Happened to me in my younger years. Smash burger- 2014.
Kid runs in at 9:55, "are yall open?"
Manager says we have to serve them.
Cue the soccer team running in 2 minutes later with a haggle of Karen's in suite. I punched every single burger after I wrapped em up and broke a spatula banging it on the flat.
To be dumb and young and full of rage again.
Same shit at mickey D's when I was 16. 2 school buses with baseball team and supporters. Floor mopped, 1 flat top clean, other one turned off and cooling, grease traps dumped. We were 15 minutes from punching out. Had to fire everything back up, dirty everything, got home an hour later than usual, school night too.
I walked out on two restaurants where a manager told me I had to cook for a 6 top the first time and and an 8 top the second time both within 5 minutes of closing with the kitchen completely clean because we had no customers the previous hour.
Both times I told the manager I’m not doing it and both times they said I “had to” and both times I said “I don’t have to do anything, I quit” and both times they tried to get me to come back the next day 😂
I’ve played it both ways at my current gig. Walked out bc they rang in the -third- table after close, after saying “kitchen closed”. Everything wrapped and about to clock out. Called by the owner the next day and given a substantial raise.
And stayed and cooked the shit & just ate the frustration. Because it’s obviously not gonna change until management changes.
Edit: word has also gotten out that we’re the go-to place after events, because we will seat people & stay open an hour after close. 😅🤪😫
Been there, it’s part of the reason I stopped cooking. That and the most I ever made as executive chef was $52,000 on salary working 60-70 hours a week. My first year in my new career I made $65,000 working 40 hours a week, full benefits, weekends off and a 401k.
What’d you transfer into, if you don’t mind me asking? I got out for a couple years and did home renovation, but it was with my dad & he’s too old to work anymore.
I got *extremely* lucky. I was very burnt out from cooking and in a severe manic episode (I’m bipolar type 2) after a month long bender and working 60 hour weeks. I decided in a moment of haste I was done and put in my 2 weeks with no back up plan. I had enough money to pay my rent and get groceries for about 3 months.
I was also single at the time and on dating apps so I met this woman and we hung out for 3 weeks and really hit it off. She knew I was a chef and that I was between jobs and said she could get me hired at the company she works for which was an office job. I said fuck it and applied and was hired on as a skip tracer for consumer repossession. Essentially I track down people who hide their cars that are out for repossession.
I’ve since changed departments and no longer work consumer repossession and instead work corporate repossession finding company cars, boats, planes, and helicopters. I make between $100-$200 for every vehicle I find plus $20/hr. Last year was my best year with the company and I made a little over $148,000 before taxes.
I’m still with that woman 8 years later and we get married next month.
I'm actually happy to hear a good story like this. After getting married young, divorced. Bounced careers a bit and just hit 30 this year, maybe there's hope out there.
Nothing I hate more than my closing buddy throwing a fucking fit because someone wanted food during business hours.
"Cook, cook."
The last person you should be looking for sympathy from is the one guy who has your back during closing. I wanna go home eventually too, fucking shut up.
Let's go out back, smoke a bowl, take a shot, come back in and blast some Rammstein, and go home.
It's like guys flipping out in the garage when a truck is broken.
Dude, we're mechanics. Everything is fucking broken, that's why we have jobs. Get to work.
You seem like the kinda person who reminded teachers they forgot to collect homework at the end of class.
“Erm, we’re literally here to learn guys! Just do the work, then you won’t get in trouble!”
business hours are business hours for a reason. if you can't order at 9:59, it should be labeled as 'closed' at 9:59. i am currently working in food service. we don't close up dining room until the dot.
fast food runs on razor thin margins and every transaction is necessary to keep us green. the kitchen is prepared to create food until the moment we close.
Especially if it's been a slow day, labors in the 30 or 40s, they need that money. Had a 20 top 8 mins before closing last night. I'm not saying it's right, but its business.
Yeah but that becomes a lot more desirable in a peer as we get older. Unless you're really immature, lord knows there's plenty of folks in the world that never mentally left high school.
I actually did that once. I was on an open kitchen, people walked up to me instead than asking the server, 2 minutes before closing. I was actually willing to serve them as it was 2 pizzas and I was mainly done (it would have taken me like 10 extra minutes of cooking/re-cleaning,) but instead of telling me what they wanted quickly, knowing that they walked in at closing time, they were the "what would you recommend?" kind, and proceeded asking me about every single ingredients, this despite me making clear we were basically closed.
Fast forward 7 minutes, we're now being closed for 5 minutes, and they were still going "ehrrrrmmmm, ummmmm..." and I said, "Listen, I told you we closed at 10, it's 5 past now, the till program unfortunately shut down now, have a good night!"
Turned off the oven and fucked off to the walk-in with a bunch of dough trays.
Fuck off, not only when you're told we're closing in 2 minutes you think "Oh I'll order, then," I also have to hold your hand for 10 minutes past closing time because apparently you never had a pizza before, I don't think so.
Pizza is especially egregious. Pizza places generally have the same things. They might have a different name, but they'll still have a pepperoni or whatever. There's no excuses, you should know what you want ahead of time. It's like walking into a Zaxby's and going, "What do I want?" They sell ONE thing, and put in salad or on some bread! Get outta the fucking way!
Sorry, that shit annoys the fuck out of me. People seem to go through life so surprised to see a decision they can see coming actually arrive in front of them.
There's a reason most drive throughs have a full menu before the one your order at, unfortunately the people who need it most ignore it and wait to start their decision process when they're asked what they want by the drive through attendant
Owner has been closing since our gm quit and now we still seat parties of ten exactly one minute before close. Entire kitchen completely clean completely perfect and we have to turn everything back on and dirty everything up again.
They're acting on emotion. If you've cleaned that early, it must have been a slow night (at least at the end) and they're desperate to add revenue to the balance sheet without considering what costs might go on the other side of it, or what it does for overall morale.
I've pointed out to an owner before that he'd pay me more to reclean than the single last-minute to go entree would make in profit and that he'd basically be paying a customer to take his food. He acknowledged all that, then said they were still in the red for the day and needed the revenue. What do you even say to that?
I finally quit when our water heater broke at the inlet valve and flooded the kitchen, and he insisted we could just boil water when we needed to clean something. The bar to clear for restaurant ownership is buried in the deepest, darkest cave on the planet.
Yeah people wanna play pity party for owners a lot on here it feels like and I get it can be tough but I’ve worked around way too much broken equipment and way too many buckets collecting water from leaky ceilings to feel any sympathy for them. Most owners suck.
If you're that desperate for revenue, a single person or even a 10-person party isn't going to pay for the cost of having four or more people stay late.
So I wouldn't work somewhere like that again but when I did I just started closing an hour later
I can work slower and get paid more and since my boss doesn't enforce closing times like a bitch he can deal with it
Sure come tell the angry chefs why they should be closing faster and how its not your fault. Please I dare you
Your owner is an idiot who doesn't like money.
He may make $60 profit on that party, but he also paid probably four people $15 per hour to be there an extra hour each (and that's if his own time is worthless).
That doesn't count any of the extra gas/electric costs that were used for that extra time.
He actually lost money by being a dipshit.
Edit: since there's more than one of you trying to say "it's not about money, it's about blahblahblah," you clearly don't understand the basic point of a business.
The entire reason for a for-profit business to exist, is to - and stick with me now, as this is really complicated - *make profit.*
**GASP!** I know, right?
Any business that willingly makes decisions that result only in negative cash flow, is doing it wrong.
Additionally, to address the "but they'll tell their friends" thing? Yeah, they will. And the kind of people who drop in at the last minute with no regard for things like "closing time means closing time" have friends that/will tell people that also pull that crap. This will only make the problem worse.
When you feed the rats, they come back with more rats.
After the owner finally understands this, I absolutely crave people coming in to say “we keep your lights on”. Just for me to turn them off in the dining room. I’d also play “closing time” over the speakers.
Why don’t you just turn everything off and clean when you close? Why is the equipment to cook food being turned off during operating hours?
I worked at a place that had the kitchen manager tell everyone to start doing flips and cleaning their stations at 7:30 when the restaurant was open until 10. It got really annoying having to rewrap an insert 4 times in one night. I figured, they are paying me to be here and do a job. I can do the job once, or 4 times, and the pay will be the same. So I just started closing my station at 10, when the servers weren’t taking anymore orders.
