Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is apparently handing out Waverly Inn tables to anyone, as though he doesn't mind his "hot" restaurant showing up so much on has-beens portal DListed.com. Guido and Jesus freak Stephen Baldwin was just spotted coming out of the restaurant without the help of a bouncer. He followed in the footsteps of Michael Lohan, the desperate estranged father of Lindsay, and actor and drunken scooter jockey Mickey Rourke. Sure, it would be easy to blame Carter's new executive assistant for the influx of lesser celebrities, but an eventual decline for Waverly has probably been in the cards since the beginning. Maybe the naysaying food critics were right:

New York's Adam Platt said last year that it was worth "fighting your way inside for a little bite" at the Waverly "maybe just once," but that "when the Waverly finally opens for business, the food won't taste half as good."

And here's Frank Bruni's prediction in the New York Times:

Someday the people who know you and the people who know your key staff members and the recognizable or attractive people who take the trouble to stop in, willing to submit to a visual once-over and try to make a reservation in person - someday there won't be enough of these people to fill the seats, and you'll have to take all callers and comers, and it will all be so much different.

It's probably premature to declare Waverly over, given that Carter can still throw the showbiz world into conniptions by canceling a single party. Hold any condemnation, at least, until people stop trying to scalp Waverly reservations.

(Photos via Splash News, DListed)

[Splash News, DListed]