To think that tea rooms close too early

[CoolForCats09]

This probably sounds like a totally pointless thread but this kind of annoys me - why do most tea rooms close at 4?
I get that places might open early so close early but I'd love to find more places that are open until 5 at least. I think ideal tea and cake time is about 4ish but there's never anywhere open by then, unless it's Costa.

Has anyone else ever thought the same?

Never seen this but I live in a part of Yorkshire notorious for not having the best climate. They've never be open if they did that!

I don't know why they can't stay open all evening? I'd love to go out & have tea & cake in the evening & sit back & chat with friends. I'm not a pub person, too noisy, too lairy & I'm not bothered about alcohol after the first glass.

Never seen this but I live in a part of Yorkshire notorious for not having the best climate. They've never be open if they did that! We live on SW England the weather is rarely perfect here either . The Yorkshire half of me is like I really want tea & cake I'm willing to wear waterproofs and wrap up warm in order to do this.

@MushroomQueen the only independent cafe I know of around is that does open later, until 5pm, is the one in the local nature reserve type place. People come for a walk/play with their kids after school, then the kids have their tea in the cafe. As far as I can tell it's thriving, at least it's always busy. I get that in some locations only popular with the breakfast/lunch crowd it wouldn't work, but for those near parks or shopping districts I imagine it would. I really just don't believe the argument that they've tested opening an hour later, and found it to be not worth their while. If the park nextdoor is packed with school kids, and in an area where people have disposable income, how could it not be popular?

What's wrong with making enough to suit them?

Or they can..go home and have a life?

do some people expect everything to be open all the time to suit them?

Have a think. Maybe you'll figure it out.

Because you need to pay someone to clean up, wipe down tables, wash dishes etc. anyway, so you may as well keep the place open until they've finished those "end of the day" jobs and maybe earn an extra £20-30 a day from people having a cup of coffee and a brownie.

But if you stay open until 5-6pm, you need to hire more staff (as nobody wants to work 7am-6pm), pay for more heating and electric, bake more cakes/bread etc.

The extra outlay isn't worth it.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe because it costs money to keep a business open? If you stay open until 8pm as opposed to 3pm, you have to pay for five extra hours of:

Heating
Electricity
Front of house staff (at least two as most places have a lone working policy)
Kitchen staff (washing up)
Chef (if you're going to serve decent hot food)
Ingredients to provide a full menu (that needs to sell else you end up chucking it in the bin). etc.

And nobody is going to want to work 9am-8pm, so you need at least two shifts worth of staff, plus enough lunch cover, which means advertising for extra staff, finding people who want to work those hours, hiring costs, uniforms, paying wages, pensions, NI and annual leave, organising rotas and holiday cover for extra people...

And you're only going to do that if you can guarantee an extra income of (x) per day, everyday, otherwise why would you bother?

We dropped DD off at Cub Camp on Friday and went to find dinner. Two pubs not doing food and one closed their kitchen at 7.30! I ask you! So it's not just tea rooms.

Well, there’s an eternal tension, isn’t there - who is the business (small or otherwise) run for?

Yes, of course it’s understandable that business owners work insanely hard for little reward and feel ground down by long hours and all the pressure they face, so they are not going to react well to people saying ‘can’t you just stay open a bit later?'

I should add, I’ve worked in a small catering business, prepped for the day, made 4 dozen scones before 9 every morning, dealt smilingly with frankly impossible customers, etc etc….I get it.

But…but….there are plenty of potential customers on here saying loud and clear that they would like this. So it really can’t be dismissed out of hand. Nobody expects streets full of cosy retreats twinkling invitingly 24 hours a day.

But staying open till actual teatime at least might not be a huge ask, as the OP suggested. It seems to have morphed into an expectation that small cafes stay open continuously, which I don’t think most people are seriously saying.

But…but….there are plenty of potential customers on here saying loud and clear that they would like this. So it really can’t be dismissed out of hand. Nobody expects streets full of cosy retreats twinkling invitingly 24 hours a day.

