How is that you cannot see the irrelevance of your point?

Who is hungriest? Who is on the verge of starvation or is about to die of thirst? Who is fat, relaxed, and doesn't mind waiting at the bar for a table? That is:

• How should resources be allocated most efficiently?

Nobody knows, because nobody has complete knowledge!

In the absence of information, the best guess is that everyone is equal—hence, first-come-first-served; timing is the information used to differentiate. Next, you give everyone a representation of work that society owes them: Money. The more money someone has, the more work society owes that person (yes, you can inherit what someone else is owed!); the more money someone offers, the more work society should do for that person; in your scenario, doing "more work" means "waiting longer for a table in order to let that someone ahead in the queue".

In this way, the money offered acts as a transmission of information about how much someone values a service, and thus provides more information about how resources should be allocated according to needs and wants.

Indeed, through this mechanism, other patrons learn about how much the service is valued, and how much they need to do for society in order to be owed that service in return, etc. This feedback loop esablishes what services are possible, what services are need or wanted, etc.