What does restaurant "closing time" mean?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a booking glitch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they are not prepared to offer a full service experience at 1:30 they should stop reservations at 1. If you just walk in at 1:30, it is fine to let you know what the situation is and let you decide.

Exactly this.

Also service is so universally bad these days that I feel like rudeness etc are just par for the course. It's basically become okay and like the restaurant is doing you a favor by even letting you buy a meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last seating? Kitchen shuts down? Doors locked and lights out?

Had a 1:30 lunch reservation yesterday. When we arrived (5 minutes early), we were rather brusquely informed by the hostess that they'd be shutting down brunch service at 2 to prepare for the dinner shift. I was confused and asked whether they were going to honor our reservation or not; she said they were but wanted to make sure we were aware of the closing time. To be honest, I hadn't been aware they closed between brunch and dinner service, but it never occurred to me a fairly upscale restaurant would accept a reservation and then not be prepared to give the patron the full experience. We considered leaving because we while we weren't intending to linger over multiple courses, we weren't looking for a quick in/out either. But we decided to stay and our server greeted us and seemed friendly (or at least not annoyed that we were... dining under the reservation we made days ago). We ordered our drinks and meals and midway through eating (right around 2), she dropped off the check and informed us the kitchen just closed - no offer of coffee or dessert. We paid up and left (and tipped her 20% because the service was otherwise decent and I know she doesn't make the rules) but the whole thing was off-putting.

Many years ago I worked at a high end, non-chain steakhouse. If we closed at 10, anybody could walk in up to 9:59 and get seated and given the full experience. I thought that was normal, but maybe not?

Are you the person who posted about Rasika in Sietsema’s WaPo chat this week? Because this is the exact scenario of one question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last seating? Kitchen shuts down? Doors locked and lights out?

Had a 1:30 lunch reservation yesterday. When we arrived (5 minutes early), we were rather brusquely informed by the hostess that they'd be shutting down brunch service at 2 to prepare for the dinner shift. I was confused and asked whether they were going to honor our reservation or not; she said they were but wanted to make sure we were aware of the closing time. To be honest, I hadn't been aware they closed between brunch and dinner service, but it never occurred to me a fairly upscale restaurant would accept a reservation and then not be prepared to give the patron the full experience. We considered leaving because we while we weren't intending to linger over multiple courses, we weren't looking for a quick in/out either. But we decided to stay and our server greeted us and seemed friendly (or at least not annoyed that we were... dining under the reservation we made days ago). We ordered our drinks and meals and midway through eating (right around 2), she dropped off the check and informed us the kitchen just closed - no offer of coffee or dessert. We paid up and left (and tipped her 20% because the service was otherwise decent and I know she doesn't make the rules) but the whole thing was off-putting.

Many years ago I worked at a high end, non-chain steakhouse. If we closed at 10, anybody could walk in up to 9:59 and get seated and given the full experience. I thought that was normal, but maybe not?

Are you the person who posted about Rasika in Sietsema’s WaPo chat this week? Because this is the exact scenario of one question.

(OP) No.

[Anonymous]

Times have changed. Restaurants aren't necessarily open all day, more are closing between lunch and dinner due to labor costs.

They probably should have made it that the last reservation for lunch was at 1, but instead decided to take your money and give you a brief experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is considered polite to make reservations at least an hour before closing time.

they shouldn't allow reservations if they aren't open

+1. This isn’t like walking into a grocery store and meandering around with a full cart or showing up at an ice cream shop and asking for 10 sundaes a few minutes before closing. Hair salons and spas wouldn’t allow reservations 5 min before closing time and restaurants control their reservation times in the same manner. I’m involved in the restaurant industry and it’s the height of bad service to not honor a reservation with the same level of service and hospitality, whether it’s the first seating or the last. Guests tend not to return for bad service. They are more likely to forgive a restaurant for a bad dish than for bad service. Someone messed up and allowed the last reservation time.