People saying that they'd go and people actually going are very different. It's like the party threads where people invite 20. 15 say that they'll go and about 5 actually turn up. Or events on FB which hundreds say they're interested in attending but only a handful of those actually do. Hence cafe owners on the thread stating that they've tried opening later and they didn't get the numbers they needed.

I'm as guilty of this as anyone. There's a number of local(ish) restaurants that I keep meaning to visit but I haven't got round to actually visiting most of them, for one reason or another.

People say they want lots of things - that doesn't mean they'll actually use them.

I mean, for example, I'm a dog walker. A lot of people work shifts around here and would complain that nobody offers weekend care for their dogs. So, I offered it for two years and made, on average, a grand total of £15 a day. It wasn't worth the interruption to my weekend so I stopped offering it, and then got people (who never booked me when I worked weekends) complaining because I no longer offer weekend walks!

Businesses exist (primarily) to make profit. Nobody is going to open until 6 or 8pm everyday on the off chance that someone might want to pop in for a quick tea or coffee and cake. They need guaranteed daily income otherwise it's just not worth it.

I mean, why pay out for extra staff, heating, electricity and food costs if you're not going to make any money?

OK, fine. I think this thread has run its course now.

I can’t believe how obtuse some people are being in the face of the real experience of people actually doing this job.

Not enough people come in to make the extra work worth it. Plenty of places try it, and give it up.

If you’re catering to the breakfast, morning coffee, lunch crowd, you don’t necessarily want to cater to the after school or after work crowds. Your hours are long enough.

Lots of people saying they’d use it? Yeah, from an international website of millions of users, which doesn’t equate to a busy evening café in a small town.

Strange response.

I am often surprised by how people view businesses - as if they are obliged to provide certain things. I used to know a jewellery shop owner in the City who opened at 11. Every day at lunchtime and after work, he'd have some muppet telling him how much extra he'd make if he opened earlier.

if he was feeling patient, he'd explain how these hours suited him and he made enough money. If he wasn't feeling patient he'd say "well, you are in here now arguing so if you want to waste your own time, feel free".

rather wish I had kept in touch with him, he was fun! 😂

Ours seem to close around 2 :(

Insert "I can’t believe how obtuse some people are being in the face of the real experience of people actually doing this job."

I am honestly surprised how seldom people seem to use logic when thinking of anything business related. This thread sounds like the thing about the businessman telling the fisherman how he could set up a business of fishermen, if anyone knows it.

Why is it a strange response?

As soon as anyone has the temerity to say that they agree with the OP, a business owner, or people such as yourself, @EmmaH2022, immediately appear to tell them they’re wrong or indeed imply, in the remark you just quoted, that they’re a ‘muppet’.

Why bother, in that case? The thread is now just one long argument and of no use to anyone. As you say, we’re wasting time. Let’s agree to differ and move on.

Halsall I just found it strange because it sounded like a parent saying "that's enough now". 😂

Exactly.

When I started my business, I had so many people say to me how nice it was to find a dog walker who covered weekends. Great, I thought, I could make a decent amount of money and I need to walk my own dog anyway, so, win-win!

But, in reality, only a handful of people ever bothered to sign their dogs up and only one of them did so regularly. In the end, it wasn't worth giving up my free time so I stopped offering them.

And do you know who complained? The people who never once bothered to sign up to weekends anyway!

100% this.

And as a business owner myself, I would rather work mornings and be done by 2pm, than start later and not get home until 7-8pm. Could I make a bit extra working evenings? Sure, but I don't want to devote every hour of my day to my business. It's not worth it. I make enough money to support myself and I have an excellent work-life balance, so why change that?

I also think that if evening cafês would make such a huge profit, everyone would already be doing it. There's obviously a reason why millions of cafê owners up and down the country all close at the same time, don't you think?!

My local independent doesn't open until 10am and buys everything in so they could definitely stay open later than 3!

And if they make enough money and are happy with their hours, they'll keep diing that.

lobster agree with all that.

But what about staffing, heating and electric costs? There's no point paying all those costs if you're not going to have a guaranteed stream of income everyday.