Queues who needs them? I’ve learnt to accept the queues for restaurants on Flinders Lane. I’ll pick an unpopular night and/or time for a visit.
Or I’ll plan a Negroni or two around the corner for the hour or so I have to wait.
Lune Croissant is a different story. People are rising before dawn to queue for croissants (see pics). Not only that they are queueing in the dark and the cold but are leaving empty handed, myself included.
It’s utter madness. And I have several problems with what is going on.
First, of all there is a lot of guesswork as the website doesn’t tell us much apart from it is closed until 5th July for holidays. Usually Lune it is open from 7:30am-9:00am on a Friday and 8:00am – 9:30am on a Saturday or Sunday. Or until the pastries are sold out – about an hour.
Second, there are lots of caveats and rules. Though they are a friendly bunch, the process of buying a croissant is akin to ordering soup from the Soup Nazi.
Our first attempt was on a Thursday morning not realising the limited opening hours.
The second attempt, post spin class, found us arriving at 7.25am on a Friday. We read the rules – only 6 croissants each – handed out to the queue of over 30 people and about 30 minutes later left with our booty, most of which was eaten in the car before we arrived home in St Kilda.
These croissants are good. the ham and cheese croissants are the best. I can take of leave the cruffins.
And for me the real sensation was the kouign amann, a buttery pastry from Brittany the scene of many childhood holidays.
We needed to return. And we did but arrived at 7.30am on a Friday – 5 minutes later. After about 15 minutes we discovered from other shivering queue members the rules had changed. We required a ticket as detailed in a poster half way down the queue.
After an hour we missed out and I started to wonder what the hell I was sucked into – queueing for an hour for a croissant with no reward.
The ticket system was introduced to stop queue jumpers and perhaps fist fights between Asian students, the primary force in this skewed croissant economy.
In my book nothing is that good to queue for so long. Nevertheless, there are plenty of people rising at 5.30am and arriving at 7am to queue for a ticket to buy 6 pastries.
I wonder perhaps if they need to introduce an automated ticket system so people can grab pre-queue tickets for the actual queue tickets.
To be honest, I’m annoyed with myself for being sucked into this. Never again. But what croissants.
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