There seems to be a prevailing opinion among unhappy restaurant staff that customers who show up 10 minutes before closing are rude and inconsiderate. Countless Tik-Tok skits feature over-the-top rude customers insisting on the Royal treatment from a tired and disgusted sever, just as the restaurant is closing. But, is it rude? Should you not show up at a restaurant just before they close for the night?
This article presents my opinion. There are arguments to be made on both sides, but, in my opinion, you should avoid showing up at a restaurant just before closing time as this is tough on restaurant staff and you probably will not have a good experience. However, when a restaurant has clearly posted hours and you come in during those hours, it is not necessarily rude. You are simply a customer. Depending on the circumstances, it may not be the most compassionate thing to do, but compassion goes both ways.
Be Considerate To Restaurant Staff
Before I present my views supporting this opinion, let me say that you should be aware of the consequences of going into a restaurant at closing time. Closing duties for restaurant staff can take hours. The tasks that both the waitstaff and kitchen staff must perform vary from restaurant to restaurant but they can be arduous and time-consuming. For example, here are some examples of closing duties that waitstaff or front-of-house (FOH) may have to perform:
- Cash-out drawers and tally up receipts for the night
- Clear all tables and set them up for the next shift
- Clean and stock the bathrooms
- Take out the trash
- Sweep or vacuum floors in dining area, mop if applicable (flip chairs on top of tables)
- Wipe down booths and chairs
- Wipe down menus and checkbooks
- Clean front glass door if applicable
- Stock supplies at stations
- Refill napkin dispensers, salt and pepper shakers, and/or condiments as applicable
- Empty and clean coffee makers
This list is not comprehensive and while some or all of these may be part of a closing checklist for the FOH staff, you can see that once the restaurant closes, there is still a lot to do before it’s time to got home. This is to say nothing of the kitchen staff’s closing duties or the bar area, which could be even worse!
It may well be that for the last hour the restaurant is open, hardly anyone has come in. So, naturally things are going to start shutting down. It costs money to keep a restaurant open and when nobody is coming in, a restaurant is losing money. Not only does the staff want to go home, but the manager wants to get them out of there and shut off the lights.
Be Considerate and Don’t Intentionally Go to a Restaurant At Closing Time
So, if you know that a restaurant is about to close, think of the staff, be considerate, and don’t go. For a ballpark figure, I’d say that an hour before closing is fine and dandy but any time after this can begin to be problematic, depending on the restaurant.
All that being said, there are times when a customer drives to a restaurant and doesn’t know that it is just about to close. Rather than looking for another restaurant that may or may not be open later, and since the restaurant is technically still open, the customer will opt to go in. Not every customer who does this is intentionally being entitled or trying to screw you over.
You’re Only As Good As The Last Guest Served
There is an old adage in the restaurant business: You are only as good as the last guest served. Anyone can serve the first few customers of a shift well. Can you do it consistently through a busy shift from the first to the last customer? If you can’t serve your last customer, no matter how close to closing, as well as your first, then you are proving that you are in the wrong business or occupation.
Despite my recommendation above, it is not a restaurant guest’s job to engage in some kind of complicated mental alchemy to try to decide when is the best time to dine in a restaurant while the restaurant is open.
If your restaurant’s hours are from 12 pm to 8 pm, for example, is a customer supposed to assume this actually means 7:30? And if it does mean 7:30, is this not also ‘closing time,’ resulting in the same bad attitude and bad experience for the customer?
As explained, both front-of-house and back-of-house staff usually have a list of closing duties to perform before they can leave for the day. Often, the kitchen starts closing down well before closing time to facilitate a quick close-up when it’s time to shut down. Telling a customer that you cannot serve them during operating hours because the kitchen is shut down is telling a customer to never bother going to your restaurant again.
If your goal is to go home as soon as possible then your goals are not in line with the goals of a successful hospitality operation. That role is to provide the best experience possible for every guest. Your customers do not choose your operating hours.
‘Closing Early’ is Not the Usual Way For Restaurants
Disgruntled restaurant staff who complain about ‘rude customers’ who come in at closing also seem to assume that the habit of partially closing the kitchen early, say a half hour before official closing time, is an industry-wide standard practice. It is not.
When owners or managers set their closing time, they are usually setting the last seating time. This means they expect to seat customers up to this time and stop seating customers while continuing to serve the guests that are in the restaurant at that time. In other words, closing time is not ‘time to leave’ it’s time to stop seating!
Most restaurants fully serve customers right up until closing time. I’d venture to say that most people who frequently eat out at restaurants not only assume this to be the case but have experienced this. They have, perhaps without meaning to, showed up at a restaurant just around closing time, and have been served in the same way as any other guest.
When a customer shows up at the restaurant you work in at closing time and you refuse to serve them fully ‘because we’re closing’ you are engaging in a behavior that is not the norm.
Solution: Last Seating Time
If you are a restaurant manager in a restaurant that doesn’t take reservations, and you are having trouble with guests who show up at the last moment, or with staff who complain, there is one easy solution. Instead of posting operating hours, post ‘last seating hours’ and closing hours. For example:
- Closing Time: 9:00 pm
- Last Seating Time: 8:00 pm
You can even go so far as to post the last order times, although I would not recommend this as it is unwelcoming to a customer. Simply by posting the last seating time, you can eliminate people from coming in at, for example, 8:45, just before closing. This will go a long way toward solving the problem. It may not make a difference to the customers but will make things more clear for disgruntled staff who expect to go home soon after closing.
If you work at a restaurant that doesn’t post last seating times, you might want to consider suggesting it to management. However, they may be unsympathetic to your plight. There is something you have to face: Restaurant work is one of the hardest, most exhausting jobs there is. Sometimes customers expect more than you think is reasonable.
While some customers come in at closing, linger for hours, keep trying to make new orders even after they are told the kitchen is closed (at a reasonable hour), complain about the food or service, or engage in any number of inconsiderate and rude behaviors, this doesn’t mean that every customer who does so is rude. They may simply have read a simple sign on the front door that told them you were still open.
There are no absolutely right or wrong answers, here. Individual circumstances and individual guests may call for different reactions. However, all in all, I do not think that a guest is rude because they come just before closing time, but during operating hours.
While they may subsequently behave rudely, the initial act of simply visiting the restaurant is not necessarily intended to be rude.
If the service is rude because the server is angry at the customer for coming in at an inconvenient time for them personally, then the customer may respond with their own rude reaction. There is little to be gained from trying to ‘punish’ a customer for disrupting your plan to close up as quickly as possible and go home.
Compassion Goes Both Ways
I spoke of compassion for the restaurant staff, above. As restaurant staff, you also don’t know your customer’s circumstances. Perhaps they just visited a loved one in a hospital, are tired and worried, and simply looking for a bite to eat before they too, head home. Don’t assume that, as a server or other restaurant staff that your problems are the only problems in the world. If you treat someone like a problem they will likely become one.
Rude or angry behavior from restaurant staff, no matter what the hour, reflects on the professionalism of the server and on the restaurant as a whole. Most owners want to accommodate every guest and appreciate the fact that someone made a conscious decision to visit their restaurant. It’s not called the hospitality business for nothing.
