Restaurants and their bathrooms.

In My Humble Opinion
1

How do you feel about restaurants that restrict bathroom use to customers only?

Is it okay to use the restroom of a restaurant without purchasing anything?

Personally, I am not comfortable using the restroom in a restaurant unless I’m a paying customer. Others have no problem with it though, as we are finding out with our new deli.

We are the only place in town that has not restricted restroom use to customers only. Not yet anyway. Some people do ask and are given permission. Sometimes, the permission is probably less than friendly, if you know what I mean. Others don’t even ask and some even lie and say they are waiting for the rest of their party, but then disappear.

I get irritated about this and I don’t want to. I need to either restrict the use of the bathroom or let people use it cheerfully. I don’t want to piss people off, but it’s not free to maintain this bathroom either. The water alone is terribly expensive.

So, what say you?

2

I don’t mind restricting bathroom use to paying customers only if there’s another alternative not too far away. But if there’s only one place with a bathroom nearby, it seems kind of cruel to tell people without money to take a hike.

3

While I understand the POV of the store owner, I don’t know. Let me give you a scenario:

I’m driving down the road and I’ve suddenly got to pee. If I run into a store and they refuse to let me use their bathroom, it pretty much guarantees I’ll begrudge them and not go back again. Granted, I always try to buy something in situations like this, but I usually don’t buy it until after I pee. . .so, you wouldn’t know if I was a real customer or not until after you let me in the bathroom.

Just my $.02

4

So, this guy goes into a pizza restaurant, just to use the can. The manager, seeing this, phones the police, and reports it as a trespassing offense. But the guy in the bathroom, overhearing this, makes a point, when he comes out, of buying a slice of plain pizza, just so he is a real customer, not a trespasser, and he displays the receipt when the police arrive. This is called “Cheese it, the cops.”

5

This is a dammed if you do dammed if you don’t, personally I feel guilty if I don’t buy something when I use the bathroom at a gas station but plenty of people don’t. Maybe a middle ground, a sign “customers only” with a more open policy, because sometimes you just gotta go. Feel free to say no to the Homeless(sorry but…), intoxicated and the guy next door who treats you bathroom as his own IMHO

Capt Kirk

6

In Washington State, the law requires businesses to allow any customer to use an employee restroom if three or more employees are working at the time, and the request doesn’t pose a security risk.

So if an establishment has a public restroom, they can’t be denied anyway.

7

About the only type of place I’d actually use the bathroom without being a customer is a national retail chain. I figure that for all anyone else knows, I am a customer but rethought my purchase or couldn’t find what I needed. But that’s still weasly and I know it. I’d never go into any restaurantish place and expect to be able to use their bathroom unless I bought something.

I guess more objectively, have you noticed any of the non-customers using the bathroom coming back some other time and becoming customers? If not, I can’t see how it’d be worth it. The fact that no one else allows it makes me think you wouldn’t have to worry about ill-will directed toward your deli for restricting the use.

8

This is a walking, touristy kind of place. There are public restrooms in town, but they are at the other end of the street. Probably most of the people using the bathroom are tourists.

I don’t know if that matters.

9

I dislike using the bathroom in a business unless i am a patron. Typically I find some fast food place and make a nominal purchase on the way out - a coffee or iced tea, typically.

10

I was once in a small casual restaurant in NYC, and a VERY pregnant woman rushed in off the street, and asked to use the restroom. She stressed that it was urgent. The manager refused her, saying it was store policy. It was only after some of us started yelling at him that he relented. Some circumstances trump store policy.

11

I’m fine with restricting bathroom use. Most places around here are “customer use only” and even have the doors locked, so you have to go to the counter and make a purchase in order to get a key or be buzzed in. I’m always delighted when I find an unlocked bathroom door, but these are usually in places where homeless people and drug addicts wouldn’t get much past the front door in the first place. Depending on the part of town you’re in, the merchants really do have to be concerned about people using the bathroom as an actual “bath” room, or IV drug use. If the policy keeps them out, the bathroom relatively clean, and me in, I’m all for it.

12

Since you are just a small deli, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a “restroom for customers only” sign. If someone wants to ask, and you want to allow it, then they may reward you by actually patronizing you someday. Or maybe they’ll just take advantage of you, but it’ll probably only be the once.

Also, check relevant laws of course to see if you are required!

13

Not sure if this helps, but if I were in your shoes, this would be my mindset…

Water really isn’t that expensive. I’m not sure what city you live in, but as an example in Phoenix, 12,000 gallons costs $34.29. In Boston it’s $65.47 per 12,000 gallons. A toilet flush is about 1.6 gallons, but let’s assume 2 with hand washing, etc. So even if you’re water bill is tied to your sewer bill, worst case you’re talking 2.5 cents or so per flush.

