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Shutting it Down
By: Patrick Maguire
Book Chapter: Human-to-Human Service
Posted: 08/21/2011
Sunday night 9:30.
There are slow nights when closing early for the sanity and morale of your staff far outweighs the trickle of business you might do if you stay open, especially if you’ve had a great weekend.
No matter what business you’re in, closing early is often the right thing to do.
PS-We do not post our hours, further allowing us to make a discretionary call.
10 Responses to “Shutting it Down”
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Permalink | Posted in Human-to-Human Service | 10 Comments »
Agreed, though we *do* have posted hours, mainly because it’s so hard to say to a caller “Well, we should be open then, but if it’s slow, not we won’t be.” Good for you to be able to keep that flexibility in place.
That’s pretty sound of you there are plenty of bosses (my own included) that will open and and stay open outside the hours that their clientele are active, in the hope of squeezing out a few extra cents. All it does is waste money and resource and wreck the heads of the staff who have to stand around doing nothing for 3 hours.
We post lunch hours as 11:30-2:30 and dinner as 5:30 until close. Problem solved…it is at the discretion of those involved at the time both front and back of the house.
If a business post hours in my opinion then it should be open during those hours. No exceptions, barring a major catastrophe (fire, hurricane, power outage, etc.)
Not posting hours and closing early on a “slow” night is fine too, but in the long run I have found it is better to post hours that are realistic and stick to them. If it turns out it is busy past those hours, you can always extend them. It is important for staff to know what the strategy is with posting or not posting hours.
I wish our owners thought that way. They and some of their friends like to come in during the last half hour we’re open. They think they’re being nice and waiting until we’re not busy, but they’ve just set up a culture where we’re afraid to save them money because we don’t want to get ripped apart for being closed.
In some restaurants maybe but if you post your hours people are expecting you to be open. it is better to give advance notice that you be closed for a certain time event period and take the staff on a field trip for ice cream, beer, minature etc. than to randomly closed because one staff member is not going make tips accordingly. that is the managements position to schedule correctly and be supportive when staff is overwhelmed than to sit at the bar drinking listening to staff complain that they didn’t get a table. I remember one restaurant that would over staff tell you to set up for a function that would enevitablly cancel and then cut staff. after the rush.
admittedly limited experience in food service (was a barista and a nursing home waiter) but i couldn’t agree less.
as a customer: a restaurant with reasonable posted hours online and on the front helps me decide whether or not to go. if it’s 9:50 and it says 10pm closing, i don’t want to be a dick and keep people late, but if it closes at 11 i’ll happily walk in. if i don’t know what the hours are, there’s too much uncertainty and i’m less likely to go in the first place. and if it’s especially slow why not just let some staff off early?
Indeed, there are some nights (often when special televised sports events, awards ceremonies or celebrity specials are aired) when the only customers are either already over-served or are cranky because everyone at their house is dominating the television. On those nights, one can’t win and I’d much rather that this particular clientele migrate to places that *are* mandated to close at a certain time. I don’t need the pennies nor the liability exposure.
If one’s staff is really “family” as we so often say in the business, the goodwill earned by allowing them to make the decision to close a bit early (or in some cases a *lot* early) is priceless. A staff that’s invested in the business, that feels empowered, is far more profitable than any sort savings realized by watchdog tactics (e.g., inventory control devices, mystery shoppers).
The most profitable clientele are one’s regulars. Timing must, of course, revolve around this crowd. However, the few stragglers who’re disappointed on a night you close at eleven (instead of midnight or one) won’t make a difference.
Now, I have the luxury of letting people go home a bit early because I’m in my store every night except one — and like it that way. Some owners may need to be more strict because they’re not there. Worse, some don’t have a trustworthy staff with long tenure so must exert more effort to be profitable.
Finally, there are some employees who’re in a big hurry to leave so they can go out to party. Worse (and I’ve had this happen) are the employees who shut off the lights and close the door only to have their own personal party for friends going on — in my restaurant. There’s no excuse for this. It’s only experience that makes employees like this easy to spot.
One of my horror stories of 8 years of waiting tables will always be the night I stayed at work until 4 am in the morning after pulling a double with only a half hour break. The reason? We stop seating at 10 pm. A reasonable person even one who hasn’t eaten in ten years will finish a full course meal and drinks within an hour, hour and fifteen minutes… whatever. We were not allowed to kick people out of our restaurant. If they were paying money, they stayed as long as they wanted to. This is a restaurant. NOT a bar, not even a late night kind of place. This particular couple finished their meal right before midnight…. and then sat at the frickin table until 3 in the morning when they realised… the music had been turned off, all the other sections of the restaurant were cleaned and chairs put up, and their glasses of water had stayed empty for two hours. I had to wait to clean my section until after they left. Sometimes. I remember these horrible instances of this life and it makes me wonder why I ever stayed around as long as I did.
We kind-of have a joke at our restaurant when die-hards will not leave we say should we offer them a sleeping bag????