maybe this is a culture thing but, you’re running a business - why is the POS such an ambiguous affair?
your business hours should not be ambiguous. your price should not be ambiguous. the level of your service should not be ambiguous. yes, in practice these aren’t always the case, but as a set ideal it should be. the closing time should be the kitchen’s, if not, set a time for last order. the price should be clearly stated without requiring mental arithmetics. quality of service should be equal for all customers.
why is eating out made to sound like a visit to the in-laws?
Where I work we close the kitchen several hours before the bar, generally 10PM during the week and 2AM on the weekends. Our “last Call” is 3:45AM and then we have 30-45mins of counting, cleaning and stocking to do. We may close both the kitchen and the bar earlier if business has been very slow for hours, but not usually. If the cook hasn’t cleaned the grill and/or shut off the deep fryer we will gladly serve you food even after our “usual” kitchen closing time. If the cook has to stay a bit late, oh well. They know that’s the occasional part of the job. We don’t have a limited “late night” menu but generally people aren’t going to order anything more complicated than a burger, nacho platter, chicken wings/fingers or sandwich/wrap after midnight.
You are welcome to pick at your food until last call, when we’ll offer to wrap it up to-go.
The waitstaff will close out any orders and do their “end of the night” tasks around 11PM, but often may have to stick around for a bit.
We will usually be down to just one waiter after 9:30-10PM. The staff takes turns going home early if it’s a slow night. Our delivery driver goes home at 10PM and we’ll stop taking delivery orders around 15 mins before. Thus they may have to work until 10:30-11PM. We’ll continue to take orders “to-go” or for “pick-up” until we close the kitchen.
After they go home it is the bartender/“bar back” who will bring out any food for customers and then bus the empty plates. If it’s not too busy, I (the bouncer/doorman) may do so just to keep myself occupied.
Customers will almost always ask me when they come in if they have questions about the closing time of the kitchen.
We reserve the right to refuse service for any lawful reason but will generally try and accommodate our customers.
Last year, I was on a business trip. It’s hard to find a restaurant that’s open past 10 or so in the town I was in, and we were having a very long day at the office.
We called one restaurant at 9:45, and asked if we could bring our party of 14 in for dinner. They checked with the kitchen (and perhaps other staff), and told us to come on it. We did. The place was empty other than us, but they were polite, the food was good, and we tipped well.
-D/a
It has nothing to do with personal comfort. I’ll stay there all night long if I have to, I’m not in any hurry. And as far as turning away money goes, he doesn’t make enough on the one sale to pay me, let alone my co-workers, for the extra 20 minutes it costs us. Those are the economic facts of life. The “goodwill” that might be generated is overcome by the labor costs, which are neck and neck with food costs as the most expensive factor in running a restaurant.
And as far as “leaving the job early” goes, I can tell you’ve never worked in a restaurant, because “early” is no less than a half-hour after closing, and can be as much as 4 or 5 hours after closing. It’s open-ended.
That’s similar to the Wendy’s I worked at in high school. If we did have after-closing diners, we let them stay until they were ready to go.
That policy pissed off my co-workers one night. I was in charge of the dining room and salad bar. I usually had it closed 20 minutes after we locked the doors. But these patrons we had come in at 5 minutes before had ordered salads (all you can eats), and besides letting them stay until they were ready to leave, I had to keep the salad bar open and stocked too. I also couldn’t vacuum nor polish the brass fittings, which I also usually had done quickly. (Closing employees couldn’t leave until we were all done, so everyone had to wait 1 1/2 hours, then help me to finish closing so we could leave.)
It’s expensive to run a restaurant, as others have pointed out. The place has to be cleaned, food has to be prepped for the next day, the register has to be counted and closed out. Even at minimum wage, it can cost the restaurant more in labor than the customer spends, and staying late can push some people into overtime. Therefore, unless the place is busy enough to justify staying open past closing time, it may not be worth it. And, yes, there are analogues in other industries; consider the insurance agent who spends hours closing a deal that will net him a small commission, or the doctor who has to pay his staff more to squeeze in one more patient. It may be money in their pockets, but it comes at a loss.
That said, the customer does not have the right to be a dick to the restaurant staff. (Or to anyone else, for that matter.) You don’t like it when someone is a dick to you; don’t be a dick to other people.
Where I work, the buffet closes at 10PM. All the food come off at 10PM. You can stay and eat the food you already have for as long as you want (we stay open all night, just the buffet closes), but you can;t get more after 10.
If they did that would be highly illegal, even for tipped waitstaff. As MsRobyn pointed out unless it’s very busy the restaurant is actually losing way more money serving the latecomers than it’s earning from them.
We walked into a restaurant last week at one minute to closing. We don’t normally do that but we were used to this particular place being open until 11. On this day of the week though it closed at 10. Anyhow, we were seated no one said anything about being a late arrival. The server got a great tip though.
In the news last week a chain of restaurants filed Chapter 11 and then threw everyone out of certain restaurants at a certain time, midnight eastern perhaps, employees, patrons, everyone. Just a memo to managers to throw everyone out and lock the doors. I have not seen a follow up story.
The restaurant I worked at the kitchen generally started closing down (clean up) about a half hour before the doors closed. The hostess would inform patrons that the kitchen was closed if they came in near closing. 24 hour diner is down the street.
I understand why the owner of a restaurant would not want to keep the place open for a small party that is going to cost him more than they spend.
I understand why a tipped employee would not want to hang around for an extra hour or two to serve a patron who is going to leave a $2 tip.
But there seems to be so much resentment coming from non-tipped fast food employees. If they are getting paid for their time, why would they not want to earn an extra 15 minutes or half-hour of pay?
Because when you’ve been on your feet for 8 or 10 hours, you’d gladly pay $10 to go home 15 minutes early: the $3 you make or working an extra half-hour does not feel like a bonus.
They want to go home. Another $5.00 in their pocket a week and a half later doesn’t change that fact.
I work closing at a coffee shop, and we will serve anyone up to when we lock the doors. But for us, that just means keeping some coffee ready, and leaving one group head on the espresso machine ready. We start cleaning about an hour before closing and on a good night, we’re ready to leave an hour after closing. For someone who has an entire kitchen to clean, i can certainly understand why they wouldn’t want to serve someone 5 minutes before closing.
Hey, for those that think one shouldn’t be able to order minutes before closing time…here’s a tip…change your closing time to an hour earlier. Problem solved. I’m sure management/corporate will be fully understanding.
In Japan, quite a few restaurants have “Last Order” times (usually 30 min before closing) posted along with regular business hours. Many will not allow new customers to enter after the last order time.
