As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
This is an interesting psychological question in which place would you choose to sit in this restaurant?
Most people will break down into two groups. The first group will be aesthetics in human traffic, comfort, not next to the bathroom or next to the kitchen to get their food. The second group will be in tactical response in the event of violence.
I will point out my choices in life, and two interesting choices from 4 law enforcement officers.
In a Subway with this layout, I choose station G 1. Yet in a Hardees, you will find TL and I at A 1. If our first choice is not available, literally we switch to how we sit in the other establishment.
In Subway, the Game Warden sat at D2. in Hardee's, three highway patrols sat at I 3 and I 1 and I 4. From a tactical point, those were vulnerable positions.
As I am not in the employment to shoot criminals, I want as much cover or targets to absorb lead as I can have, in why A 1 or A 2 is the choice. If I want the blind spot for a perp, then G 1 is the location.
An exit through a kitchen is a choke point of death, as is running to a bathroom and trying to barricade it.
G 1 in being unarmed is a real point of trouble if the perp begins to focus on your location, but logically someone entering a restaurant is going to be right handed. It is why most establishments are laid out for the bias of right handed people, as is the one above in the power centers are to the right.
In the above the perp will first fixated on the hostess area, then the waiting area on their blindside. That is a time venue of perhaps 1 minute. Your shock value time of lizard brain freeze, process and flight is 10 seconds for the individual and 15 seconds for couples as women always have to have their protest in a situation.
That leaves a person 30 seconds at most for a blind side escape.
As in most cases your bias will be to exit where you enter, and restaurants are built to keep people from running out on tabs, most will not think of running for the kitchen, which in the above would leave advancing on the waiting area where shooting would be, along with dead hostess bodies on the floor.
In most cases what it comes down to in being unarmed, is moving as swiftly, with as much cover as possible, toward the violence, and hoping the perp is still creating morgue meat as a distraction, and if not that distraction, then your moving form not being struck by bullets in the odds of random chance.
Even if struck, unless it is a head wound, you will have the oxygen to vacate the building for 40 seconds, even with a major bleeder, due to adrenaline.
Being shot running or knifed running is far better odds than being plugged in the head at 4 inches or having your throat slit.
Dynamics change in this too, as a bringing a chair to a knife fight is a good idea, as much as a chair increases your odds in absorbing a kills shot from a handgun or the fashionable 223 calibers.
In any exit though, you will choose the 90 degree angles of the wall for fastest travel lanes and hopeful blind spots to the perp.
Just remember that the staff is going to be running for their lives and hoping you are the fodder. The first ones will freeze in panic, but the majority of the remaining souls will be moving toward the exit. That is the tunnel vision problem in this, in while a patron focuses on the noise and danger, tries to shut out the other gopher patrons trying to call attention to themselves by screaming, if one can observe the staff in motion, they will be the rats in the maze to show you the best way out.........in most cases.
It will not occur to most to attempt to break window to vacate through, as they will not want to get into trouble, and with thick industrial windows, one might be playing that drum until you are sent to meet St. Peter as that would attract attention too when unsuccessful.
It is though something to keep in mind.
Now you can study the above and run through the scenarios of your survival, and probably start discussing exit strategies in all of the businesses you frequent, as discussing it beforehand is probably the time to deal with a dangerous situation.
Nuff Said
agtG