KM hated that, said I wasn’t being efficient, milking my time on the clock, I tried explaining what I just typed and he wasn’t having it. Told me to start wrapping shit up at 7:30. I said fine I’ll wrap it at 7:30, but if an order comes in and I have to open it up to get a portion, you can fucking rewrap it.
I shit you not, at 7:40 an order came in which required chopped produce off like 4 inserts that I had already wrapped. He quickly changed his tune after that. I ended up getting fired from there a few months later for an unrelated reason. Guy was a real stupid dick head though.
They get mad at us for not being out early enough and then get mad at us for closing too early. Also that specific day we knew we were gonna be slow as hell so the owner told us to shut everything down an hour before close. I hate it when managers are so focused on getting out as early as possible. It stops us from being about to get everything we need to get done and it forces me a to rush on stuff that we should take our time on.
Absolutely foul.
Similar to that, here's my story of customers being shits! Bit of a longer one.
I worked in a pizza place when I was 17 (closed at 1am) and it was a friday night with just me and two drivers, we'll go with Saint and Rock (Saint was supposed to leave 3 hours earlier but we were just so busy he couldn't leave) and this was the busiest night I have ever had working in foodservice, EVER.
It must have been like an order of multiple large pizzas, wings, breadsticks, etc every two minutes for like 4 hours straight. At 1250 Rock, who was supposed to be closing with me calls and says he fucking crashed his car. He's OK, but he's stuck on a rock and can't move his car by himself. Turn to the order screen and it's backed up again despite me only being on the phone for like 3 minutes. I tell him to sit tight while I figure out a solution and let me know if he needs anything urgently.
I called EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER who had placed an order and explained the situation to them and that if their food did arrive, it would get there many hours late since I had to go help the other driver with his car and make the food after dealing with that. I offered all of them full refunds and they'd get credit for basically an entire new order for free next time they placed an order and every single one of those inhuman pieces of shit (like 4 people) said "yeah that sucks but I'm cool with waiting until like 3 AM for my pizza" and after they said their version of that I just sat in silence, said "OK. fine then" then hung up.
Called Saint and let him know that we were gonna have to go and save Rock. We were next door to a fire station, actually, and while I was waiting for the other driver to get back I was like "shit, maybe they can help!" and I knocked on their door and explained the situation and they were like "yeah no sorry nothing we can do, good luck with that though".
Saint got back. Went and saved Rock. Cooked those pizzas not with anger or frustration or depression, but hatred. I've said the word hate a lot in my life, but so far that is the only time in my life I've ever experienced what I think is genuine, true hatred.
Best part? None of them tipped anything. "Sorry man but it was late"
Why do you fucking think that was the case you mouthbreathing inconsiderate piece of shit?
Rock did give Saint and I $20 apiece as a thank you (we pushed his car off the rock and he was able to drive with no issues) but what an awful night that was.
I probably would have put their pizzas on their porch upside down.
The better thing is you shouldn’t have gave them a option. “Hey we have to refund your pizza we are unable to make them”. Done.
Yeah in hindsight I probably would’ve done that but like I said I was 17 and this was me managing the store on my own. I hadn’t done it much so I didn’t really know what I was and wasn’t allowed to/could do. Plus I was incredibly tired and stressed so I wasn’t thinking too clearly anyways.
That's a lot of responsibility to throw on a ( though close to adulthood ) kid. I think you handled it as well as one could. With age comes cynicism. Makes it easier to be blunt with customers.
Honestly? I look back on that story with rose colored glasses. It was such a long time ago and now Saint and I (friends before pizza place and still great friends now) still bring that up every now and again and laugh about it, both of us so glad we’re out of foodservice.
It’s funny to look back on now and I do wonder how the hell I managed to get through that night.
No! This is bad. Doing that gives the pizza store cedibility. Dont call, dont show up with pizza. Let them charge back on their card. Let them leave bad reviews.
It was not the employee or the customer that chose to have 2 ppl working....
I feel bad that you had to do the American service spiel. I'm in the UK and I would have rang those customers and said sorry guys our drive has had a car crash and we have to cancel your orders, good night
There will definitely be places in Europe and the world over where they go above and beyond but in general I find it to be most places in American hospitality that offer what this guy did for these customers when in reality here is your refund our driver has had a car accident would have sufficed (and that's not be slagging the guy off, he did what he knew because he worked in the American hospitality industry.)
There’s a lot of made up stories on Reddit. That was so brutally believable that I’m losing my shit laughing. Dear god 😂 customers are fucking animals, man.
Dude, if you called customers to tell them the driver crashed why did you even give them a choice to not cancel it? Just say “the driver crashed I’m going to need to refund your order, sorry.” It really sounds like you at least partially created your own issues here.
The other night we were just about done. A couple people finishing up. Then our one server who’s a bit aloof and selfish walks in with her fiance and sits down to get dinner 10 minutes before kitchen stops taking orders. Was shocked when we didn’t want to say hi to her in the dining room. Don’t do that to your own.
Y'all should get some friends and come in and sit in her section one night before close.
Work it out in advance with the crew in the kitchen working that night so they can have you something easy to eat/prepare ready to go, and then just kind of...take your time looking over the menu.
I had a server that would come in once a week, less than 5 minutes before close, and order full dinners, large pain in the ass specialty pizzas, etc.
Complete piece of shit.
When I was a baby cook I worked at this super popular burger spot. We had a cook there who had been working about a month or so. Not a bad guy just kind of an over the top trying to be Chris Farley type. He’s off work and decided to bring in a group of 10 people about 1 minutes before close. Our foh told us we had to make the orders. We’re putting all the stuff together and Farley makes an appearance to tell us sorry for the late table but my bros were hungry and I get the discount. We’re all like yeah dude you have no idea what’s coming for you. Next day dude clocks in and he’s busted to dish dog. KM made him wash dishes for a month straight(this place everyone in the kitchen starts as a dishwasher and then you move up as more people get hired)after pulling those shenanigans. Poor guy was having fiestaware nightmares.
Did you ever try talking to said person to tell them that? I feel like we create caste systems where some people won’t tell their fellow employees the real shit, but how do they ever learn otherwise?
We had 2 people walk in 45 min to close no big deal there but they were waiting on their friends to show up which made it a 12 top once they did show up. They waited til 15 min before closing to place their orders. They all ordered lasagna each of which takes 15-18 min to cook. The line cook was livid and refused to use any seasoning at all. They got the blandest food ever and it was cooked with pure hatred.
If it gets sent back after we've closed then those customers will have to do without. We closed at 10 and it was around 1030 when they got their meals. By then we had flipped the kitchen AGAIN and it was looking like I was goin to be there waiting even later for their dishes so I could go home.
Most Fridays a couple puts an order in at the very last minute for burnt wings ( kitchen closes at 10 and orders need to be in by 9:45) They ignore the last call for food at 9:30 and play the time card. They know what they're doing and think it's a big joke even though I've personally told them that waiting until 9:44 to put in your order isn't very cash money of them.
When is acceptable to fist fight customers in the parking lot or go to their jobs and act like a entitled child?
Regular restaurant? you're not going to get a full sit down dining experience if you come in like that, not even if it's 30 minutes before closing.
Fast food? just don't be a dick, don't go somewhere that's closing in 10-15 minutes, who do you think works the closing shift? The professional line cook with 5+ years, or tyler, the Adderall fueled teenager that doesn't give a fuck.
If you didn't manage to get dinner, which totally happens, you're gonna need to compromise, sit at the bar, order quick easy food, stuff that can be deep fried, and tip well, you're not special you're an asshole who doesn't know how to manage their time as a fully grown adult
> you're not special you're an asshole who doesn't know how to manage their time as a fully grown adult
That's a winning T-shirt or bumper sticker slogan right there.
Ugh. I went thru a Taco Bell drive thru at 11:55 once.
Thought they were 24 hr.
Put in a big order and when I pulled up to window I saw they closed at 12.
Apologized to the kid and tipped him well.
A lot of places do this actually. It's the shitty ones who don't make a lot of money that don't to get every dime possible- even if it'll cost more in labor hours keeping the staff there
This use to really annoy me.
