Buh-bye, lines. Katie Downs on the Ruston Way waterfront switches to table service

As any longtime Tacoman knows, diners enter Katie Downs Waterfront Tavern and immediately elect one member of the party to wait in the counter line for eleventy minutes to order food, beer or cocktails.

Then it’s a cat-and-mouse game when a food runner tries to connect an order with a diner. That’s how service has always been at the Ruston Way waterfront tavern that opened in 1982. Until now. Buh-bye lines. Counter ordering at Katie Downs is out. Table service is in.

In early January, Katie Downs axed the antiquated Panasonic ordering system that — gulp —still pushed out paper tickets to the kitchen. In the office world, that’s like running your business on Windows XP.

Servers now take orders tableside with tablets that transmit to a computer screen in the kitchen.

It’s weird to walk in and not see that line.

“The ordering system works great in the winter,” said Luke Hilger in a phone interview. His grandfather John “Jack” Hilger co-founded Katie Downs. It’s now run by Luke and his father, Dan.

“In the summers, we’re victims of our own success. It just gets too busy,” said Hilger.

Luke described lines that pushed through the dining room and out the door.

Hilger and his dad made the decision to change the ordering system while business is slower. Summer is when the restaurant is slammed because of its proximity to the water. The casual pub’s floor-to-ceiling windows provide a this-is-why-we-live-here view of the waterfront. The tavern looks like a funky little castle perched over the sea. It’s best known for its deep-dish pizza.

Luke, who is 24, couldn’t even legally enter his family’s adults-only tavern until three years ago, but he said he’s been helping his dad with a “birds-eye view” since joining the family business.

With a millenial also at the helm, does that mean more change is coming?

Will we see avocado toast on the menu? Drinking vinegars and high-end barrel-aged cocktails on the booze menu?

Not a chance, said Hilger. “It wouldn’t be Katie Downs.”

This story was originally published January 30, 2018 at 2:30 PM with the headline "Buh-bye, lines. Katie Downs on the Ruston Way waterfront switches to table service."