I saw her complete statement on another thread. The reason other people were being seated first is that the large table that the staff were trying to create was in a different section. Tables not in that section were still being seated normally.
This is normal for most restaurants, but the fact that it's normal isn't obvious to the average joe customer. They see other customers coming and going and they wonder what's going on. Especially when they've been primed 24/7 by the media to believe they're being Trayvonned.
The whole episode as told by Michael Brown is a complete crock. I hope it gets legs because it will be easy to undercut. Then it can be used as a lesson to show blacks that they need to quit being so touchy, and to show guilt-ridden whites that not every cry of racism is legit.
My one criticism of the restaurant is that a skillful manager could probably have diffused the situation by simply keeping the group informed about what was going on.
In my opinion the better way for the manager to handle things would simply to tell the group that he could not accommodate such a large group on such short notice.
It is simply ridiculous to expect a restaurant to go through the trouble and expense of trying to seat such a large group together on short notice. To do so cost the restaurant money. It also inconveniences other customers by making them wait longer while tables sit vacant waiting for enough tables come available for the large group to be seated together.