I'm sorry...but I have to just comment that waiting in lines is about the most UN-New York thing a person can do...it just goes to show how much the city has changed...and how many real new yorkers have left the city in recent years...I was born and raised in NYC and never had ANY patience for lines, and had always marveled when travelling how people were willing to wait, or even seemed to enjoy waiting in lines...I enjoyed going to Lombardi's for...but will never go back...because I can't stand to wait amid the tourists (or are they actually manhattan residents?)...and sorry, but anyone waiting in line for hours Magnolia or the Shake Shack is very UN New York...that's completely lame...find somewhere original, or DO without...that's REAL NY!...anyway that's just a tiny part of how the city has lost its character...

Anyone disturbed about "in/on" line should be taken "off/out" of the line for mandatory medication before being allowed to "join/step back on/step back in" the line. Now what about police "lineups"?

How about just "wait"?

85 minutes for shake shack on a rainy saturday afternoon very early in the season (this year). 45 minutes on line, 40 minutes for food. it was delicious.

I blame Duane Reade. Once you wait fifteen minutes on line for dental floss, forty five minutes for brunch no longer seems so bad.

waiting for brunch at clinton st makes a little bit of sense (they have the delicious fried green tomatoes, cheese grits and honey bacon you can't get most other places), but waiting for VESELKA really cracks me up! talk about eggs and toast you can get anywhere (or, even more incredulously: make them myself! and i'm not a cook-at-home type of gal, especially for brunch) baffles me week after week after week. and then, sit outside near the stagnant pool of 9th street gutter water that is present year-round. crazy.

there's also always a line of sit-on-the-bench-and-read-while-you-wait proportions outside 9th st market for brunch... so consistently that even though i've lived on that block for 10 years, i've never had an opportunity to eat there (since i'm not a wait-to-get-into-a-place kind of gal either).

I remember a couple of years ago when they had the "worlds largest yard sale" in Central Park. the line ran from 72nd street to 59th street. That was the first of many stupid New York lines that I have seen.

It's 'on line'.

Welcome to New York. Don't forget to call your mother, she's worried sick about you moving to the big scary city.

My mom is just fine. And my home city is just as civilized as yours. It's "in line" in 95% of this country, and I don't think I'll be lost in translation in this other 5%.

Samantha, you got that right.

I wouldn't stay in line that long for a threesome with Jessica Alba and that cutie pie photographer in Six Degrees.

Or even for a chance to flip the switch on a wired up GWB.

Okay, maybe the latter.

"There was a two to three HOUR wait this Saturday at Serendipity."

This is a serious question: who on earth has that kind of free time? Waiting three hours and then sitting for an hour-and-a-half, at least? I wouldn't set aside that kind of time for any meal.

Its "queue", as in "Why do people wait in a queue for overrated cupcakes?".

There was a two to three HOUR wait this Saturday at Serendipity. A woman from the UK was outside when I sent my friend in to check and she said she put her name down, went shopping and was back after two hours waiting.

TWO HOURS. And this was in the after lunch/before dinner hours, around 4 - 6PM. Who wants to eat then??

Their food is sub-standard, and I can't even imagine waiting that long for ice cream. No frozen hot coco is worth that wait. Insane.

Do yourself and skip Sarabeth's horrible service and overpriced and mediocre brunch. Check out their dinner menu. There's never a wait, and it's quite tasty!

Yeah-I'm taking grammar advice from a group of people for whom "yous guys" is acceptable English.

I say poe-tay-toe, you say poe-tah-toe...

...AND YOU'RE WRONG.

Yay! Whoo! Guy is the rightest! Whoo!

It's 'on line'.

Welcome to New York. Don't forget to call your mother, she's worried sick about you moving to the big scary city.

in line, on line, who cares. really.

i wait 25 minutes for calexico's carne asada. mmmm..well worth it

From Wikipedia. "In line" may be preferable, but it is not the out and out winner.

"In ambiguous cases, there is not always a clear rule which adposition is appropriate, and different languages and regional dialects may have different conventions. Learning the conventionally preferred word is a matter of exposure to examples. For example, most dialects of American English have "to wait in line", but some have "to wait on line"."

waiting on line is as acceptable a usage as saying "i'm on the phone." you are not literally "on" the phone, you are speaking into it.

it is a regional distinction. y'all isn't technically an acceptable contraction, but is anyone going to tell southerners to stop saying it and "learn the language." really, is it worth the snarky comments?