Bend restaurant asking patrons to limit their time there

Guests at one downtown Bend restaurant are being greeted by cards on their tables, telling them they have a time limit on their meal.

Some Wild Rose patrons are upset they are being asked to wrap up their dining experience within 90 minutes. But owner Rosie Itti says it’s not uncommon.

She got the idea after seeing it in restaurants in other cities. She said Wild Rose only has 19 tables, and when people stay too long, the wait time can be outrageous.

“It’s fine when it’s not busy,” Itti said Thursday, “but when we have a wait … we’re really family-friendly, a lot of times, it’s kids who are really hungry. (Parents) want to get their kids in for dinner, or it’s elderly patrons. There’s not really much room to sit and wait either, especially since we’ve allotted that space for tables.”

We spoke to several other restaurants around town and while they didn’t have this exact policy, several had other dining restrictions. One does not allow people to take up a patio table if they are just grabbing drinks and not food. Others put time restrictions on their patios during certain events.

“We want to make sure that all of our clients get to be able to sit out there,” said Chelsea Langmas ,the manager of the downtown Hola! “And we want to make sure that we are also making money on those tables. We’ve had situations where we’ve had a person order two beers in an hour and a half.”

People around town had split reactions to the restaurant time-limit policy.

“I think it’s right on. I don’t see any reason why anyone should be in a restaurant that long,” Jose Rivas said, “If you’re going to do that, you might as well go to your nearest cafe and support them as well.”

“I think that’s something that should be a dialog between the server, and the host and the guest at that point,” Greg Delgado said “Yeah, signage — I think it’s just a kind of a rude way to say, ‘We welcome you here. Now get out.'”

Itti said for the most part, patrons have been supportive and respectful of the policy.

Do you think it’s reasonable for restaurants to set a 90-minute time limit for customers? That’s the question in our new KTVZ.COM Poll. Find it halfway down the right side of our home page.