# What do restaurant closing times mean?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 23, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145 "2013-02-23T03:22:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2013, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145/101 "2013-02-26T11:10:47Z")
> [@doreen](#):
>
> Actually, I don’t browse at all. But when I have been in retail stores near closing time, they start making announcements “ABC store is closing in 30 minutes. Please finish your shopping and bring your purchases to the register” and then again at 15 minutes and again after the doors are locked. And one or two times when the store was busy and I was therefore still on line after the doors were locked , I saw staff tell people still shopping that they must get on line now.
Maybe it’s a southern thing, but I see clerks standing around, impatient, but not allowed to rush people. Rarely have I seen people actually ushered out.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m certainly not saying it’s just fine to sit there for hours after the posted closing over chatting over coffee or to take 20 minutes deciding what to order. (and in fact, I don’t think those things are fine even hours before closing) What I’m saying is if the owner posts a closing time of 10 and expects people who arrive at 10 to be seated and served a meal, then “closing time” for that establishment would be more accurately described as “last seating” time and when employees are estimating the end of their workday , they need to take the time required to serve people who are seated at 10 into account, just like laundromat workers have to account for time to wash and dry a load that goes in at the posted “last wash” time.The owner who wants the customers who arrive at 10 seated and served certainly knows they will not be leaving at 10:10 and so do the employees.
And I think the social convention is that if it says the closing time it ten, that’s when you are supposed to be gone, not the last time you can be seated. Since it doesn’t say either way, it’s hard to have an authoritative answer. I think my point of view is supported by the fact that restaurants usually clear out by close: it’s very rare to have people come in in those last 15 minutes.
> [@](#):
>
> ```
> To go back to the doctor example, I very specifically did not use the phrase "closing time" because there is certainly a difference of opinion in what "closing time" means in the restaurant business. My doctors, vets, etc may or may not have a closing time- I wouldn't know. Because they don't give that time to the patients. The card lists office hours as 2-4 pm and means the last appointment is at 4 pm. They may well expect to be out of the office at 4:30 - but I don't know that because they don't list that on the card. Nearly every job I've had, from fast food to bank teller to a couple of government agencies has had a time when the doors closed to customers/clients - and while in every job we had an estimate of what time we would leave , that was **not** the "closing time" given to the customers/clients.
>
> ```
My doctor’s answering service will say they are open from 8-4, but I’ve never gotten an appointment past 3:45. They will answer the phone, however, until then. To me, walking in a restaurant at closing and asking if you can be seated is like asking the doctor’s office if they can create a 4:00 appointment for you because that’s their technical closing time.
---
### Author:  [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2013, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145/102 "2013-02-26T20:23:57Z")
> [@jack\_tardiff](#):
>
> At a bar in a restaurant, I’d order food up until closing, but hope I started a Z-Pack.
What’s a Z-Pack?
---
### Author:  [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2013, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145/103 "2013-02-26T22:38:02Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:102, topic:651145”]
What’s a Z-Pack?
[/QUOTE]
A 5-day course of azithromycin, the most commonly prescribed antibiotic for upper respiratory stuff or generalized funk (or shutting people the fuck up and getting them out of the office). It comes on a 6-pill blister card (2 pills for loading dose, then one a day for four more days), and the brand name form is Zithromax.
---
### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145/104 "2013-02-27T21:12:53Z")
A restaurant closing at 10 means pretty much nothing to me, since I hopefully already ate 4-5 hrs earlier. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145/105 "2013-02-27T21:34:17Z")
Restaurants close the kitchen before the restaurant exactly to accommodate the time required for those people to finish up and leave. The only required time is set by the government regulated "closing time’, as in drinks cleared and butts out the door!
If they took your order, you should expect to not be rushed. If it’s important that the restaurant be emptied, lights out by 10 pm they’d stop taking orders, and close the kitchen by 9pm!
---
### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145/106 "2013-02-27T22:02:00Z")
I selected “The doors close at 10:00. You’d better be done with your meal by then,” but when I’ve found myself in a restaurant five minutes past closing, the staff has always assured me (rather forcefully, actually) that they still had plenty to do and that I was welcome to stay for a good long while.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-restaurant-closing-times-mean/651145.md?page=5)