Exclusive | New website tracks wait times for trendy NYC eateries by paying locals to film diners in line

If you think this is odd, get in line.A new website is providing real-time wait-time predictions for buzzy Manhattan eateries — by paying nearby residents to put webcams in their apartment windows to spy on the hot spots’ lines, infuriating some of the businesses and weirding out locals.DamnLines.com is the brainchild of 24-year-old software engineer Lucas Gordon, who launched it earlier this month to “determine and share the best time to visit the most popular restaurants across New York City,’’ he told The Post.“We pay tenants across New York City to install an IP camera outside of their unit to monitor the line,” says the “Matrix”-inspired green text on his website.“It’s not really sustainable, yet,’’ the site acknowledged.The cameras are stationed outside four locations so far, all in Gordon’s West Village neighborhood.They include Breakfast by Salt’s Cure and John’s of Bleecker Street pizzeria — where manager Joey S.blasted the set-up for churning out wait estimates that are “inaccurate.“It’s misleading, misinterpreting.

… There are a lot of variables that this system doesn’t take into account,” the manager said.He said the Web site doesn’t take into account whether people are in a single party or others are waiting for to-go orders vs.sit-down dining.Joey said nobody informed the restaurant that the website was tracking its queue.Based on the past month of line data gathered so far, DamnLines has estimated that wait times for John’s on Thursday evenings, for example, surge to a nearly 40-minute wait around 7 p.m.But Joey said that “exaggerates” the actual queuing period.“The longest the wait times here are during Christmas week … but that’s when the line goes all the way down the block on Morton Street, not right in front of the restaurant,” he said.Several passers-by outside another monitored eatery — to-go slice shop L’Industrie Pizzeria — were shocked and even disturbed to hear of the sur...