Cafes stopping food before they close

[athomemum1]

I love a cafe stop on a weekend but often find them stopping food or closing before they actually close. Today I went to a cafe that was advertised as closing at 5 at 3.55 we waited for a seat for 5 ish minutes to be told they stop serving food at 4. I can under stand stopping a bit before but a whole hour seems a bit much. Also walked to a cafe last month who closed at 4.30 and at 3.45 ish where told we couldn’t have a drink as they were closing at 4.30.

There's a dearth of nice coffee shops around me where you can sit and enjoy the ambiance, where you'd choose to meet a friend & an abundance of cafes where'd you pop in for a quick coffee. Then the chains.

amongst them it's very very difficult to get a 'good' coffee. Whether it's good or not, it's all gone up to a ridiculous price.

I could live with snarl, I could live with the price, I'm struggling to live with the nice places to meet a friend & the crap coffee.

a nice comfortable venue in the village would make a fortune!!

🥲🥲

I don’t think closing the kitchen is the problem, it’s the lack of communication. This happened to me a while ago. Kids were starving, sat down ordered drinks, I went to order food and was told the kitchen was closed. I just said ok cancel the drinks(that had just been put on the table and walked out).

For me, the disappointment is partly that it's only independents that have such limited times. I really try to support independents and avoid chains, but it's hard when the timing of my day is a 4.30 pit stop, and the only places open are the chains.

Yabu. Of course they stop serving Abit before they close so you can eat the food and the staff can clean and tidy up and close on time.

But on the other hand wouldn't it feel a be pressured and rushed if you order your drink and food and are then told you need to be gone in 30 minutes? An hour between stopping service and throwing people out feels better because you would feel you have plenty of time to enjoy what you have ordered. The flaw is in not advertising clearly that service time is until 4pm and the premesis is only open to sit and enjoy earlier orders between 4pm and 5pm.

It’s not fine and YANBU! It’s absolutely infuriating.

Yeah I find this annoying. The opening hours are there for the public, they don’t need to be the same as the staff hours. It seems really tight to me. If you can't afford to pay staff tk stay longer, change the opening hours.

It's not just cafes though, my main bugbear is my local library, where they start closing all around you in the last 30 mins. You can only use one door to exit, one machine to check out your books, you can't use the catalogue and are just generally made to feel like a nuisance for being there when they want to close.

I haven’t lived in the UK for many years, but every time I visit I’m unsurprised to see more and more businesses close.

The level of service keeps getting worse and the opening hours don’t suit most people whose opportunities to spend money around a standard full-time job are mostly evenings and weekends!

For a food establishment close before 5 just makes no business sense; that’s right when people start being free to eat. Last time I was there, I wanted to take my Mum to an independent shop that had been recommended to me, but their opening hours were 10-4!

We stop serving hot food an hour before closing (sometimes two hours before depending on how busy it has been/the weather..major snow/time of year) purely because it costs so much to keep the hot plate and the fryer on, more than it’s worth keeping on for 3 customers. We have a good selection pies that can be heated up and an amazing selection of homemade cakes to choose from. It is not unreasonable to stop serving food early. We have to balance wages, bills verses customers, it’s quite a tricky thing to do, and to keep making a profit to boot. We work our backsides off, even more so when there are queues out of the door, and also would appreciate tips! Just like you do in a restaurant in the evening!

Tell me you’ve never worked in hospitality without telling me - OP you go first

Yes.
Or at least as close to 5 as possible.
Employee wants to leave on time shocker

My favourite outraged customer is the customer who tried to order breakfast after 11.30am and simply cannot comprehend that a kitchen needs 30 mins to switch from breakfast to lunch.

Or that perhaps the kitchen staff might need 30 mins to feed themselves!

We've found the same with changing rooms in shops. I can understand not wanting people to go on eg 10 min before the shop closed, but recently DD wanted to try something on, and the changing rooms were closed an hour before the shop was closing
(I have worked in retail btw)

The staff may not want to stay longer if they need to collect kids from school or nursery. The cafe may not want to employ them longer if it means they become entitled to a paid lunch break (their busy time!). The owner may have already been there from 7am to get ready for a morning rush of tradesmen bacon baps. Lots of reasons really. They may have tried opening longer but not enough custom to justify it.

@AutumnLeaves24

a nice comfortable venue in the village would make a fortune!!

There you go then. If you're so convinced of your business plan, do it yourself and make yourself a fortune if it's so easy and obvious.

That's just ridiculous. It's fine to stop serving food whenever you like, but why advertise the closing time as being 5pm then?! It's so misleading.

When I worked in hospitality we did the vast majority of cleaning after closing, so yes, I do think you should be able to order food an hour before close (especially when you consider most cafe food is basic). I don't want to have a coffee in the middle of a full clean going on either.

@schtompy reminds me of a cafe we would go to after a regular family walk that did the same thing, decided to stop serving food an hour earlier than usual and thought it was fine as they had cake still. Funnily enough we didn't stay and we've not gone back since.

No, I wouldn't expect staff to stay behind unpaid in order to clean up. I would just expect the cafe owner to advertise a realistic closing time and then pay their staff for extra time after closing so that they can clean and shut up as required. This is exactly what the guy did who ran the cafe where my dd used to work.

It's been so normal for years and years for the this to happen that if I'm in any doubt I just ask if they're still serving food 🤷‍♂️

Surely the time the place closes is the time it closes to the public, not when the staff leave? When I worked in retail (admittedly years ago) the store was open 9-8 but the (full-time) shifts were 8-5 and noon-9.

seems quite long, but I equally got hacked off when I bought a coffee the other week & then was being hassled to leave within about five minutes of sitting down

I’d actually say it makes total sense if it’s last orders at 4pm.
Order drinks and food at 4pm, 20 ish minutes for food to be cooked, that gives around 40 minutes of eating, chit chat and more drinks so you can leave for a 5pm closing time.
If you could order food at 4.30, that would leave 10/15 minutes to eat and chat and people would consistently being staying past 5pm, meaning they couldn’t close or begin the clean down until you left, making them late home. Not only do they want to leave on time, but hospitality isn’t famous for paying unlimited overtime so they’ll often stop getting paid at a certain time regardless.

It’s normal to stop serving food an hour before closing. It gives time for the slow eaters and for staff to do a good clean down.

If they stopped serving food at the time of closing you would still have people in there way past closing & staff wanting to go home. And the business would have to pay staff for extra time.

I think people have become so entitled and intolerant- especially towards service staff.

If food is only ordered 30 minutes before closing that doesn’t give you 30 minutes to eat, the food has to be prepared. The time has to be long enough to serve everyone who enters later in the day, they also need enough closure time in the kitchen so clean down isn’t going on for a long time after 5pm.

While I definitely agree that people are becoming more entitled, we are living in a 24-hour global society. The 8-5, half day on Saturday norms just won’t cut it anymore if you want a profitable, thriving business.