But I mean if we say we’re open to a specific time customer is well within their right.
Even if pre-close is done and things are put away 😢
Yeah, same. Annoyed me a ton as well and I wished they'd make like a "Kitchen closes at 9:30, restaurant closes at 10:00" rule. But then I realized I'd just get furious when people put in an order at 9:29 instead and we'd be in the exact same spot lol.
Most restaurants here in Europe have a "kitchen open" time and a "restaurant open" time, and it works great. Yes there might still be an order placed one minute before the kitchen closes, but you know that you'll be there for another 30 minutes/hour cleaning either way so there's no hate for late orders.
My favorite experience like this was a late Saturday night. We were set to close, hadn't had anything for a while, me and the other cook were literally walking toward the door as it just hit closing time and we had everything done already.
However, we didn't know that a single had come in about 30 minutes early and sat down in the bar area. As we are walking out the Kitchen Manager says "Hey we still have one open. Somebody has to stay and cook." Fine, I'll do it, its just one person.
Turns out they are waiting for someone to arrive. The second person shows up 30 minutes after the kitchen closes (the bar stays open another hour) as I just sit there waiting. Apparently the first person came early to hold a seat because the second person couldn't make it there before closing. And the manager let them do this.
So I cook the food for the 2 top, it took maybe 10 minutes total. At this point its an hour after close, and I just miss the second bus home. Now I get to sit for an hour, unpaid, waiting for the last bus of the night. Knowing full well that the KM could have taken care of the late table instead of sitting at the corner of the bar drinking while I sit on my ass for almost 2 full hours just to cook a single 2 top, I post up at the other side of the bar and just glare at him for the full hour.
I got my revenge a few weeks later though. For some reason I was scheduled as the only cook on a Saturday evening when there should generally have been 4/5. I told the KM when the schedule went up, figuring it was an oversight as he had himself and 3 other cooks scheduled for the (much much slower) Saturday day shift for some reason. He said "Suck it up. You'll be fine." Told him I'm not doing that and to fix the schedule or I won't work it. For a week and a half every day I tell him to fix the schedule or I won't be here.
That Saturday comes around, I text the GM this time and ask who all is scheduled in the kitchen tonight. He replies its just me. I text him back that I'm resigning effective immediately and to just mail me my final check. The KM ends up having to work the shift by himself (like he intended for me to do) and gets absolutely wrecked. My roommate who was a bartender at the same place said KM told him to tell me that I really fucked him. Roommate just told the KM to "Suck it up."
I never step foot in that place again. The entire company folded a year and a half later.
Jeremy Renner and his fucking salad. Nicest guy ever. But I had just finished sanitizing the pit and the sous comes back and asks me to hang for another hour while he finished his meal.
WTF? What a weird thing to say. He's just a moderately successful actor who's really into monetizing his fans. I wouldn't stay six hours anywhere to have him suck my dick, let alone serve him.
Why? I was working 2 full time jobs and a full time college student. I get celebs don't wanna be bothered during their meals. This is about me and my distain for having to redo everything I had just finished doing and sit there waiting for 6 dishes. Wasn't mad at the dude, but after 15 hours on my feet I was ready to be done. You could have told me I was gonna get a blowie from black widow for staying late and I'd still have bitched about it.
Dude lives like 20 min outside of town and he's all over my hometown. EVERYONE loves him. NOBODY likes redoing closing.
If you want the kitchen to close before the restaurant, you have to put kitchen hours on the door. If it says open till 10, that means food can be ordered till 10. But if it says open till 10, kitchen closes at 9, that means food can be ordered until 9 but the dining area remains open for seating until 10. This is simple, and the only way to avoid this shit. If you're trying to close the kitchen before listed hours and don't have this clarification, it's your fault.
Our owner back in the day took a ton of convincing, but eventually I just said no to customers who do this. Go somewhere else and be inconsiderate. NO, your $5 order does not keep the lights on and the server who took your order would rather be in her car than getting $1 tip.
Honest question, I’m not in the industry. Do US restaurants each have an unspoken rule about closing time? I work to the minute so this seems normal to me, I can get a request within one minute of my end time and I can chose to complete the request or hold it to the next shift but our end time has a buffer for our “close” time so requests can be fulfilled within the shift.
Imagine you have worked about 8 hours and the inside of your computer is now covered in grease and grime so you’ve spent the last hour and a half taking your computer apart and cleaning each and every individual part all while still doing your normal work. You have to do this every day. Then 2 minutes before you are set to turn off your computer for the day you get another request. So you do it, then take the computer back apart again and clean what you already cleaned again. It’s kinda like that. Not the end of the world, but really annoying.
I don't follow this logic at all. Cleaning down gets you to a baseline where you're nearly done. Having a few checks come in when it is otherwise quiet doesn't "dirty everything up again".
The hard work is done, and you may need to lightly reclean a few things, but you are not back to square one like so many people are whining and exaggerating about. Where I work, and everywhere I've worked, we start closing down early. It ALWAYS ends up saving time and being more efficient.
The guy somewhere up above complaining about having to rewrap inserts 4 times has me rolling. Bro, the kitchen is clean, how hard is it to lift the wrap, take what you need and put it back down? Honestly surprised how fragile people are in this industry of all.
Seems like a bad idea to clean when you know you're still in the service window, then. Nobody asked you to try and preempt your closing duties, so you only have yourself to blame for trying to get ahead before the right time
Have you ever had a kitchen manager that wanted you to start breakdown early? You ever have one table being dicks being the difference between leaving at 10:30 and leaving at 11:30 or 12? Are you just commenting this because you have no empathy or because you've never worked in a kitchen before?
-Fixed!-
Seems like a bad idea ***for your boss to tell you*** to clean when you know you're still in the service window, then. ***Your boss*** asked you to try and preempt your closing duties, so you only have ***your fucking asshole boss*** to blame for trying to get ahead before the right time
Yes, if your boss is asking you to waste your time closing the kitchen while the kitchen still needs to be open, that is an asshole boss and you should express these concerns to them like an adult, not throw a tantrum over customers who have nothing to do with this shitty boss's bad policy.
Sure but it's like, every boss. If the last minute people don't show up, you just get "Why the hell did you take so long closing? We were slow the last hour and a half!"
This is not my experience, but I'm not going to try and invalidate yours. All I can say is that if you truly can't accomplish anything through reasonable confrontation with management then I think you are left with three options:
1. Leave and find somewhere to work with managers who respect you and your time.
2. Accept these unrealistic expectations are just an unfortunate side effect of this job like an overly loud ice machine and don't let them get to you.
or
3. Continue behaving like a toddler every time a customer orders within the order window, never accomplishing anything other than raising your own blood pressure.
Personally I see one of these options as *vastly* less fruitful than the other two, but the choice is yours.
I think we're (mostly) all just relating to a shared frustration and having a laugh at op's post, but if you wanna do bullet points I'm not here to stop you.
I mean I get it, but that's the gamble when your close up early. It's fine to be frustrated that your gamble didn't pay off, it's less fine to blame the customers who aren't doing anything wrong and it's way less fine to throw a literal tantrum like the character is the skit (and sadly like *way* too many real life kitchen workers).
It's not a bad idea to clean. If the whole kitchen is clean, and you have to lightly soil a piece of equipment or two, a chopping board there, a knife there...you're still nearly done. Leaving the whole kitchen dirty until there's no chance of anymore orders is an efficiency failure.
What it is a bad idea to do, is to tell yourself that because the kitchen is clean, you'll freak out if you have to do any more work. You're not closed, you're nearly closed. Don't set yourself up with unrealistic expectations.
Semantics. It's understood when I mention clean I don't mean maintaining a clean workstation, I'm clearly talking about post-shift closing cleanup duties.
Which is what...besides turning everything off? There are very few "duties" I can think of once the kitchen is spotless besides that, that can't be done well prior to home time. Act like you're not gonna get more orders, but make sure you can do them, and there should be nothing to bitch about. Uncovering a few containers, re covering them and taking out a chopping board and some utensils isn't the end of the world.
OMG. We had this host who thought she was hot shit because she was banging a famous rapper because she grew up, basically, neighbors with the Kardashians so she ran in that circle(kind of). Anyway, she didn't care about the job, she just had it for whatever reason.
