is providing real-time wait-time predictions <\/a>for buzzy Manhattan eateries \u2014 by paying nearby residents to put webcams in their apartment windows to spy on the hot spots\u2019 lines, infuriating some of the businesses and weirding out locals.<\/p>\nDamnLines.com is the brainchild of 24-year-old software engineer Lucas Gordon, who launched it earlier this month to \u201cdetermine and share the best time to visit the most popular restaurants across New York City,\u2019\u2019 he told The Post.<\/p>\n
DamnLines.com is using webcams stationed in apartment windows to spy on restaurants\u2019 wait lines. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pay tenants across New York City to install an IP camera outside of their unit to monitor the line,\u201d says the \u201cMatrix\u201d-inspired green text on his website.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really sustainable, yet,\u2019\u2019 the site acknowledged.<\/p>\n
The cameras are stationed outside four locations so far, all in Gordon\u2019s West Village neighborhood.<\/p>\n
They include Breakfast by Salt\u2019s Cure and John\u2019s of Bleecker Street pizzeria \u2014 where manager Joey S. blasted the set-up for churning out wait estimates that are \u201cinaccurate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s misleading, misinterpreting. \u2026 There are a lot of variables that this system doesn\u2019t take into account,\u201d the manager said.<\/p>\n
The cameras are only stationed at four sites so far, all in Manhattan\u2019s trendy West Village. Marie Pohl<\/p>\n
A manager at one of the tracked restaurants said no one informed them their lines were being monitored. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post<\/p>\n
He said the Web site doesn\u2019t take into account whether people are in a single party or others are waiting for to-go orders vs. sit-down dining.<\/p>\n
Joey said nobody informed the restaurant that the website was tracking its queue.<\/p>\n
Based on the past month of line data gathered so far, DamnLines has estimated that wait times for John\u2019s on Thursday evenings, for example, surge to a nearly 40-minute wait around 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
But Joey said that \u201cexaggerates\u201d the actual queuing period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe longest the wait times here are during Christmas week \u2026 but that\u2019s when the line goes all the way down the block on Morton Street, not right in front of the restaurant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Several passers-by outside another monitored eatery \u2014 to-go slice shop L\u2019Industrie Pizzeria \u2014 were shocked and even disturbed to hear of the surveillance.<\/p>\n
Other businesses being tracked include Breakfast by Salt\u2019s Cure. DamnLines.com<\/p>\n
L\u2019Industrie Pizzeria is so popular, it can have lines out the door. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cJust see what\u2019s in front of you. You don\u2019t need to go on your phone for it,\u201d said 22-year-old Priva Donner, who was waiting in a short queue outside the shop Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Tech worker Vaughn Stewart, 50, who was visiting from California, griped, \u201cFor the concept of someone else\u2019s convenience, I now get my privacy invaded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they make a mistake, they can also negatively impact the business, like saying there\u2019s a long wait time when there really isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon, who is funding the project himself, declined to comment further, citing the media policy of his employer \u2014 the Elon Musk-founded xAI artificial intelligence company.<\/p>\n
He only said he hadn\u2019t considered the site\u2019s impact on the businesses it tracks.<\/p>\n
He declined to share how much he pays his neighbors to use the cameras.<\/p>\n
His website said the service uses a \u201c60-year-old theorem, a service-rate observer, and a real-time people counter\u201d to try to help customers.<\/p>\n
It denies that the collection of any surveillance data is done outside of a business\u2019 operating hours.<\/p>\n
John\u2019s of Bleecker Street is not fond of the tracking. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post<\/p>\n
The site said wait times are determined by the number of people in line divided by how many people exit the queue over a \u201crolling time window.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis holds regardless of arrival patterns, service variability, or how the queue is structured,\u201d the website reads. \u201cIt\u2019s a universal law of queuing systems \u2014 and the foundation of everything we calculate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fourth restaurant currently being watched is Salt Hank\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Cole Rabedeau, a 28-year-old manager at L\u2019Industrie, said of the cameras \u201cdon\u2019t bother me.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
But Joey argued the math still doesn\u2019t add up for his business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey account for heads outside, but they don\u2019t realize whose group is together. They don\u2019t know how much seating we have,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA camera can\u2019t calculate all of that. They have no idea how we operate our business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you think this is odd, get in line. A new website is providing real-time wait-time predictions for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,9,24,55,197,54,56,2990,58,2380],"class_list":{"0":"post-203997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-metro","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-life","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-small-business","16":"tag-us-news","17":"tag-west-village"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}