Miles and Colin at Lay Low Bar.

Introducing Bennie to the joys of the Brother Hood Yiros + Grill a few weeks back, we had a tasty ball – squatting on the internal bench that is the place’s only seating in an otherwise fully take-away operation.

Happily, we need not wonder how we’d go when the Brother Hood is busy and car or footpath are the meagre options – there’s a bar opening right next door that will welcome yiros imbibers with open arms.

Of course, Lay Low Bar is about more than being a mere seating adjunct of a yiros joint – as Bennie and I discover when we drop in for a mid-week squiz.

The bar – at 93 Buckley Street, Seddon – is one of a row of gorgeous old double-storey Victorians.

I’m told the history of No.93 includes periods as picture-framing shop and a squatters’ residence.

Proprietors Miles Williamsz and Colin Wood and their crew are closing in on completion of their fit-out, which includes this fabulous mural by Hannah Simpkin.

They’re all about collaboration, including with the fashionable apparel emporium Brixton Pound in the shop front and the Brother Hood, with the laneway at the rear providing easy access to the bar for yiros customers.

The Brother Hood, as well, will be formulating a few specialties solely for the delectation of Lay Low customers.

Booze-wise, Lay Low’s focus will be on high-quality and unique cocktails, with Hop nation beers also available.

Lay Low Bar will open to the public on July 4.

The mooted hours are 4-10pm Wednesdays and Thursdays, noon-11pm Fridays and Saturdays, noon-10pm Sundays.

For more unfolding news, check out the Lay Low FB page here.

In Footscray, and tucked behind Huxtaburger, a Taiwanese chicken shop is taking shape.

I’m told Hot Star is owned by the same company that runs the tea chain Gong Cha, the local outlet of which the new chook place gazes upon.

Around the corner, in the same strip of shops occupied by Smalls Graces, a Chinese eatery will soon open.

On Paisley Street, just a few doors from the Leeds Street tram terminus, a Japanese restaurant has opened.

CTS will be checking it out pronto!

Very mixed reviews on its FB page.

Is there life at the Tottenham shops on Sunshine Road?

Yes, no, maybe?

Biryani n Grills appears to be set up to go – but shows little sign of being in use when I have a mid-week morning look.

As one wag put it somewhere on Facebook: “At least it’s not a massage parlour!”

A few years back, Consider The Sauce was bemused to note the rise of the Deliberate Wait.

This involves certain eateries in the CBD and elsewhere deliberately and on purpose running their no-booking operations with built-in waiting time for incoming customers.

This way, the reasoning seems to go, the punters can spend some time cooling their heels – in the bar spending money, on the stairway and even out on the street – in such a way as to sharpen their appreciation for just how lucky they will be when they eventually get to eat in such fabulously fashionable establishments.

Whacko stuff.

Or so it’s always seemed to me.

But nothing to do with us, our friends, our readers and eating in the west.

Lately, though, I’m not so sure.

Stories of extended wait times and queuing, many of them provided first-hand to CTS or witnessed by ourselves, continue to arise.

Mostly, though, they’re concerned with different kinds of delay than the “make ’em wait – we’ll build hipster cache” school of thought.

Though I suspect the hour-and-more wait times to get into a certain new CBD dumpling joint certainly fall into that category.

I have a friend who waited more than hour for food at a barbecue festival.

More recently I’ve been told that wait times for the new Willy Friday night food trucks extended, in some cases, beyond 40 minutes.

Surely anything beyond 10 minutes for a bowl of noodles or some such from a food truck defeats the very purpose and ethos and fun of food trucks?

On a more prosaic level, I regularly spy weekend groups of people waiting on the street for tables at a groovy inner west cafe, the coffee of which I find undrinkable.

And over in Kensington, I regularly see a dozen or more people waiting in the foyer or on the street for a table at Laksa King – early evening and early in the week.

Terrific food, indeed, but …

As Bennie has pointed out, we do indeed sometimes wait for a table – but only very, very rarely does that extend beyond waiting for a recently vacated table to be cleared.

Mostly, we’re very happy for ourselves and our fellow westies that waiting – be it for five minutes or five days – is simply uncalled for.

“If one place is busy, go next door” is our default rule of thumb.

Last weekend, I visited one of my very favourite places only to find it more crowded than I had ever before witnessed.

“Uh oh,” I thought. “I’m going to be waiting forever …”

However the staff assured me I’d get my lunch within 15 minutes – that’s OK then, I can live with that!

As things eventuated, I got my goodies in 10 minutes.

Later, I asked the co-proprietor – a man with much experience not only in running this particular cafe/shop but also of coping with the demands of markets and festivals – about long wait times.

For him it’s simple: It’s all about prep work – or lack of it.

And he stressed how important it is – he wants customers to return.

So while this kind of madness continues to pass us by, I still do wonder about whether punters who cop it have some sort of masochistic streak and whether some operators simply haven’t got their act together.

Either in terms of getting customers seated or in providing them food in a timely manner …