Just eat it quick before the saltine gets soggy.
Or, the related tomfoolery of making casual dining patrons wait in line behind a “Please Wait to Be Seated” sign when there are open tables abounding.
actually, it’s not.
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There’s no obligation to read it (or all of it) 
of course not. but it’s just frustrating — and annoying:) — to see new posts on a topic of interest — annoying restaurant features — and have to scroll through post after post about eggplant and find nothing relating to the actual topic of the thread.
a while back there was a thread on cooking tasks that people preferred to do by hand, which devolved into a protracted conversation about restoring cars. and there was another one i recall that morphed into a discussion about caring for cats.
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Oh, trust, I’ve witnessed my share of Thread Drift, some of it on posts I made asking for specific recipes, only to devolve into complete OT nitpicking. I (obviously) am more annoyed when it happens to my own posts, but I get ya
It even has its own thread.
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I actually thought about splitting the pizza topping posts to a new thread. But it originated from the annoyance of a restaurant having ingredients (i.e., eggplant and shrimp) but refusing to combine them for a special order. As usual, there were some good points made as to why a restaurant may be unable to oblige such requests. Also as usual–both on HO and in real life conversations–the topic then sort of drifted. In the end, it would be difficult to move the drifty posts while maintaining the integrity of the thread(s).
Experience tells me the thread will return to annoying restaurant features 
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Actually, no. Or maybe some people are just easily entertained.
What have separate topics at all? Let’s just throw everything in a big pile.
With you, there.
Now, now, nothing? Hardly.
IMO, thread drift is generally a very good thing. The alternative is strict and doctrinaire moderation, which was the detestible policy at Chowhound.
All of us, to a real extent, are “wasting” our time here. Coloring outside the lines sometimes is one of the joys of Hungry Onion.
If you were to post your own OT here and felt I had hijacked it with idle eggplant patter, I’dve desisted. But it was my OT, so what do you really think of… nah.
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well, if you read through all of the posts, you’ll notice that i’m not the only poster who has an issue with protracted posts that have nothing to do with the initial topic.
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I agree with you. When this site opened after the close of Chowhound I was excited to have another place to learn and share. Then it was pretty much only chit chat, which users seemed to enjoy. I come back from time to time but find the topics of interest to me are not well-covered.
The NYC board is often the same group of 8 using the site to plan IRL events. Other areas just seem to be people complaining (e.g. this very thread). I get it that this is what they enjoy. It is just not for me.
Come with, why don’t you.
Thank you for the invitation. Opportunity cost, I guess. So many great places in the NYC area, so little time!
THAT is true. There aren’t many restaurants I go to more than once, in the grand scheme of things. New ones keep opening. And I’m not done with the old ones!
A “problem” many of us would like to have, for sure.
Yes, of course. I’m lucky in that we get to be “regulars” at the restaurants we go to when we’re upstate, 'cause there aren’t all that many of them. So it’s the best of both worlds.
You see the irony here, yes? Isn’t kvetching about thread drift also distractingly OT?
Well of course. You are never alone on Hungry Onion, even if you like eggplant and shrimp on…
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…waffles?
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I just ran into another annoying restaurant feature: Christmas music. Luckily, I was just picking up some takeout.
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