National Trust /English Heritage experience - AIBU?

[Gremlings]

How would you feel on this?
Recently visited a site - as a member.
They close at 4 during the winter. Last entry is 3pm.
Cafe -last orders 3 or 3.30 (not sure.)

We went into the cafe at 2.45 after spending an hour at the site. We weren't the last customers by any means.

They were already clearing the cafe at 2.45 - chairs on tables, wiping tables, etc. About 1/3rd of tables had 'chairs up' by 3pm.

While me and DH were eating, we had cleaners all around us. Food (cake) was being removed from the counters

When we left at 3.45, they are mopping the floor around us.

It felt very uncomfortable.

These are not volunteers in the cafe- they are paid staff- and it was very clear they wanted to close asap.

I'm wondering about emailing and saying it felt uncomfortable.

I would complain. And I had complained on site.

Chairs up and mopping floor is not great, I think the other points are quite minor and wouldn’t bother me.

If they closed at 3 or 3.30 and you were still there at 3.45 I expect staff just wanted you out, although telling you the closing time politely about 15 minutes before would have been sensible. I think some cafe ‘staff’ in NT cafes are volunteers though. The one in my local property is always chaotic frankly and needs reorganising!

The other point being-? Taking food off the counter? I accept that after 3.30 but not the rest.

No they don't close then.
Last orders and closing the site are not the same.

The whole site closes at 4pm.

The cafe has last orders at either 3 or 3.30 (I'd need to check as they just have it scrawled on a blackboard, not on the website.)

They shouldn't have to wait for the last customer to leave to start clearing up. Why would it be an issue for them to remove cake from the counter after last orders?

There's a subtle difference.
They put a rope across the entrance at around 3.15 - 3,30
This doesn't mean anyone already in the cafe can't ask for (more) food if they are already at a table.

It’s fairly standard towards the end of a cafe being open that they start to close down areas. They’re not expecting a huge influx of people and putting chairs on tables signals that area has been cleaned. It keeps newcomers to an area not yet cleaned.

Putting food away before last orders is not a big deal. If someone comes in and says “do you have any Victoria sponge left” they go back to the kitchen and check. It means they aren’t putting everything away and can get the one or two things that are needed. Starting to mop 15 minutes before the close is also not a big deal.

You clearly want to be pissed off though, was your Victoria sponge a bit dry? If you want to be pissed off about this non-issue, then complain. You don’t need permission from the internet.

They probably only get paid till 4pm, and if they waited till everyone had left, they woudln’t have enough time to get everything done. What would you like to happen: if you want the clearing up to happen after you’ve left, EH would need to pay their staff till at least 4.30pm with cost implications. Would a sign on the counter help: “Last food and drink orders are taken at 3pm. The cafe closes at 4pm so our staff will be clearing and preparing for the following day from 3pm onwards. We appreciate your understanding”.

I don’t think I could get excited enough about this to actually complain tbh.

If the whole site closes at 4 and you were still sitting in the cafe at 3:45pm they probably were hinting that it was time to make your way back to the entrance and leave. They have to do a sweep of the whole site before they can close it.

I used to work hospitality and we were paid until the time the place shut, not half an hour after to clear up, so yes, we tried to start getting clear up jobs done before close.

I would presume they are only paid minimum wage until 4pm and expected to have everything clean for the next day by then so would be fairly typical for NT cafe. I would just go earlier next time. It's easier once the days are longer.

I would take last orders to mean that nobody can order more food after that time, even if they're already in the cafe.

Surely it makes a difference if last orders are 3 or 3.30. It is normal for the cafe to close before the site, to allow people to leave, so would expect the cafe to close up by 3.30 latest and the service counter at least half an hour before then and wipe down as they go.

I haven’t been a waitress for over 25 years but I still have a special sort of hatred for people that come in at last orders and sit there for an hour over a cake.

I did not peruse a career in catering after my teenager years 🤣

Honestly if you didn't already say to staff at the time, an email is fine. I personally wouldn't lose any sleep over though, you are a member, it's not as if it's a once in a lifetime trip. I can't see how removing the cake impacted your experience? I mean it's not great to have the staff cleaning before the stated time of closure but I think this is a norm now? Staff are paid until closing time, often there is no allowance time for them to clean after closing.

I've worked in a pub and a restaurant, as a student, and in both cases the going home time was after the last table was cleared, not the time of last orders.

I'm not going to do anything now but will see if it happens again and at exactly what time.

We weren't the only people there at that time. There were other tables who left when we did and we were off the site well before closing time.

I think that's all absolutely fair enough. Were you expecting them to wait and do all the cleaning and closing up tasks in the 15 minutes between you leaving the cafe and the closing time?

The main point was that at 2.45 most of the tables were unavailable as they had put all the chairs on the table and carried on doing that.

It may be they had done a head count of entry to the site - it was raining!- and decided that they could validly start semi-closing the cafe early.

I used to get told off for ‘looking closed’ (ie tidied up at 15mins to closing. They only paid me until the exact closing time, no matter how long I was there afterwards.

Fuck that. My time is as valuable to me as yours is to you, and actually, I don’t really care about your cake.

This is why me and friends take our own stuff to NT places and have a picnic outside. The service in the cafes is the worst I've ever seen - the women (and they are almost 100% late middle aged women in the ones I've been in) need a rocket up them. (Shout out to the cafe at Hardcastle Crags for making malingering an actual art form).

So you’re going to police them now? For putting away some food before the end of the day and closing areas down in the last 45 minutes of them being open for people to order?

I can totally see this thread being lifted by the Daily Mail, to show how the "fraught, 'other half' live" amidst the poverty, housing and education crises that we as a nation are facing.
Just enjoy your membership OP and put away the stopwatch. Maybe go 15 minutes earlier in future. {light-hearted}

Was it NT or EH?

Most hospitality places seem to exist to do things for their own convenience. The service is poor and they do things which only serve themselves. There's no heed paid to providing any passable customer experience.