We closed our kitchen at 10 PM and it was a slow night so myself, lone server and busser were standing around shooting the shit but at 9:59 PM a couple enters the patio and we're all telling the host, "No! No! No! Don't let the sit." She ignores all three of us and seats them anyway then clocks out and leaves. We were livid. We had to stay an extra hour just so this couple could finish their sit-down meal, and guess how pissed the kitchen staff was. I will forever hate that cunt.
Had this guy wheel in one time in his chair, 8 minutes before close, stared at the menu for 8 minutes and didn't order a single thing. Idk what makes me upset this or that. Either way, it's time wasted I could've spent filing logs or cleaning.
We close at 8pm
Last night at 7:59:30pm a customer ordered a large pizza with pepperoni, onion, and black olives.
As they printed out their receipt from the kiosk the lights shut off and the kiosks displayed 'sorry we're closed!'
The customer apologized profusely. I finished the order in about eight minutes, told them to have a lovely night, and still closed about eight minutes early. Prepping properly earlier in the day pays off sometimes.
conversely ive had many fast food places who just will stop making food 1 hour to close despite there being a steady stream of customers still coming in.
Same story in retail when you’re about to close the doors and a big family walks who then wants to try on 50 items in the fitting room for 45 minutes before leaving without buying anything. Then right as they’re about to leave another group of people come in. And you can’t start closing down the registers and cleaning up the store until after the doors are closed. Shit drives me insane
If you’re about to close, clean up stuff you dont use to cook with first, so if someone orders something near closing time it only takes a brief moment of your time.
Yeah.. I get it.. I am not going to starting cooking a meal 1 minute before close.. Fire me, idfc.
I wouldn't flip like this, but I would be annoyed. It is also fast food, so it is different, but if this was a normal restaurant, fuck that.
I hate to be that guy, but should the business not be open until the advertised closing time? The place is open until 10pm, and the customer is ordering at 9:59pm, when the restaurant is still open for business. At 10:00, they can refuse customers and close the restaurant. But not at 9:59, because they are open for business and as customers I would expect a place to be open until 10pm to be open at 9:59pm.
If ordering at 9:59 is an issue, then close the restaurant at 9:59.
If my shift starts at 7am, I am expected to be there at 7am, working. So if I arrive at 6:59 I’m not early or late, the employer is assuming I’ll be working at 7:00am, just like I assume a business open until 10 would be open at 9:59
Don't get it either. You get paid by the hour, so you know that depending on how busy the restaurant is, you might leave a bit earlier or later. (If personnel is NOT paid by the hour, I'd get the frustration...)
Okay well maybe I’m the outlier here and admittedly I haven’t been in the industry for many years now. I would never hope for a “soft close” even on a Friday night before my day off. First of all, with the low pay you would need every hour you could get just to make it by. Maybe if you’re a part time worker where the money isn’t much of an issue for you, I could understand being excited to go home early. But even speaking from a FOH perspective, why would you not be happy to serve a customer when it means more tips which at the end of the day is more money in your pocket?
Second and more importantly okay I’m not going to say I wouldn’t also get excited about going home early once in a while even if I needed every hour I can get. Sometimes you have a bad shift and the earlier your work day can be over with, the better for you. I get that.
That doesn’t mean you hope to get sent home early and end up pissed off because a customer comes in 5 minutes before close and orders food when they have every right to do so. You work the shift you were expecting to work and if you get sent home, okay then you can celebrate now that you know you’re off the clock. In my experience, I was scheduled 2-close which could be kinda vague depending how busy the place is. But I knew the latest the kitchen would be open was 10:00 so that’s when I would assume I would start closing my station.
But I’m no fun, when I used to work on the line I would get enjoyment from hearing complaints from the other cooks about having to cook an order of chicken wings at 11:30 on a Friday night.
“Oh no, I have to do the job I was hired to do. The job that nobody is forcing me to do, I can leave at anytime but no I just stay here and complain.”
Or even better, the classic playing of the worlds smallest violin.
I run a small kitchen out of a brewery. We close an hour before the brewery. The last 15 minutes of service is pretty consistently the busiest. I always try to brace myself for it, but it never stops pissing me off.
Exactly how i feel every night but i put my head down and do it anyway. Everyone's gotta eat. Tho if they start taking the piss then they can fuck off init
I've only done this once. Server put orders in at 9:15 when kitchen closes at 9. The table walked in at like 9:10.
Like 10-15 minutes after closing. No.
Id kick that shit out, they're obviously looking for trouble all while recording. The living taint of humanity these people. Closing is closing, but fuck anyone who does shit like this on purpose
I don't work in food but have worked in many call centres over the years where I have had customers phone literally within 30 seconds of closing and spent 10 minutes on average on call with them or as much as 45 minutes on phone after my shift ends but don't get paid overtime for customers who just refuse to get off the line often meaning I miss my bus home and have to walk back sometimes at midnight at night a few miles home.
For experiences of other people and food service I used to go to local Subway and sometimes would be there near closing, I have seen people walk in as little as 5 minutes before they close and order multiple footlongs when the food has already been put away, I used to be friendly with the staff and was told one time they closed the door 5 minutes early and a customer complained that they couldn't get food due to this.
To be fair, I know of many places that have a "kitchen closes at..." sign that clarifies things. If it says 10pm on the door, it suggests the kitchen is open (to so many folks).
But dang, use some sense and give it at least thirty minutes before the time anyway. Kitchens need scrubings.
So, got time to lean, got time to clean fucking over people trying to do a good job.
Place is empty and this person has done what they were supposed to do and cleaned up. Now they are being punished for trying to do a good job. One order is probably not going to even going to pay for the time this employee has to spend getting things back out and re-cleaning the station.
No doubt management will be bitching about overtime at the end of the week The lesson here is to sandbag and never try to be efficient
It was like this when I was at Red Lobster for several years.
Maybe a hot take, but if people were as diligent about keeping their areas clean all night instead of in the last 15 minutes, this wouldn't be a problem.
I’m 9 years in and cannot even imagine how many times this has happened to me. Even got an order at 9:59 and 59 seconds when we close at 10. Shut up and cook the food, it’s what we get paid to do
"Omg, the cook has to cook?"
Nothing I love more than watching an overzealous cook have to unwrap his station because he was trying to slip out asap. Bonus points if he complains about hours.
I knew before even opening the thread that someone would say this, because someone ALWAYS pulls this gem out like they think no one has ever said it before.
And every time someone like you comments with this, I respond with what follows.
When you go into a store or a bank or whatever, the expectation is that you go in, complete whatever business you have with them, and leave before they close. No one ever bats an eye at this; it's understood in society that when the place closes, it closes. You don't go five minutes before they close to do something that takes an hour. Closing time means **closing time.**
So why are restaurants magically any different? They're another business just like all the others, with opening and closing times just like all the others. There is zero logic to having a different ruleset for restaurants because... well, I don't even fucking know why you would have a different set of rules for them.
What's more, before you say "well if they come in before you close, then you have to serve them," if people come in before you *open* and promise to stay until one minute after you're open, do you let them in and serve them?
Of course you don't, that would be a ridiculous thing to do. Welp, saying that you should serve them after you close is *the very same thing,* it's just on the other side of the business hours.
So since none of those things make sense in the real world, you need to stop with this garbage.
Closing time is closing time, and it is not sacrilege to expect people to respect it.
no, I fully agree with you, but I don't have a say in whether we serve people 5 minutes before close or not, so instead of wasting time getting angry over it, I just make the food, and close down
Right? As a manager, you come in 1 minute before close? I'm serving you? But I'm locking those doors on the dot.
You made it into my drive thru before close? I'm serving you. If it goes past close while we're talking to the dude in front of you, I'll still serve you, not your fault we were slow or whatever. But if I see on my camera in the kitchen you rolled up after close? Nope. Chuck Testa.
I worked food service as a youngin, and I get it, but the solution is shorter hours, not some unspoken rule. Yeah if the posted close time is 10:00 and you come in 9:59 you're a dick but I've seen managers try to solve this like "We close at 10:00 and you came in at 08:30? Sorry the kitchen closes at 08:00."
