Cheeseburger in Paradise's roller coaster of service

This weekend, while I was gone for my sister's wedding we did some eating out. On Friday night, we (12 of us - 9 adults/3 kids) went to Cheeseburger in Paradise. I had never been to one of these before so I was looking forward to taking in the whole experience. I mean, it is a restaurant named after a song.

When we first arrived, the parking lot was packed. So I had a feeling we would be waiting a little bit for a table. We put our name in and started the wait. We took up just about all the waiting area. We waited and waited. Then something happened. I heard a group come in and say they had 12 in their group, too. Wow, I thought that's gonna be fun to have to get two big groups seated during a busy time. Then to my surprise (and frustration) that group of 12 walked in and was seated.

What! Are you kidding me?

Keep in mind, that to this point, no one had said anything to us about our status. When I then went and asked how long it would be, the hostess (which they had 3 for some reason) told me the group was paying out. OK, so it won't be too much longer, I thought. 10 minutes later, they still hadn't paid out. It was at this point that the manager (I'm assuming) finally came over and told us what was going on. Then about 10 minutes later he came back and offered us to split into two groups of 6 or wait. We opted for waiting.

Then it happened - we were seated! I think it was somewhere close to an hour or so of wait time (with lots of smaller groups coming and going as we waited). But the manager ordered us 2 of their sampler appetizers and some "sweet chips" to say "thanks for waiting and sorry that took too long."

So, while it was not a great time. They took care of the customer. Honestly, the hostesses did nothing. They (none of the 3) ever said anything to us unless I asked them about our status. They just stood there and talked to each other and seem uncomfortable about the situation - you know, like they didn't know what to say or do with us since we were just waiting there longer than normal.

side note: the gumbo was good.