For some reason, the restaurants lining the road that leads in to Edmonton, Alberta feel the need to advertise the status of their table availability. After being confronted with so many red neon “Immediate Seating” signs, tourists entering the city for the first time would be forgiven for thinking Edmonton is the dining out capital of the world.

Image by jumbledpile via Flickr

I have a feeling that one restaurant affixed an Immediate Seating sign to their exterior, and all the other ones felt the need to follow suit in order to remain competitive/look cool. But doesn’t constantly advertising that your empty tables are just waiting to be filled actually repel would-be customers?

The really confusing part of this phenomenon is that I’ve never actually seen any of the signs turned off. So that means either:

• You can always be immediately seated (rendering the whole exercise redundant)

OR

• The signs don’t have an off switch (in which case they could say anything, such as “Free Toilet Paper in Bathrooms” or “Is This Thing On?”)

Umm, okay. So what was the point of the sign again?

The whole exercise just seems like a waste of electricity to me.