Yeah, I saw this headline and immediately thought "these people are living in an entirely different world than me". Of the restaurants I regularly eat at, I can just walk in and have a table in 5-10 minutes at most, probably 95% of the time. I did hit my favorite Thai place in Chapel Hill a couple of weeks ago during a busy time and gave up on the wait (and walked to the Japanese place a dozen yards away), but that's extraordinarily rare.

Now if I were pointedly eating at the "hip" places in town, or if I lived in Manhattan or San Francisco, maybe this would resonate more?

EDIT:

OK, yeah, here it is:

In cities across the country, high-end restaurants seem increasingly hard to get into.

"High end" is not a "thing" that I think about. I don't seek out "high end" restaurants because they are identified as trendy, hip, "high end" places. I just go to places that are a. near me and b. serve good food and c. have good service.

What a novel idea, huh?