How long have you waited in line for dessert? Lines outside Manhattan’s Butterfield Market have been forming for hours, starting at 6 a.m., for food lovers craving this summer’s TikTok viral dot cake. This phenomenon is nothing new in NYC or other cities that are home to viral foods. broad city We mocked a viral internet food trend with a fictional “Churron” churro-macaron hybrid. (Remember when Babish actually brought this to life?) saturday night live It parodies the act of waiting in line blankly as a difficult and unavoidable human experience.
That was before the queue business even became popular on social media.
“Line-waiting” (also “queuing” and “queuing”) is literally the act of receiving money in exchange for waiting in line for someone else’s Broadway tickets, access to sample sales, speculation, or a table at a popular restaurant. According to Robert Samuel, a professional waiter in NYC, public interest in this unique profession has never been higher. “It’s always been the case, but I think social media is bigger than it used to be, so more people are on social media. I blame TikTok more than any other platform,” Samuel told Eater over the phone shortly after his performance in line.
Samuel was born and raised in Brooklyn, and after seeing the demand and experience queuing for coveted products (iPhones sparked Samuel’s first queuing business), he founded his queuing business, Same Ole Line Dudes. Now, almost 15 years later, his business shows no signs of slowing down. “We currently have an average of about 35 people (line waiters) taking requests from all over the city, sometimes handling all the requests that require waiting,” he says.
In the early days of the business, the cronut was a big hit, he says. “We had a customer who wanted to impress visiting businessmen from Japan. They wanted to close a deal with something they’d never seen before, I think it was Cronuts. Since you can only buy so many per person at a time, they sent six of us (line sitters) to buy 12.”
Same Ole Line Dudes charges $25 per hour (minimum 2 hours), rates may increase for rush fees ($15-$25), holiday rates, inclement weather, waiting for croissant cereal at L’Appartement 4F, etc. Samuel says he’s seen a significant increase in the number of “freelance” queues on sites like TaskRabbit or Craigslist, and emphasizes that this isn’t necessarily because the lines are longer (although it sometimes feels that way), but rather because social media provides greater visibility and word of mouth to a larger audience. Recently, a new website has gone viral that pays people who live next to popular restaurants to install cameras in their windows and provide live streaming lines from popular venues like NYC’s Golden Diner and L’Industrie. The culture of waiting in line is so ubiquitous that Los Angeles influencers are creating dining guides just for places with long lines (conversely, there’s even a TikTok account focused on New York restaurants with no lines).
On TaskRabbit, a website that connects individuals with freelance “workers” who can complete tasks such as fixing faucets, delivering furniture, or waiting in line, wages for line sitters are listed as “$28 to $90” per hour nationwide. The city with the most employees waiting in line is New York City (more than 4,900). A search of other major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago yielded hundreds of taskers in each city who appeared to be either skilled line sitters or people willing to take on the task. Reviews of experienced sitters reveal common things that people who hire them are looking for. That means good communication, timeliness, and (if necessary) trust that your dot cake will be handled with care.
Korem A., a line waiter based in Los Angeles, has completed more than 84 line waiting jobs on TaskRabbit, including waiting at restaurants and pop-ups. “I will wait for you as I wait for myself,” she wrote, “with care and responsibility.” Ahmed H. is a tasker from San Francisco who, according to his bio, has only completed one task: waiting in line. But he can also take on more line-waiting tasks on a short two-hour notice. His profile says, “I am patient, dependable and always punctual. I understand that waiting in line can take time and attention.” These taskmasters have a potential advantage over companies like Same Ole Line Dudes. Samuel says he typically asks for a few days’ notice. “We can always talk about crazy prices, but people also need to understand that we can’t throw away everything to get Greek yogurt. We also offer our products with a certain level of professionalism because we’ve been serving it for a long time.”
Dot cakes are a hot item in New York these days. “We had a customer who wanted two (dot cakes) of every flavor, so she hired five line sitters,” Samuel said. At $11 per dot cake and $50 per line sitter (minimum), this is a significant increase. For soluble foods, Samuel’s sitters make it a point to inform clients of the ideal time to stop by the location to pick up a snack. “Even if they want us to bring them food, we will deliver it altered,” he laughed.
Popular restaurant requests for Same Ole Line Dudes include Italian and pizza joints like Via Carota, Lucali and Emilio’s Ballato, but Samuel says not all restaurants welcome line sitters. “I don’t want to name names, but there are steakhouses in the West Village that are in such high demand that they’ve pushed back on us,” he tells Eater. This feels like a strange move to Samuel, who thinks it’s no different from “someone sending a secretary to write his name” or “a mother sending her younger, more capable son to write his name later.” A Lucali employee told Eater that they are now experiencing a steady mix of (Same Ole Line Dudes) and line sitters from Craigslist or TaskRabbit.
When asked about the influx of new line sitters, Samuel didn’t seem too concerned. However, he believes his business has declined somewhat over the years due to the advent of delivery platforms. “We had a repeat customer who lived in Harlem but wanted to go to Adel’s Famous Halal on 6th Avenue, and it’s definitely not the kind of place you’d order from. He scheduled with us every week, but one day he stopped. I wonder if it’s because he uses Uber Eats.” Still, Samuel says business always finds a way to succeed. “Because this is New York, there’s always something different coming up there.”
The only downside to Samuel’s profitable idea is that it makes it really annoying to wait in line for something that doesn’t make money, not in your career, but in your everyday life. “It’s like asking a doctor to perform surgery for free,” he said, laughing. “This is my job. If you wait in line, you get paid.”