I don’t know if you advertise, but if you do, it’s to entice people to come into your shop. There are few advertisements or marketing programs that will get people in the door (that otherwise wouldn’t have come in) for 2.5 cents per customer.

I’d look at it as a marketing expense. You’re differentiating yourself because you are one of the few “friendly” places that lets people use the restroom. People want to shop at a place that has a message and a personality. The open bathroom policy becomes part of who you are (you’re not like the other restrictive shops), and I think that is a positive thing. If only one out of 10 people that came in from the outside to use the bathroom bought something, you’d still just be spending 21 cents for a paying customer, that you may not have otherwise had. I’d imagine your bathroom policy would be good for the bottom line.

I’d go one step further - to increase the number of people that entered your Deli, and to let people know what kind of deli you are, you could have a sign outside your establishment that said, “Our bathroom is NOT just for customers - come on in”.

Once someone has gone into the deli to use the bathroom, maybe you can help convert them into a paying customer with signs in the bathroom or in the Deli. (“Long Day? Rejuvenate yourself with an ice-cold lemonade and chicken sandwich”).

Wouldn’t that be neat to try for one month and see what happened?

I recognize that you need to keep the bathroom clean, and there are other costs involved, but as someone that sometimes goes to touristy areas, I find the atmosphere in some of the artsy mom & pop shops a little stuffy, and off-putting. A “bathroom for customers only” sign lessens the appeal of those shops because they seem less friendly and only interested in me if I spend money with them. Guess how long I like to be in a store I subconsciously think is unfriendly? Not long.

Your open bathroom policy in contrast says, “I want you to be comfortable (whether or not you buy from me)”. I have a strong suspicion that message will garner you extra traffic and extra sales that would more than offset your costs.

14

aaelghat makes a good point and has a reasonable rationale, but there’s no guarantee that your particular area and situation will make this a profitable marketing venture. It might be worth talking to a local marketing consultant for a couple of hours and see if a public bathroom would even increase your profitability. If *every other *shop in the area has a private restroom, as you mentioned, and there are public restrooms right down the street, then it’s possible you wouldn’t lose anything by keeping your restrooms for customers only. You can still make exceptions in exceptional cases, of course (like the hugely pregnant woman or the mother with a young child who’s about to vomit). There are local factors to consider, like the cost of water/paper/soap/electricity, the increased maintenance to keep it looking nice, and the accelerated depreciation of the toilet/sink/door hinges/floor tiles. It all sounds like small stuff on its own, but if you aggregate the costs it might not be worth it.

15

You could charge a nominal fee for non-customers - just 25c or so, to offset the water and cleaning supplies.

16

I vastly prefer to be a patron if I’m gonna use the bathroom. However, if I gotta go, I gotta go.

I think that there’s a law in at least some areas of the US that restaurants MUST have publicly accessible bathrooms. This is definitely something to check into before anything else. Even if it’s legal, I probably wouldn’t patronize a restaurant that restricted bathroom access.

I’ve worked in places that don’t have public bathrooms. And when you make an exception, it seems like about half the time, the person who needed that potty so desperately pays you back by making a humongous mess in the bathroom. I completely understand why you would prefer to restrict bathroom access. I’m just saying that it might not be legal, and it might not be wise.

17

It’s a tricky situation. I want to be friendly, but when the special events happen in the courtyard, I could see it getting out of control. And I hate it when they throw the paper on the floor instead of the trash can that is right there.

Well, I think we’ll keep it open for now and hope the public doesn’t abuse it too badly. Thanks you guys.

18

Quite frankly I’m surprised anyone would even give this a first thought, let alone a second. If I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go and I’m going to go at the first place I see.

And frankly, unless I’m some homeless meth head looking for a place to give blowjobs for drug money, the restaurant shouldn’t care.
Now I can understand resticting access if there is a special event outside the restuarant. You don’t want dozens of people coming in there messing up the place and displacing the actual paying customers.

19

There are many restaurants near the bus station, and not one of them lets you use their bathroom if you’re not a customer. There are no bathrooms at the bus station.

They fiercely enforce this rule at the McDonald’s near the bus station (I was once bodily forced out of a bathroom stall by an employee - I was planning to use the bathroom and then order something, but they didn’t let me.) I have sometimes gotten around this rule by ordering a glass of water at McDonald’s (costs nothing, but enables me to use the bathroom as a “customer.”)

20

Not sure what state you live in…

Illinois requires any retail establishment that has a restroom for employees to allow the public to access it during normal business hours if the restroom is safe to access and the person has a medical reason.

http://www.ilga.gov/LEGISLATION/ILCS/ilcs3.asp?ActID=2726&ChapAct=410%26nbsp;ILCS%26nbsp;39/&ChapterID=35&ChapterName=PUBLIC+HEALTH&ActName=Restroom+Access+Act.

Ohio has a similar law

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4173