Press Kit -- The Queue Index

The Story

The Observation

"The British queue is not a problem. The queue is the review."

No other country treats a queue the way Britain does. You don't queue because you have to. You queue because you know something good is happening at the front of it. The Queue Index exists to measure that knowledge and publish it weekly.

The Method

"One AI. One question. 50 restaurants. Every Saturday at 1pm."

Every Saturday at 1pm, an AI voice agent calls 50 of London's most iconic restaurants and asks one question: if I walked in right now, how long would I wait? The answer is a number. The ranking is the result. The dataset is the first of its kind.

The Precedent

"Guinndex called 3,000+ Irish pubs to find the best Guinness. We asked London what the queue is."

The Queue Index is built on the same template as Guinndex -- the project that called thousands of Irish pubs to map Guinness prices. The method is proven. The application is entirely new. Nobody had thought to measure walk-in demand systematically until now.

Story Angles

Technology

An AI calls 50 London restaurants every Saturday and asks how long the queue is. 69% answer.

The Queue Index uses ElevenLabs conversational AI to make natural-sounding calls to London's busiest restaurants. Staff don't know they're talking to an AI. 29 out of 42 answered in Week 1. The data is already changing how people think about walk-in dining.

Culture

Britain's most honest restaurant guide has no critics, no stars, and no bookings. Just a queue.

Michelin measures quality with trained inspectors. OpenTable measures demand with reservation data. Neither measures the thing that actually tells you a restaurant is worth going to: the queue outside. The Queue Index does. Weekly. For free.

Data

The first open dataset for walk-in demand in London restaurants -- built one Saturday call at a time.

Every week, the project adds 50 more data points to a dataset that has never existed before: real-time walk-in demand, measured at the same moment, every Saturday. For the first time, you can track which restaurants are consistently busiest, and when.

Business

Guinness prices, now queues: the serial AI tracker building Britain's most useful restaurant data.

After Guinndex mapped Guinness prices across 3,000+ Irish pubs, the same creator built The Queue Index to map walk-in demand in London. The pattern is clear: call the people who actually know, ask the one question that matters, publish the result.

Human Interest

The London restaurants that told an AI: "there's always a queue, but it's worth it."

The most interesting calls in the dataset aren't the busiest venues. They're the ones where staff volunteered more than the question asked -- venues that told the AI why people come, how long they typically wait, and whether the food is worth it. You can't get that from a star rating.

Quotes -- Mike Litman

"If there's no queue, is it even good? That's not a joke. That's the data question."

"Michelin measures quality. We measure desire. They send critics. We send a phone call."

"69% of London's best restaurants answered a Saturday afternoon cold call from an AI. That's the most honest market research you'll ever read."

"OpenTable tracks reservations. Google tracks reviews. Nobody tracked what happens when you just show up. Until now."

Data -- Week 1 Results

Answered + gave wait time 29 69%

No answer / voicemail 11 26%

Answered + declined to give 2 5%

Total restaurants called 42 100%

Week 1 data: 42 of 50 calls connected. Target list includes Dishoom, Noble Rot, Tayyabs, Hawksmoor, and other iconic London venues. Data grows every Saturday.

Press Release

AI voice agent calls 50 London restaurants every Saturday to build Britain's first walk-in demand index

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LONDON -- A new project is using AI voice technology to build something that has never existed before: a weekly dataset of walk-in demand at London's most popular restaurants.

Every Saturday at 1pm, The Queue Index calls 50 restaurants and asks one question: if I walked in right now, how long would I wait? The results are published as a free weekly ranking at thequeueindex.com.

Created by Mike Litman, a digital strategist and builder based in London, the project uses ElevenLabs conversational AI and Twilio to make natural-sounding calls. In Week 1, 29 of 42 connected venues (69%) answered and gave a wait time. Restaurants including Dishoom, Noble Rot, Tayyabs, and Hawksmoor were among those called.

The Queue Index follows in the tradition of Guinndex, which called more than 3,000 Irish pubs to map Guinness prices. That project demonstrated that AI voice agents could generate genuinely useful, scalable data by asking the people who actually know. The Queue Index applies the same method to the most British question imaginable: is the queue worth it?

Litman said: "Michelin measures quality. We measure desire. They send critics. We send a phone call."

The project is free and live at thequeueindex.com. New data is published every Saturday. Media enquiries: hello@mikelitman.me

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Notes to editors: Mike Litman is a strategist, builder and published author based in London (BCS, 2024). BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer. He has worked with Nike, Google, Unilever and McLaren across 15+ years in digital. The Queue Index is one of 20+ AI-native projects he has shipped. Site: thequeueindex.com

About

Mike Litman is a strategist, builder and published author based in London (BCS, 2024). BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer. He has worked with Nike, Google, Unilever, and McLaren across 15+ years in digital. The Queue Index is one of 20+ AI-native projects he has shipped.

mikelitman.me LinkedIn thequeueindex.com

For interviews, quotes, call transcripts, or custom rankings:

hello@mikelitman.me

Response within 24 hours.