Next Restaurant Server Crashes, Foodies Get Angry

By Anthony Todd in Food on Jul 12, 2011 4:00PM

Well, this seems inevitable. The insane amounts of hype and anticipation around Next restaurant's new Thai menu led to a collapse of their computer systems last night when tickets finally went on sale. What Time Out's David Tamarkin called an "explosion of bourgeoise anger and first-world vitriol" (and we call just another example of why anonymous internet commenting leads people to be idiots) happened on the Next Facebook page, reminding us that you're only popular until you're not.

The comments are kind of amazing, and you can watch the turn from anger to resignation as the evening wears on. One commenter pointed out that they were "fit to be Thai'd!" and another called the experience "uncomfortably cult-like." Um, yeah.

Time Out quoted some juicy ones that came right around 4:00. "Your website is a joke. Not sure how you can call yourself a world class restaurant and not be able to handle real web traffic. I build corporate websites for a living.... did you have a 15 year [old] build this?...... I expect more from you, if in fact your company claims to be all that. Give me a break."

One great idea from a commenter: "I keep thinking we can turn this into something good, for the last hour of work a lot of you were getting paid for doing no work while trying to secure a great meal, why not donate that hour of your salary to a worthy charity making sure people get fed. I'll get you started, my hour is going to www.chicagofoodbank.org"

Yet another reason to wait for a month and buy night-of tickets....