Eataly NYC - First Impresions- No eat in Eataly unless you Waitaly

Get there early! Eat before you go.

For the time being at least. I have to think that this is feeding on the initial MEGA HYPE this place has right now. My wife, 2 year old daughter and I paid a visit to Eataly on Saturday 9/4/10. We arrived at 12:30pm and there were no outside lines to get into the place. But when we left at @1:30 the lines were literally down the block and around the corner on both 5th ave entrance and 23rd st.
I felt very lucky we got there early because I don't think we could have waited on this huge line with our 2 year old. I am not sure I would have waited if it was just my wife and me.
Anyway, we walked into the 5th ave entrance and I was immediately filled with jitters like the proverbial kid in a candy store.
At this entrance you are at the Cafe/Gelateria and then go in to the candy and chocolate area. Wow, I was very overwhelmed! I was a little confused which is very unlike me. I really couldn't figure it out. It may have been the crowd of people already in the store or me trying to figure out what I was looking at.
The first impression is that it's nothing like you have seen before, in the way that it is not organized like anything you have seen before, which can be exciting but can be confusing. Like, "what is this I am looking at", "what do I do now", "where do I go next" etc. How do I behave in this environment? How do I get the experience?
I was letting it try and find me, so we looked at things briefly as we passed them quickly because we were getting pulled down the main isle by the people ahead and behind us. No time to dwell just keep moving.

The way Batali and company portray Eataly is that it is part grocery store part restaurant. They want you to get the idea of how to cook the ingredients then sell you the ingredients and go home and cook them. Sounds like a great idea. But, the big BUT today was that we could not experience how they cooked the food!
There are 6 places to eat inside Eataly and each of them, we were told had 1 to 1 1/2 hour waits to be seated and we just couldn't wait that long. I hope to go back to taste because the food looked incredibly beautiful, fresh and very tasty.

So around and around we went being driven by the herd of people behind us and following the ones in front of us through this amazing feast for the eyes. But I felt like my eyes were deceiving me. Not a lot looked familiar to me and I have been around. We walked through a place where people stood at bar tables and ate cured meats on wooden boards and sipping wine. This looked great but out of place like it was in the wrong place. I had a shopping cart doing some food shopping, right? What are  these people doing here? I felt weird about it.

I wanted desperately to put some goodies into my cart but that was getting  hard to do . Which is weird for me because I wanted to fill up. But I started to put things in now. A package of prosciutto and a package of hot soppressata. Did I just buy a prepackaged cold cut!!!!! OMG I did!!! what the hell am I doing? How could this be? I have NEVER done this before. There was no sign of anyone cutting it fresh just these prepackaged stuff. So my mind told me that if Batali thinks it's ok, I'm ok too...I think.

There were other things in there besides the 6 restaurants. There was a butcher and a fish counter.

Ok here we go. I know meat. It really looked like top quality stuff but a very very small selection. Mostly beef, and I later thought that beef looks best in  a butcher case. No chicken or fowl, weird. Very little pork, veal, lamb. Maybe one or 2 representative cuts for each genre but that's it. I did see something I don't see every day which I bought and later braised at home. Pork Shanks. They came out great. Braised with porcini,
wine, bean etc. We also bought some great looking dry pasta in red and blue bags and canned tomatoes called TERRA AMORE E FANTASIA . At $6.80 per can they had better be GREAT!

 We bought a loaf of bread and some sweet pork sausage too for today.

We were so hungry at this point so we decided to check out because you can't eat in Eataly unless you Waitaly. We went across the street and nabbed an outside table at the Shack Shack and had a great European roadside lunch. We spent about $80 in there and will have had lunch and 2 great dinners for 2. I don't think anyone will be doing their food shopping here Its not set up for it. Too many missing variables. Since yesterday I have been thinking why Batali and co. would spend the millions to open this place. Then the only reason that made sense popped into my head, the question I kept asking was. "Why would a restaurant mogul open a grocery store...?" the Answer: Because it's not a grocery store it's a food court with 6 restaurants in it. I think it's that simple. When you go there let me know what you think.