What is it that makes Hula Hut so popular? Carolyn's cousins are in town this weekend and I went out to dinner with them this evening. The original plan was to eat at Hula Hut and watch the sunset over the water. You can almost always expect to have to wait a long time when you're at Hula Hut, so I was somewhat prepared to wait a while. But nothing prepared me for the HOUR AND A HALF to an HOUR AND 45 MINUTE wait. Amazing. Yet, despite the wait, there were seemingly still a lot of people there. We weren't quite willing to wait that long outside doing nothing, so we went to Plan B: going to Chuy's on Barton Springs.

We were told the wait was going to be 40-50 minutes, but in reality we probably only waited about 20-30 minutes. A very big improvement over the 1:30 hour wait that we would have had to endure at Hula Hut. Since Chuy's owns Hula Hut, their menus are very similar... so is it just the view and the environment that people are going for? Why else would you wait over an hour for a table?

A little tip I've noticed about both restaurants. Chuy's overestimates the wait time, so you never wait as long as they say the wait is. However, Hula Hut is pretty exact with the wait time, so you should expect to wait as long as they say. Just FYI.