleek interiorThe Beetroot Raj Kachori Chaat.Diners consider Ambassadors Clubhouse's considerable menuBut is spending an hour loitering outside Ambassadors Clubhouse's locked door until you can plead your case to an iPad-wielding host worth the trouble? Does it matter? When your time in line nearly equals your time at dinner, the frictive experience of scheming, waiting, and pleading to get in becomes an inherent part of the dining experience itself.Restaurant lines, once a bug, have become a feature.Lining up went from a novelty—waking up early to queue for a cronut in 2013—to a socially distanced necessity during the pandemic, to a scourge in the years since. New York, in particular, is bedeviled with lines. Obsessed with getting in, hopeful restaurant goers queue for a taste of the legendary or soon-to-be: Carbone, Death & Co., The Corner Store. Now, further fueled by a churn of “hot” lists and an endless scroll of vertical video recommendationistas, we line up for dot cakes and frozen yogurt. We line up for tortillas, for scones, and, yes, for a longshot at a birthday dinner at a hard-to-get-into restaurant.The front of house staff greets hopeful diners at openingThe restaurants doors remain locked until its 5 p.m. openingWith a reservation book full to bursting, tables are fully occupied nearly every nightDressed in sleek black garments that can only be described as drapey, the hosts were all warm smiles and nods as I approached. It isn’t hard to imagine them sporting those same smiles, those same warm eyes as they tell you that there is simply no way you are eating in their restaurant tonight. “I’m loved and hated,” the maître d’ jauntily told me as she led me to the bar to wait for my table.If you can’t stomach waiting in line, allow me to describe the Ambassadors Clubhouse experience for you. The lengthy menu is an exploration of Punjabi cuisine. You can enjoy it upstairs among the dark lacquered walls, the curtains drawn against the early evening sun, or down the thick-banistered staircase in the subterranean dining room ringed with semi-private tables, each framed by thick, tiger print curtains. Your server might be eager to recommend a slew of delicious-sounding dishes, including the $120 caviar service. The dal, if you order it, will be profoundly buttery. The chili cheese pakode, should you ask for them, will provide a satisfying cheese pull. A braised lamb shoulder will shred into tender, spiced nirvana at the slightest prod.While I worked my way through the menu, I thought of the couple I’d met while I briefly waited at the bar. They were there to celebrate her birthday. “She flew in from LA,” he told me. “This is the one thing she really wanted to do.” After unsuccessfully chasing reservations online (“8:15 am is when [reservations open] so I woke up at 5:15 LA time,” she said bashfully), they made sure they’d be the first in line. “We lined up at 3:20,” she said.Was waiting in line for nearly two hours on her birthday worth it? “A hundred percent.”Some patrons wait months for a chance to order from Ambassadors Clubhouse's menuThe ultra-stretchy Chili Cheese PakodeLines have long been a part of restaurant culture, but in recent months something has shifted in our cycle of hype and waiting.In San Francisco, Butter & Crumble has asked patrons not to line up ahead of its opening, after years of queued customers disturbing neighbors. On a recent trip to the city I found myself lining up for a very-worth-it biscuit breakfast sandwich at Breadbelly, and a croissant from Arsicault (less so). Los Angeles diner Max and Helen’s reportedly garners an 8-hour line, and Reddit threads are dedicated to lining up at Austin’s legendary Franklin Barbecue. In New York, Damn Lines provides a surveillance feed and estimated wait times at hotspots like L’industrie and Golden Diner, so you can go when it's shortest.The obvious desperation, the herd mentality, the pure touristy feeling of it—standing in lines is cringe, but perhaps I’m being cynical. Why shouldn’t the anticipatory pleasure of lines contribute to the experience? What if the shared anticipatory pleasures of lines is the experience?On a recent episode of the Taste podcast, food writer Luke Fortney, who writes the Where to Eat newsletter for the New York Times, paints lines as the main attraction. “I think that a lot of people who are younger than me, when I talk to them about the experience of dining, they want the thing they saw online,” he says. “They don't mind the experience of waiting. It's like I could turn a single matcha into an entire afternoon activity. I think there's also this feeling of ‘I earned this.’”Waiting hours for the Ambassadors Clubhouse’s imposing doors to open makes it all the more gratifying when—if—you eventually snag a table. But waiting in line with friends or loved ones has become something of a hangout in itself. “It’s a third space,” as one line-waiter told Brock Colyar for New York.As line-haters the world over will tell you, there are many fantastic restaurants without a queue out front. But just as the experience at Ambassadors Clubhouse isn’t complete without seeing the jug-sized magnum of Johnny Walker, or hearing a bhangra remix of “My Humps” played over the speakers, the line and the impossible Resy notify list—which I’ve heard is in the six figures—is part of the… well not fun exactly, but something akin to it..They’re not all worth it, but lines—and skipping them—can be necessary ingredients in the experience of a restaurant. A line doesn’t necessarily mean the food is great, but it might mean you’ll savor each bite that much more. After all, good things come to those who wait.