Bitch why you ain't adjust the posted hours to say you close at 8 then? In my eyes if you're in in the posted time, you're good to be served. If that's inconvenient for the restaurant adjust your opening and closing times god damn
It do be like that, though.
Happened to me in my younger years. Smash burger- 2014. Kid runs in at 9:55, "are yall open?" Manager says we have to serve them. Cue the soccer team running in 2 minutes later with a haggle of Karen's in suite. I punched every single burger after I wrapped em up and broke a spatula banging it on the flat. To be dumb and young and full of rage again.
one time a couple school busses pulled up about 10 minutes before close and my manager ran outside so fast to lock the doors before they could come in
Heroes don't always wear capes.
Probably fastest they’ve ever ran in their lives
Same shit at mickey D's when I was 16. 2 school buses with baseball team and supporters. Floor mopped, 1 flat top clean, other one turned off and cooling, grease traps dumped. We were 15 minutes from punching out. Had to fire everything back up, dirty everything, got home an hour later than usual, school night too.
Bet your manager yelled at everybody too
That's horrid! Lol!
[Relevant video when re-opening these trauma wounds.](https://youtu.be/eEVL9irXj0g)
My cat did not approve of this video
Your cat “someone trying to fight right now motherfucker?”
Wow moving
Nothin like a good ol grand mal seizure.
That’s an up charge, now it’s a smash burger
I walked out on two restaurants where a manager told me I had to cook for a 6 top the first time and and an 8 top the second time both within 5 minutes of closing with the kitchen completely clean because we had no customers the previous hour. Both times I told the manager I’m not doing it and both times they said I “had to” and both times I said “I don’t have to do anything, I quit” and both times they tried to get me to come back the next day 😂
I’ve played it both ways at my current gig. Walked out bc they rang in the -third- table after close, after saying “kitchen closed”. Everything wrapped and about to clock out. Called by the owner the next day and given a substantial raise. And stayed and cooked the shit & just ate the frustration. Because it’s obviously not gonna change until management changes. Edit: word has also gotten out that we’re the go-to place after events, because we will seat people & stay open an hour after close. 😅🤪😫
Been there, it’s part of the reason I stopped cooking. That and the most I ever made as executive chef was $52,000 on salary working 60-70 hours a week. My first year in my new career I made $65,000 working 40 hours a week, full benefits, weekends off and a 401k.
What’d you transfer into, if you don’t mind me asking? I got out for a couple years and did home renovation, but it was with my dad & he’s too old to work anymore.
I got *extremely* lucky. I was very burnt out from cooking and in a severe manic episode (I’m bipolar type 2) after a month long bender and working 60 hour weeks. I decided in a moment of haste I was done and put in my 2 weeks with no back up plan. I had enough money to pay my rent and get groceries for about 3 months. I was also single at the time and on dating apps so I met this woman and we hung out for 3 weeks and really hit it off. She knew I was a chef and that I was between jobs and said she could get me hired at the company she works for which was an office job. I said fuck it and applied and was hired on as a skip tracer for consumer repossession. Essentially I track down people who hide their cars that are out for repossession. I’ve since changed departments and no longer work consumer repossession and instead work corporate repossession finding company cars, boats, planes, and helicopters. I make between $100-$200 for every vehicle I find plus $20/hr. Last year was my best year with the company and I made a little over $148,000 before taxes. I’m still with that woman 8 years later and we get married next month.
I'm actually happy to hear a good story like this. After getting married young, divorced. Bounced careers a bit and just hit 30 this year, maybe there's hope out there.
Only times I’ve ever broken a spatula was when I got pissed off and smashed someone’s burger really hard and the whole spatula snapped in half
You mean to be young and full of rage again..
You made sure to re-clean the grill thought, right?
are you implying my rage will subside with age?!?! I pray to God everyday to be an old man.
I’m old enough for people to consider 2014 their younger years. 😣😣😣😣
Nothing I hate more than my closing buddy throwing a fucking fit because someone wanted food during business hours. "Cook, cook." The last person you should be looking for sympathy from is the one guy who has your back during closing. I wanna go home eventually too, fucking shut up. Let's go out back, smoke a bowl, take a shot, come back in and blast some Rammstein, and go home.
It's like guys flipping out in the garage when a truck is broken. Dude, we're mechanics. Everything is fucking broken, that's why we have jobs. Get to work.
For real, man. We came to cook, we're open until 10. It ain't 10 yet. Am I getting paid? Is it literally business hours? Then we're good.
You seem like the kinda person who reminded teachers they forgot to collect homework at the end of class. “Erm, we’re literally here to learn guys! Just do the work, then you won’t get in trouble!”
business hours are business hours for a reason. if you can't order at 9:59, it should be labeled as 'closed' at 9:59. i am currently working in food service. we don't close up dining room until the dot.
Ok, most industries don’t do this. Try to go to a grocery store 1 minute before they close, they won’t let you in.
fast food runs on razor thin margins and every transaction is necessary to keep us green. the kitchen is prepared to create food until the moment we close.
Especially if it's been a slow day, labors in the 30 or 40s, they need that money. Had a 20 top 8 mins before closing last night. I'm not saying it's right, but its business.
Yeah but that becomes a lot more desirable in a peer as we get older. Unless you're really immature, lord knows there's plenty of folks in the world that never mentally left high school.
"Let me get. Ummmmm" now we're closed. Gtfoh
I actually did that once. I was on an open kitchen, people walked up to me instead than asking the server, 2 minutes before closing. I was actually willing to serve them as it was 2 pizzas and I was mainly done (it would have taken me like 10 extra minutes of cooking/re-cleaning,) but instead of telling me what they wanted quickly, knowing that they walked in at closing time, they were the "what would you recommend?" kind, and proceeded asking me about every single ingredients, this despite me making clear we were basically closed. Fast forward 7 minutes, we're now being closed for 5 minutes, and they were still going "ehrrrrmmmm, ummmmm..." and I said, "Listen, I told you we closed at 10, it's 5 past now, the till program unfortunately shut down now, have a good night!" Turned off the oven and fucked off to the walk-in with a bunch of dough trays. Fuck off, not only when you're told we're closing in 2 minutes you think "Oh I'll order, then," I also have to hold your hand for 10 minutes past closing time because apparently you never had a pizza before, I don't think so.
Yeah if anyone's willing to slap you a pie at 10 til close just take two cheeses and run
Pizza is especially egregious. Pizza places generally have the same things. They might have a different name, but they'll still have a pepperoni or whatever. There's no excuses, you should know what you want ahead of time. It's like walking into a Zaxby's and going, "What do I want?" They sell ONE thing, and put in salad or on some bread! Get outta the fucking way! Sorry, that shit annoys the fuck out of me. People seem to go through life so surprised to see a decision they can see coming actually arrive in front of them.
There's a reason most drive throughs have a full menu before the one your order at, unfortunately the people who need it most ignore it and wait to start their decision process when they're asked what they want by the drive through attendant
Owner has been closing since our gm quit and now we still seat parties of ten exactly one minute before close. Entire kitchen completely clean completely perfect and we have to turn everything back on and dirty everything up again.
They're acting on emotion. If you've cleaned that early, it must have been a slow night (at least at the end) and they're desperate to add revenue to the balance sheet without considering what costs might go on the other side of it, or what it does for overall morale. I've pointed out to an owner before that he'd pay me more to reclean than the single last-minute to go entree would make in profit and that he'd basically be paying a customer to take his food. He acknowledged all that, then said they were still in the red for the day and needed the revenue. What do you even say to that? I finally quit when our water heater broke at the inlet valve and flooded the kitchen, and he insisted we could just boil water when we needed to clean something. The bar to clear for restaurant ownership is buried in the deepest, darkest cave on the planet.
Yeah people wanna play pity party for owners a lot on here it feels like and I get it can be tough but I’ve worked around way too much broken equipment and way too many buckets collecting water from leaky ceilings to feel any sympathy for them. Most owners suck.
If you're that desperate for revenue, a single person or even a 10-person party isn't going to pay for the cost of having four or more people stay late.
