WASHINGTON — I have now spent roughly twice as many hours standing on the sidewalk outside Bad Saint as I have spent inside eating its Filipino food.

This is not an ideal ratio, but at least I had company. Bad Saint, in this city’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, has never taken reservations since it began operating in 2015. The line that begins forming on 11th Street at least two hours before the doors open at 5:30 p.m. is by now as much a part of the experience of having dinner at Bad Saint as hanging out in the stadium parking lot is a part of the experience of seeing a Phish concert.

Repeat customers are common and easy to spot. They’re the ones who have brought folding chairs, bottles of water, boxes of wine, volumes of Murakami and Ferrante, and bug spray to keep away the mosquitoes who also like dining at Bad Saint. Blankets appear as the weather gets chilly; in scheduling my meals for this review, I watched the approach of winter as anxiously as covered-wagon pioneers eyed the clouds over the Donner Pass.

To pass the time before I was allowed to eat Bad Saint’s extraordinary Filipino food, I chatted with Blelvis, the Black Elvis, who challenged me to name a song of Mr. Presley’s he did not know, and felt mildly ashamed of myself when I stumped him with “Froggy Went a-Courtin’.”