Waaaaaiting for Food

It's not my favorite thing to do.

When I'm hungry, I'm hungry, LOL. But waiting to eat is exactly what we did on Sunday 9/5. We made a date with our friends Dejah and Roby to eat at Phil's BBQ. Phil's is lauded as THE BEST BBQ in San Diego. We decided it was time to go check it out, after many years of living here. Even though, we had heard that the line to get inside the restaurant is LEGENDARY. It just so happens, by accident, that Todd got to go to Phil's BBQ with some work people a few days prior to our date. He hadn't planned on it, because we already had our date with Dejah and Roby. Todd and his coworkers had tried to go to Carlo's favorite Mexican restaurant in Chula Vista. But on the day they went, parts of Chula Vista had lost power, so the restaurant was unable to serve. They ended up at Phil's BBQ. When Todd came home from work that day, he could not stop talking about it. He said it was THE BEST FOOD he'd EVER had. Well, that's quite an endorsement, and set the expectation very high for me.

So on Sunday (9/5) afternoon, we arrived at Phil's BBQ at 4:30pm. Yes, 4:30. Because we wanted to wait less long for food. Guess what the line was like at 4:30pm?


You couldn't even see the end of the line from there.


It was like Disneyland.  The line wrapped around and just when you thought you were almost there, you see more line hidden around the corner.

So guess how long it took for us to get inside the restaurant to order our food? An hour and a half. That was just to get to the counter to order the food. We thought the food would come out at the counter right after we ordered it. But they gave us a buzzer and said, "It'll be about 20-25 minutes." Ugh! We were grouchy because we already had to endure two teenagers making out in front of us in line the entire time. In front of the girl's mother! It was the most disgusting public display of affection I had ever seen. They looked like they were 14 years old. And her mother was right there with them in line! Dejah and I were astounded that the mother just let her daughter make out with her boyfriend in public, right in front of her. It basically left us speechless.

We waited at our table exhausted and hungry.


Finally, our buzzers sounded and Todd and Roby joyously bounded up to the counter to get our massive amounts of food.


I ordered ribs and they did look delicious. Just about now I'm thinking, "This better be worth it for the almost two hour wait."


Todd was quite ready to bite into his tri-tip BBQ beef sandwich!


After the food came, we were much happier and perkier, even in our bibs.


So was it worth the wait? Maybe.
The food was very good, but in my opinion it was not so astoundingly good that it's worth waiting in line for that long. San Diego has a lot of excellent restaurants with hardly any waiting time, so I personally would not wait this long for food. However, at least we had fun with Dejah and Roby. It was definitely worth it for a first time experience.