Like, if you're Waffle House and short-order is your bread and butter, sure. But a lot of times the kitchen will pre-set up things so they can get them out as fast as possible. There's a lot of management and prep that goes into cheap Sunday brunch that gets tossed out the window.

Like I said earlier, it's fine during normal biz hours. But the 30 seconds of extra time the kitchen staff has to put into your special order during a huge rush puts all the orders behind it 30 seconds more behind. So a whole family ordering special orders can hold up 20 people's orders for 5 minutes. And that just builds up the more it happens.

That's a capacity and thus a management problem: Invest in more capacity.

I'm sympathetic with the staff, which in every business takes the bullets for management's decisions. Tech support is similar - frustrated with long wait times? Don't take it out on the person answering the phone; it is management's choice.