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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