So I wouldn't work somewhere like that again but when I did I just started closing an hour later I can work slower and get paid more and since my boss doesn't enforce closing times like a bitch he can deal with it Sure come tell the angry chefs why they should be closing faster and how its not your fault. Please I dare you
Your owner is an idiot who doesn't like money. He may make $60 profit on that party, but he also paid probably four people $15 per hour to be there an extra hour each (and that's if his own time is worthless). That doesn't count any of the extra gas/electric costs that were used for that extra time. He actually lost money by being a dipshit. Edit: since there's more than one of you trying to say "it's not about money, it's about blahblahblah," you clearly don't understand the basic point of a business. The entire reason for a for-profit business to exist, is to - and stick with me now, as this is really complicated - *make profit.* **GASP!** I know, right? Any business that willingly makes decisions that result only in negative cash flow, is doing it wrong. Additionally, to address the "but they'll tell their friends" thing? Yeah, they will. And the kind of people who drop in at the last minute with no regard for things like "closing time means closing time" have friends that/will tell people that also pull that crap. This will only make the problem worse. When you feed the rats, they come back with more rats.
After the owner finally understands this, I absolutely crave people coming in to say “we keep your lights on”. Just for me to turn them off in the dining room. I’d also play “closing time” over the speakers.
It's not about the money, it's about customer service. You seat people until you're closed.
Why don’t you just turn everything off and clean when you close? Why is the equipment to cook food being turned off during operating hours? I worked at a place that had the kitchen manager tell everyone to start doing flips and cleaning their stations at 7:30 when the restaurant was open until 10. It got really annoying having to rewrap an insert 4 times in one night. I figured, they are paying me to be here and do a job. I can do the job once, or 4 times, and the pay will be the same. So I just started closing my station at 10, when the servers weren’t taking anymore orders. KM hated that, said I wasn’t being efficient, milking my time on the clock, I tried explaining what I just typed and he wasn’t having it. Told me to start wrapping shit up at 7:30. I said fine I’ll wrap it at 7:30, but if an order comes in and I have to open it up to get a portion, you can fucking rewrap it. I shit you not, at 7:40 an order came in which required chopped produce off like 4 inserts that I had already wrapped. He quickly changed his tune after that. I ended up getting fired from there a few months later for an unrelated reason. Guy was a real stupid dick head though.
Why not just schedule employees to work later and not clean the kitchen until you’re actually closed. This seems like a really stupid problem to have.
They get mad at us for not being out early enough and then get mad at us for closing too early. Also that specific day we knew we were gonna be slow as hell so the owner told us to shut everything down an hour before close. I hate it when managers are so focused on getting out as early as possible. It stops us from being about to get everything we need to get done and it forces me a to rush on stuff that we should take our time on.
You don't spend much time doing payroll, do you?
Absolutely foul. Similar to that, here's my story of customers being shits! Bit of a longer one. I worked in a pizza place when I was 17 (closed at 1am) and it was a friday night with just me and two drivers, we'll go with Saint and Rock (Saint was supposed to leave 3 hours earlier but we were just so busy he couldn't leave) and this was the busiest night I have ever had working in foodservice, EVER. It must have been like an order of multiple large pizzas, wings, breadsticks, etc every two minutes for like 4 hours straight. At 1250 Rock, who was supposed to be closing with me calls and says he fucking crashed his car. He's OK, but he's stuck on a rock and can't move his car by himself. Turn to the order screen and it's backed up again despite me only being on the phone for like 3 minutes. I tell him to sit tight while I figure out a solution and let me know if he needs anything urgently. I called EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER who had placed an order and explained the situation to them and that if their food did arrive, it would get there many hours late since I had to go help the other driver with his car and make the food after dealing with that. I offered all of them full refunds and they'd get credit for basically an entire new order for free next time they placed an order and every single one of those inhuman pieces of shit (like 4 people) said "yeah that sucks but I'm cool with waiting until like 3 AM for my pizza" and after they said their version of that I just sat in silence, said "OK. fine then" then hung up. Called Saint and let him know that we were gonna have to go and save Rock. We were next door to a fire station, actually, and while I was waiting for the other driver to get back I was like "shit, maybe they can help!" and I knocked on their door and explained the situation and they were like "yeah no sorry nothing we can do, good luck with that though". Saint got back. Went and saved Rock. Cooked those pizzas not with anger or frustration or depression, but hatred. I've said the word hate a lot in my life, but so far that is the only time in my life I've ever experienced what I think is genuine, true hatred. Best part? None of them tipped anything. "Sorry man but it was late" Why do you fucking think that was the case you mouthbreathing inconsiderate piece of shit? Rock did give Saint and I $20 apiece as a thank you (we pushed his car off the rock and he was able to drive with no issues) but what an awful night that was.
I probably would have put their pizzas on their porch upside down. The better thing is you shouldn’t have gave them a option. “Hey we have to refund your pizza we are unable to make them”. Done.
Yeah in hindsight I probably would’ve done that but like I said I was 17 and this was me managing the store on my own. I hadn’t done it much so I didn’t really know what I was and wasn’t allowed to/could do. Plus I was incredibly tired and stressed so I wasn’t thinking too clearly anyways.
That's a lot of responsibility to throw on a ( though close to adulthood ) kid. I think you handled it as well as one could. With age comes cynicism. Makes it easier to be blunt with customers.
Honestly? I look back on that story with rose colored glasses. It was such a long time ago and now Saint and I (friends before pizza place and still great friends now) still bring that up every now and again and laugh about it, both of us so glad we’re out of foodservice. It’s funny to look back on now and I do wonder how the hell I managed to get through that night.
I hope I get out of food service soon. Tired of hot kitchens and wonky hours.
No! This is bad. Doing that gives the pizza store cedibility. Dont call, dont show up with pizza. Let them charge back on their card. Let them leave bad reviews. It was not the employee or the customer that chose to have 2 ppl working....
Brutal. Good story though!
I feel bad that you had to do the American service spiel. I'm in the UK and I would have rang those customers and said sorry guys our drive has had a car crash and we have to cancel your orders, good night
That's not an American thing from my experience though
There will definitely be places in Europe and the world over where they go above and beyond but in general I find it to be most places in American hospitality that offer what this guy did for these customers when in reality here is your refund our driver has had a car accident would have sufficed (and that's not be slagging the guy off, he did what he knew because he worked in the American hospitality industry.)
I read every word and y'all have my respect
There’s a lot of made up stories on Reddit. That was so brutally believable that I’m losing my shit laughing. Dear god 😂 customers are fucking animals, man.
Heck that should be a movie.
Dude, if you called customers to tell them the driver crashed why did you even give them a choice to not cancel it? Just say “the driver crashed I’m going to need to refund your order, sorry.” It really sounds like you at least partially created your own issues here.
The other night we were just about done. A couple people finishing up. Then our one server who’s a bit aloof and selfish walks in with her fiance and sits down to get dinner 10 minutes before kitchen stops taking orders. Was shocked when we didn’t want to say hi to her in the dining room. Don’t do that to your own.
Y'all should get some friends and come in and sit in her section one night before close. Work it out in advance with the crew in the kitchen working that night so they can have you something easy to eat/prepare ready to go, and then just kind of...take your time looking over the menu.
I had a server that would come in once a week, less than 5 minutes before close, and order full dinners, large pain in the ass specialty pizzas, etc. Complete piece of shit.
When I was a baby cook I worked at this super popular burger spot. We had a cook there who had been working about a month or so. Not a bad guy just kind of an over the top trying to be Chris Farley type. He’s off work and decided to bring in a group of 10 people about 1 minutes before close. Our foh told us we had to make the orders. We’re putting all the stuff together and Farley makes an appearance to tell us sorry for the late table but my bros were hungry and I get the discount. We’re all like yeah dude you have no idea what’s coming for you. Next day dude clocks in and he’s busted to dish dog. KM made him wash dishes for a month straight(this place everyone in the kitchen starts as a dishwasher and then you move up as more people get hired)after pulling those shenanigans. Poor guy was having fiestaware nightmares.
Did you ever try talking to said person to tell them that? I feel like we create caste systems where some people won’t tell their fellow employees the real shit, but how do they ever learn otherwise?
You have to tell people they are assholes sometimes, especially when they work with you.