[Anonymous]

Rules of restaurants:

1. You pay the staff directly because the owner won’t. You have know way to know their hourly wage, so just pay more.

2. You give the staff time off work, because the owner won’t.

3. You pay the owner exorbitant prices for food.

4. Don’t ask for anything while you are there, because the staff are overworked.

5. The prices and hours are lies, which is your responsibility.

6. Tell your friends how great restaurants are.

[Anonymous]

Making a 1:30 pm reservation shouldn't have been option without a note somewhere that they close at 2 pm.
I'm surprised that you have worked in a restaurant and the experience made you come and comment here.
I haven't worked nights for awhile (we don't close the restaurant), but people staying 30 min to an hour after closing was normal.Some tables wait for the other tables to leave and nobody is leaving. It's painful because there is so much work to be done that we cannot do unless the tables leave. The dishwasher would like to clean all dishes, but they can't. People are so clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last seating? Kitchen shuts down? Doors locked and lights out?

Had a 1:30 lunch reservation yesterday. When we arrived (5 minutes early), we were rather brusquely informed by the hostess that they'd be shutting down brunch service at 2 to prepare for the dinner shift. I was confused and asked whether they were going to honor our reservation or not; she said they were but wanted to make sure we were aware of the closing time. To be honest, I hadn't been aware they closed between brunch and dinner service, but it never occurred to me a fairly upscale restaurant would accept a reservation and then not be prepared to give the patron the full experience. We considered leaving because we while we weren't intending to linger over multiple courses, we weren't looking for a quick in/out either. But we decided to stay and our server greeted us and seemed friendly (or at least not annoyed that we were... dining under the reservation we made days ago). We ordered our drinks and meals and midway through eating (right around 2), she dropped off the check and informed us the kitchen just closed - no offer of coffee or dessert. We paid up and left (and tipped her 20% because the service was otherwise decent and I know she doesn't make the rules) but the whole thing was off-putting.

Many years ago I worked at a high end, non-chain steakhouse. If we closed at 10, anybody could walk in up to 9:59 and get seated and given the full experience. I thought that was normal, but maybe not?

The host should have clarified that you can finish your meal, but service stops at 2:00, so no further refills or orders after that. Then you could have made an informed decision. Instead, it seemed like she was just letting you know that you couldn’t linger after finishing your meal. Obviously, they shouldn’t take reservations that close to closing time. Good customer service is very hard to find.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Making a 1:30 pm reservation shouldn't have been option without a note somewhere that they close at 2 pm.
I'm surprised that you have worked in a restaurant and the experience made you come and comment here.
I haven't worked nights for awhile (we don't close the restaurant), but people staying 30 min to an hour after closing was normal.Some tables wait for the other tables to leave and nobody is leaving. It's painful because there is so much work to be done that we cannot do unless the tables leave. The dishwasher would like to clean all dishes, but they can't. People are so clueless.

(OP) I was surprised because this kind of thing would never have happened at the place I worked. If we seated you, we would give you full service. Dropping a check while a party was in the middle of dining, without offering coffee, dessert, or after-dinner drinks, because you wanted them to GTFO so you could close up and leave, was not done. Was it annoying when a walk-in party arrived at 9:55 and we had to seat them per restaurant policy? Yes, but it's the service industry, and every job has things that are annoying.

I wasn't planning on camping at the table and I didn't stiff the server for a policy she had no control over, but I didn't like paying ~$100 for drinks, lunch, and tip, and feeling rushed.

I could understand being warned of an abbreviated service if I were a walk-in, or arrived late to my reservation, but that wasn't the case.

[Anonymous]

You answered your own question in your post.

Your experience years ago isn’t relevant. The labor market now is dramatically different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You answered your own question in your post.

Your experience years ago isn’t relevant. The labor market now is dramatically different.

(OP) yes, I see that now.

[Anonymous]

It is really odd they allowed reservations if they were going to abruptly end service at 2pm. The wait staff should have at least given you a “last call” to give you an opportunity to order desserts or drinks before closing out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is considered polite to make reservations at least an hour before closing time.

Nope. It's up to the restaurant to manage reservation times. If they can't offer food for more than 30 minutes, they shouldn't accept a reservation at that time.

[Anonymous]

In the old days, all reservations were made by phone or in person and were entered into a ledger by one or two people. These days, reservations are mostly online (OP, I’m going to guess that you made yours online), so inattentive restaurants don’t review them as closely. Likely, the restaurant signed up for open table or whatever, entered their meal service times, how many tables they had and how much time to allot to each meal service and the algorithm kicked in. Nobody caught the error of the last service time being too close to the close of the kitchen.

Well run restaurants REVIEW their reservations beforehand and catch these sorts of problems. They have notes on repeat customers, whether they tend to dawdle, etc. Not your fault, OP. Give feedback with your patronage. Don’t go back.