> Increase in takeout is an increase in efficiency for each line cook and emnployee.

There's also a kind of precarious food-business "art" going on behind your anecdote that follows the sentence I quoted (long line, but "not too long," etc.). In your single-minded speculation about the efficiency of takeout that art isn't present.

That art is the difference between this legendary Pacific Grove restaurant on the one hand, and a "for rent" sign on a failed restaurant with a fridge full of frozen pork chops and regret on the other.