re: OT's opinion on staying at a place past closing time

I never go to a restaurant writhing
Within a half hour of close.

I blame the restaurants. They shouldn't have a closing time, they should have a last seating time. How are customers supposed to know how long it takes you to shut down? Do I have to get there an hour before closing, 2 hours? Again, how am I supposed to know? It's not a good situation for the customer either, I often find even if there's an hour to an hour and a half left when I get there and order the food quality is often subpar. You're the business, you tell me when I'm able to come and get the service level I expect, don't put that shite on me so your whiny arse employees can blame me for your failure to properly set the rules of your establishment.

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You're the business, you tell me when I'm able to come and get the service level I expect, don't put that shite on me so your whiny arse employees can blame me for your failure to properly set the rules of your establishment.

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They do. It's the whiney arse employees who think they can't be inconvenienced during working hours so that they can leave early. Management over time has realized that they can slowly start shutting down as the night goes on due to statistics of people showing up. But you are leveraging cleaning up early against someone showing up. You are not closed for business. Food service people have gotten used to this process and take as closing down completely. I understand tipping. I understand the issues people have working in food service. I've did it for a few years. But geez, there can be some very whiney, self righteous people in that industry.

Within 45 mins to an hour of closing and by myself, I'll sit in the bar, immediately order a simple sandwich and a beer, eat, and get the frick out. I won't go in with a group to sit at a table that soon to close because it's shitty for the waitress and kitchen to prepare who knows what.

I worked in restaurants for years and if the sign said 10, that meant we were accepting customers until 10. If we didn't want to seat new tables after 9:30 we would have changed our sign to 9:30.

Now, people that come in late and want to take their time and have after dinner coffee and conversation are another matter. I hated those tables.

Exactly! I had to convince our owner to close an hour early as we weren't seeing much business that late. It was immediate savings on utilities and labor

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I've worked in the restaurant industry and most people that come in 5 minutes before close are doing it on purpose.

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Moron.

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I've worked in the restaurant industry and most people that come in 5 minutes before close are doing it on purpose.

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I mean, how often do you end up eating in a restaurant by accident?

I've worked at plenty of restaurants in my youth, from fast food to fancy sit down, front of house, back of house.

Back of house can absolutely do 90% of their close-down when last minute customers come in.

Most of the prep table can be wrapped, dated, and put away. If you need that bin of tomatoes, you just reach into the walk-in and grab them.

You can clean 90% of the grill, and leave one spot dirty to cook the last second order.

Floors can still be mopped while Jose is pressing the last minute Cuban sandwich.

90% of the front of house can still be swept can cleaned except for the immediate area of the last minute diners.

90% of FOH staff can leave, and probably already have by this point anyway, as FOH staff start/stop times are usually staggered anyway.

Drawer can still be counted by a competent manager and FOH tipped out, even though there's still a table or two lingering.


You restaurant people need to get your shite together. There's no reason to be lazy whiny schmucks, unless you really do want to work in a restaurant for the rest of your life.