Since about 2012, Charlotte and I have been observing a phenomenon that it’s about time to mint.
Sometimes you walk into a restaurant or cafe and the place is blissfully empty. No line to the counter, every table unoccupied, an idle staff member ready to take your order. Instead of pinching yourself you check the time– strange, this is normally a time you would expect this place to be packed. Counting your blessings, you order your food and find a seat at exactly the table you want. You settle in and enjoy the moment. But then, just as soon as you do, another customer enters. Then another. Then a group of three. Then a gaggle of tourists. Then some schoolkids on their lunch break. Then a woman with a service dog. In a flash a line has formed, the white noise has jumped 30 decibels, the staff begin darting around with focused expressions, and this is a completely different place than the one you came into. Nonetheless, you observe this transformation from within the cozy bubble of the knowledge that you didn’t have to wait in line, that you beat the rush.
I want to call this phenomenon “presurging.” From the point of view of the restaurant staff, it’s likely normal (and expected) that over the course of the day a place fills up and empties out in waves which roughly coincide with mealtimes, arriving trains or buses, or other nearby urban patterns. The establishment may even fine-tune their meal prep, staffing plan, etc. to coincide with them. But I would guess that, like the weather, while the waves are obvious in the aggregate, they are impossible to accurately predict to the minute on any given day. If the place is small enough, a coincidental arrival of just a few people could make it look and feel busy, which then can trigger more people to come in (see: the bandwagon effect). My dad and I presurged at Abitino’s Pizza recently, and as I explained to him what was happening, he looked out the big glass window we sat in front of and said that our presence could have made the place look more attractive to passers-by on 2nd Avenue. Denizens of any dense, walkable city like New York are cognitively wired to navigate random cues and discoveries such as this, making a presurge feel special, quietly thrilling even, like when you catch the train just as the doors close.
Appendix
Personally, I am extra tickled by these random occurrences for two contradictory reasons: 1) they create a sense of solitude– the joy of having discovered an oasis in a crowded place– but also 2) they give me the chance to talk to the shopkeeper. Getting to know my neighbors and building community bonds is one of the pleasures of city living, and incidentally one of the leading causes of longer life.
