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.

One of my kids worked in hospitality.

Cafe shutting at 5 meant that they were only paid until 5:15 and they’d be moaned at if they clocked out later than that. This means that once it’s 4, they try and start clearing up to save time. The fancy coffee machine takes 20+ minutes to go through a wash cycle so they stop making coffee at 4:30pm. They stop food then too because the oven needs to cool down before it is cleaned.

If they warn customers close to the deadline that they shut at 5, there will be customers still sat down at 5. That leaves the workers like 15 mins to do the mopping and wiping. The cafe is in a park so dogs, children and mud will have left loads of marks during the majority of weekends because of the weather.

@taxguru I only recently heard about the VAT threshold thing, it seems absolutely mad to me!

I’m saying that staff can’t properly clean up with people sitting there in the cafe, eating and creating dishes to wash.

Kitchen staff can clean down. And front of house can restrict seating areas.

Have you ever worked in a place like this? It's absolutely normal and possible

Yes. I know. I said this in my previous post:

Presumably you can make a good start on the kitchen during those 30 mins too?

Why are some people so determined to start an argument? I haven’t said anything vaguely controversial! I clearly said that there is some clearing up that can’t happen until the last customers have left. Some cleaning can happen with customers still there. But there will be x amount that can’t. So you will always need some time after the customers have left. People were carrying on as if staff and customers stepped out the door together.

I also clearly said that there should be a buffer between last food orders and closing time Not disagreeing there.

The basic point I was making was that if you advertise a closing time, you can expect people to physically be in the building until that time. Yes, it makes sense to limit food orders before that time (but not mad times like two hours before!). It’s also madness not to build in some time to do final cleanup after the last customers have left at closing time. Any proprietor who works on that basis is just setting up problems for the next morning as staff will have to do last night’s cleanup before they can start.