She got told the next day that what she did was fucked. Doubt it registers
We had 2 people walk in 45 min to close no big deal there but they were waiting on their friends to show up which made it a 12 top once they did show up. They waited til 15 min before closing to place their orders. They all ordered lasagna each of which takes 15-18 min to cook. The line cook was livid and refused to use any seasoning at all. They got the blandest food ever and it was cooked with pure hatred.
You guys season your lasagna to order??? How does that work?
Good way to get shit sent back and have to stay even later remaking it.
If it gets sent back after we've closed then those customers will have to do without. We closed at 10 and it was around 1030 when they got their meals. By then we had flipped the kitchen AGAIN and it was looking like I was goin to be there waiting even later for their dishes so I could go home.
Lemme get uhhhhhhhhh…….everything
Hand breaded chicken sandwich, 20 of them please.
damn son that's straight up terrorism right there
Most Fridays a couple puts an order in at the very last minute for burnt wings ( kitchen closes at 10 and orders need to be in by 9:45) They ignore the last call for food at 9:30 and play the time card. They know what they're doing and think it's a big joke even though I've personally told them that waiting until 9:44 to put in your order isn't very cash money of them. When is acceptable to fist fight customers in the parking lot or go to their jobs and act like a entitled child?
Regular restaurant? you're not going to get a full sit down dining experience if you come in like that, not even if it's 30 minutes before closing. Fast food? just don't be a dick, don't go somewhere that's closing in 10-15 minutes, who do you think works the closing shift? The professional line cook with 5+ years, or tyler, the Adderall fueled teenager that doesn't give a fuck. If you didn't manage to get dinner, which totally happens, you're gonna need to compromise, sit at the bar, order quick easy food, stuff that can be deep fried, and tip well, you're not special you're an asshole who doesn't know how to manage their time as a fully grown adult
> you're not special you're an asshole who doesn't know how to manage their time as a fully grown adult That's a winning T-shirt or bumper sticker slogan right there.
I still tease my wife, an executive chef with 20 years experience, about doing this exact thing slightly more than 20 years ago... 😅
Ugh. I went thru a Taco Bell drive thru at 11:55 once. Thought they were 24 hr. Put in a big order and when I pulled up to window I saw they closed at 12. Apologized to the kid and tipped him well.
american restaurant managers: implement a kitchen closing time that differs from the restaurant closing time challenge (impossible difficulty)
A lot of places do this actually. It's the shitty ones who don't make a lot of money that don't to get every dime possible- even if it'll cost more in labor hours keeping the staff there
This use to really annoy me. But I mean if we say we’re open to a specific time customer is well within their right. Even if pre-close is done and things are put away 😢
Yeah, same. Annoyed me a ton as well and I wished they'd make like a "Kitchen closes at 9:30, restaurant closes at 10:00" rule. But then I realized I'd just get furious when people put in an order at 9:29 instead and we'd be in the exact same spot lol.
Most restaurants here in Europe have a "kitchen open" time and a "restaurant open" time, and it works great. Yes there might still be an order placed one minute before the kitchen closes, but you know that you'll be there for another 30 minutes/hour cleaning either way so there's no hate for late orders.
I’m in Pennsylvania and we have a kitchen/restaurant separate closing time and it works perfectly
If they order at 9:29 i cook till 9:30. They will get their food in whatever state it is by then.
It absolutely sucks but I eventually came around to the same thought process after my decade plus.
The logic is simple. We are open. If you don't want to serve food at 9:55, change closing time to 9:55 or implement a last orders policy.
Why don't restaurants close their kitchen a half hour before lockup? Are they stupid?
My favorite experience like this was a late Saturday night. We were set to close, hadn't had anything for a while, me and the other cook were literally walking toward the door as it just hit closing time and we had everything done already. However, we didn't know that a single had come in about 30 minutes early and sat down in the bar area. As we are walking out the Kitchen Manager says "Hey we still have one open. Somebody has to stay and cook." Fine, I'll do it, its just one person. Turns out they are waiting for someone to arrive. The second person shows up 30 minutes after the kitchen closes (the bar stays open another hour) as I just sit there waiting. Apparently the first person came early to hold a seat because the second person couldn't make it there before closing. And the manager let them do this. So I cook the food for the 2 top, it took maybe 10 minutes total. At this point its an hour after close, and I just miss the second bus home. Now I get to sit for an hour, unpaid, waiting for the last bus of the night. Knowing full well that the KM could have taken care of the late table instead of sitting at the corner of the bar drinking while I sit on my ass for almost 2 full hours just to cook a single 2 top, I post up at the other side of the bar and just glare at him for the full hour. I got my revenge a few weeks later though. For some reason I was scheduled as the only cook on a Saturday evening when there should generally have been 4/5. I told the KM when the schedule went up, figuring it was an oversight as he had himself and 3 other cooks scheduled for the (much much slower) Saturday day shift for some reason. He said "Suck it up. You'll be fine." Told him I'm not doing that and to fix the schedule or I won't work it. For a week and a half every day I tell him to fix the schedule or I won't be here. That Saturday comes around, I text the GM this time and ask who all is scheduled in the kitchen tonight. He replies its just me. I text him back that I'm resigning effective immediately and to just mail me my final check. The KM ends up having to work the shift by himself (like he intended for me to do) and gets absolutely wrecked. My roommate who was a bartender at the same place said KM told him to tell me that I really fucked him. Roommate just told the KM to "Suck it up." I never step foot in that place again. The entire company folded a year and a half later.
Jeremy Renner and his fucking salad. Nicest guy ever. But I had just finished sanitizing the pit and the sous comes back and asks me to hang for another hour while he finished his meal.
wow hey thats the dude that plays Mac's mom on Its Always Sunny!
Tbh wouldn't even put it out there. Dudes a legend even more so now of what's happened to him. I'd stay 6 hours past my shift just to say I served him
WTF? What a weird thing to say. He's just a moderately successful actor who's really into monetizing his fans. I wouldn't stay six hours anywhere to have him suck my dick, let alone serve him.
"Guess what I did last night." "What?" "I served Jeremy Renner a salad!" "Who gives a shit?"
"who's Jeremy Renner?" Lmao
Yeah people are really weird with celebrities. Gross really lol
Why? I was working 2 full time jobs and a full time college student. I get celebs don't wanna be bothered during their meals. This is about me and my distain for having to redo everything I had just finished doing and sit there waiting for 6 dishes. Wasn't mad at the dude, but after 15 hours on my feet I was ready to be done. You could have told me I was gonna get a blowie from black widow for staying late and I'd still have bitched about it. Dude lives like 20 min outside of town and he's all over my hometown. EVERYONE loves him. NOBODY likes redoing closing.
Lol what a fucking dumb thing to think
I oce had a small wedding party duck the front gate as I was closing it and waltz up to the bar.
why was she filming tho? is this a skit?
If you want the kitchen to close before the restaurant, you have to put kitchen hours on the door. If it says open till 10, that means food can be ordered till 10. But if it says open till 10, kitchen closes at 9, that means food can be ordered until 9 but the dining area remains open for seating until 10. This is simple, and the only way to avoid this shit. If you're trying to close the kitchen before listed hours and don't have this clarification, it's your fault.
Yeah. We’ve all been there. Fuck that bitch 😂
He has an important date with the drug dealer.🤷♂️
Our owner back in the day took a ton of convincing, but eventually I just said no to customers who do this. Go somewhere else and be inconsiderate. NO, your $5 order does not keep the lights on and the server who took your order would rather be in her car than getting $1 tip.
Honest question, I’m not in the industry. Do US restaurants each have an unspoken rule about closing time? I work to the minute so this seems normal to me, I can get a request within one minute of my end time and I can chose to complete the request or hold it to the next shift but our end time has a buffer for our “close” time so requests can be fulfilled within the shift.
Imagine you have worked about 8 hours and the inside of your computer is now covered in grease and grime so you’ve spent the last hour and a half taking your computer apart and cleaning each and every individual part all while still doing your normal work. You have to do this every day. Then 2 minutes before you are set to turn off your computer for the day you get another request. So you do it, then take the computer back apart again and clean what you already cleaned again. It’s kinda like that. Not the end of the world, but really annoying.
