More Next

Next is now. Next opened on schedule Wednesday, April 6 despite a software glitch that delayed the sending of emails containing ticket information until opening morning. Though the emails are out, there are some reporting on Next’s Facebook page that there is still an issue with the software and they are unable to purchase tickets.

The bad news is, if you’ve yet to receive an email from the restaurant chances are you won’t be getting a table anytime soon. The Chicago Tribune estimates that “the restaurant is likely to be booked quite literally for years, given the number of people on its waiting list for tickets.” That number is now at a staggering 19,000. Tickets are already being hawked on Craigslist for an offensive $500-$3000.

Fear not! Though you may never get to see Paris 1906 in the flesh, remember that this is the gilded age of the Internet and digital visual feasts abound in the form of slideshows of the food on opening night, a menu preview, and an official video documenting the making of the menu. Those whom the food gods elected to smile down upon and were actually present opening night, reported that the dining room was not at all the frantic scene you’d expect. Rather, the restaurant’s absence of a lobby or couches to anxiously wait upon apparently kept the hysteria to a bare minimum.

Though the glitches plaguing the reservation system undoubtedly cast a shadow upon the viability of the system, we know that anything revolutionary usually comes with a few growing pains. Next partner Nick Kokonas hopes to sell the ticket system to other restaurants across the country and even create a new company to rival OpenTable.

Best of luck scoring a table fellow foodies!