Ten people are waiting in line at Maru San, Capitol Hill’s new Japanese Peruvian hand-roll destination, when I arrive around 5:30 on a Saturday night. Fortunately, it takes only about 15 minutes to get a sought-after spot at chef Carlos Delgado’s 25-seat counter. But by the time I leave, the line has nearly doubled. I’m suddenly having flashbacks to the no-reservation days of Rose’s Luxury, Little Serow, and Bad Saint—restaurants whose über-popularity was long defined by lines down the block.
“Although people sometimes get upset about having to wait in line due to the fact that it’s first-come, first-served, I feel like this gives you a chance to come eat more than if I had reservations and if it was sold out,” Delgado says.
In fact, restaurant lines are making a comeback as a new crop of hot spots opt to focus mostly, if not exclusively, on walk-ins. Perhaps the most prominent example is Eebee’s, the Shaw corner bar where peak weekend waits can stretch for hours. But others are also embracing walk-ins—from Ulivo, a casual Italian restaurant in Park View, to Rye Bunny, the hotly anticipated Adams Morgan restaurant from the owners of Tail Up Goat.
“I think it’s cyclical—DC loved the line for a really long time,” says Rye Bunny chef Jon Sybert. “I don’t think people were into that for a while, and now I think people are more excited about going out and doing things spontaneously a little bit.”
The predictability of reservations was attractive to restaurant operators during the unpredictability of the pandemic. Rose’s Luxury, for example, began offering reservations in March 2020. Meanwhile, Maru San’s Delgado has relied on diners booking and paying in advance at his fine-dining restaurant, Causa, because it allows him to know exactly how much food to order and how many employees to staff on any given night.
This new generation of no-reservation restaurants is trying to find some middle ground for diners who don’t have the luxury of waiting in an unpredictable line. Maru San sets aside four seats per night for a reservation-only tasting menu. (Granted, it’s booked through August.) Meanwhile, Rye Bunny has two tables available every night on OpenTable—but they come with a $25 fee that goes toward local nonprofits.
Colada Shop owner Daniella Senior also wants to put an emphasis on walk-ins at her forthcoming Latin-inspired bistro, Bar Nuestro, in Navy Yard, opening this summer, though she’ll offer some reservations.
“In an industry where we are constantly so challenged and saying people are going out less, well, maybe we made dining a little too complicated for people—it became too much of a planning scenario versus being able to walk in,” Senior says. “I want to be able to bring back being spontaneous and just showing up somewhere.”
This article appears in the June 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind DC’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