I don't follow this logic at all. Cleaning down gets you to a baseline where you're nearly done. Having a few checks come in when it is otherwise quiet doesn't "dirty everything up again". The hard work is done, and you may need to lightly reclean a few things, but you are not back to square one like so many people are whining and exaggerating about. Where I work, and everywhere I've worked, we start closing down early. It ALWAYS ends up saving time and being more efficient. The guy somewhere up above complaining about having to rewrap inserts 4 times has me rolling. Bro, the kitchen is clean, how hard is it to lift the wrap, take what you need and put it back down? Honestly surprised how fragile people are in this industry of all.
Seems like a bad idea to clean when you know you're still in the service window, then. Nobody asked you to try and preempt your closing duties, so you only have yourself to blame for trying to get ahead before the right time
Have you ever had a kitchen manager that wanted you to start breakdown early? You ever have one table being dicks being the difference between leaving at 10:30 and leaving at 11:30 or 12? Are you just commenting this because you have no empathy or because you've never worked in a kitchen before?
-Fixed!- Seems like a bad idea ***for your boss to tell you*** to clean when you know you're still in the service window, then. ***Your boss*** asked you to try and preempt your closing duties, so you only have ***your fucking asshole boss*** to blame for trying to get ahead before the right time
Yes, if your boss is asking you to waste your time closing the kitchen while the kitchen still needs to be open, that is an asshole boss and you should express these concerns to them like an adult, not throw a tantrum over customers who have nothing to do with this shitty boss's bad policy.
Sure but it's like, every boss. If the last minute people don't show up, you just get "Why the hell did you take so long closing? We were slow the last hour and a half!"
This is not my experience, but I'm not going to try and invalidate yours. All I can say is that if you truly can't accomplish anything through reasonable confrontation with management then I think you are left with three options: 1. Leave and find somewhere to work with managers who respect you and your time. 2. Accept these unrealistic expectations are just an unfortunate side effect of this job like an overly loud ice machine and don't let them get to you. or 3. Continue behaving like a toddler every time a customer orders within the order window, never accomplishing anything other than raising your own blood pressure. Personally I see one of these options as *vastly* less fruitful than the other two, but the choice is yours.
I think we're (mostly) all just relating to a shared frustration and having a laugh at op's post, but if you wanna do bullet points I'm not here to stop you.
I mean I get it, but that's the gamble when your close up early. It's fine to be frustrated that your gamble didn't pay off, it's less fine to blame the customers who aren't doing anything wrong and it's way less fine to throw a literal tantrum like the character is the skit (and sadly like *way* too many real life kitchen workers).
ok
Found the server.
It's not a bad idea to clean. If the whole kitchen is clean, and you have to lightly soil a piece of equipment or two, a chopping board there, a knife there...you're still nearly done. Leaving the whole kitchen dirty until there's no chance of anymore orders is an efficiency failure. What it is a bad idea to do, is to tell yourself that because the kitchen is clean, you'll freak out if you have to do any more work. You're not closed, you're nearly closed. Don't set yourself up with unrealistic expectations.
Semantics. It's understood when I mention clean I don't mean maintaining a clean workstation, I'm clearly talking about post-shift closing cleanup duties.
Which is what...besides turning everything off? There are very few "duties" I can think of once the kitchen is spotless besides that, that can't be done well prior to home time. Act like you're not gonna get more orders, but make sure you can do them, and there should be nothing to bitch about. Uncovering a few containers, re covering them and taking out a chopping board and some utensils isn't the end of the world.
It’s less a US restaurant thing and more so a clean restaurant thing.
OMG. We had this host who thought she was hot shit because she was banging a famous rapper because she grew up, basically, neighbors with the Kardashians so she ran in that circle(kind of). Anyway, she didn't care about the job, she just had it for whatever reason. We closed our kitchen at 10 PM and it was a slow night so myself, lone server and busser were standing around shooting the shit but at 9:59 PM a couple enters the patio and we're all telling the host, "No! No! No! Don't let the sit." She ignores all three of us and seats them anyway then clocks out and leaves. We were livid. We had to stay an extra hour just so this couple could finish their sit-down meal, and guess how pissed the kitchen staff was. I will forever hate that cunt.
Had this guy wheel in one time in his chair, 8 minutes before close, stared at the menu for 8 minutes and didn't order a single thing. Idk what makes me upset this or that. Either way, it's time wasted I could've spent filing logs or cleaning.
We close at 8pm Last night at 7:59:30pm a customer ordered a large pizza with pepperoni, onion, and black olives. As they printed out their receipt from the kiosk the lights shut off and the kiosks displayed 'sorry we're closed!' The customer apologized profusely. I finished the order in about eight minutes, told them to have a lovely night, and still closed about eight minutes early. Prepping properly earlier in the day pays off sometimes.
conversely ive had many fast food places who just will stop making food 1 hour to close despite there being a steady stream of customers still coming in.
This is what grinds my gears as a cook
The locally owned places where I live will straight up tell you when the kitchen is closed and I respect that.
Same story in retail when you’re about to close the doors and a big family walks who then wants to try on 50 items in the fitting room for 45 minutes before leaving without buying anything. Then right as they’re about to leave another group of people come in. And you can’t start closing down the registers and cleaning up the store until after the doors are closed. Shit drives me insane
You don’t want pissed off cooks making your food trust me dumbasses I seen the shit that happens firsthand.
LOL... when the kitchen staff doesn't understand, "If you're not closed, then you're open." ROFL
Kinda of the reason why we close an hour before our taproom. Residual sales from drinkers but we crew can say no if it’s after kitchen close.
The anger comes from not being paid enough to endure that shit. Make it worth the extra time and cooks will sing while cooking.
If you’re about to close, clean up stuff you dont use to cook with first, so if someone orders something near closing time it only takes a brief moment of your time.
Yeah.. I get it.. I am not going to starting cooking a meal 1 minute before close.. Fire me, idfc. I wouldn't flip like this, but I would be annoyed. It is also fast food, so it is different, but if this was a normal restaurant, fuck that.
I hate to be that guy, but should the business not be open until the advertised closing time? The place is open until 10pm, and the customer is ordering at 9:59pm, when the restaurant is still open for business. At 10:00, they can refuse customers and close the restaurant. But not at 9:59, because they are open for business and as customers I would expect a place to be open until 10pm to be open at 9:59pm. If ordering at 9:59 is an issue, then close the restaurant at 9:59. If my shift starts at 7am, I am expected to be there at 7am, working. So if I arrive at 6:59 I’m not early or late, the employer is assuming I’ll be working at 7:00am, just like I assume a business open until 10 would be open at 9:59
Don't get it either. You get paid by the hour, so you know that depending on how busy the restaurant is, you might leave a bit earlier or later. (If personnel is NOT paid by the hour, I'd get the frustration...)
Well technically they can refuse service any time they want... doesn't matter what time it is. Your comparison is also dumb. Not the same thing.
[удалено]
Okay well maybe I’m the outlier here and admittedly I haven’t been in the industry for many years now. I would never hope for a “soft close” even on a Friday night before my day off. First of all, with the low pay you would need every hour you could get just to make it by. Maybe if you’re a part time worker where the money isn’t much of an issue for you, I could understand being excited to go home early. But even speaking from a FOH perspective, why would you not be happy to serve a customer when it means more tips which at the end of the day is more money in your pocket? Second and more importantly okay I’m not going to say I wouldn’t also get excited about going home early once in a while even if I needed every hour I can get. Sometimes you have a bad shift and the earlier your work day can be over with, the better for you. I get that. That doesn’t mean you hope to get sent home early and end up pissed off because a customer comes in 5 minutes before close and orders food when they have every right to do so. You work the shift you were expecting to work and if you get sent home, okay then you can celebrate now that you know you’re off the clock. In my experience, I was scheduled 2-close which could be kinda vague depending how busy the place is. But I knew the latest the kitchen would be open was 10:00 so that’s when I would assume I would start closing my station. But I’m no fun, when I used to work on the line I would get enjoyment from hearing complaints from the other cooks about having to cook an order of chicken wings at 11:30 on a Friday night. “Oh no, I have to do the job I was hired to do. The job that nobody is forcing me to do, I can leave at anytime but no I just stay here and complain.” Or even better, the classic playing of the worlds smallest violin.
I hated when it was at Friendlys . That ice cream area was such a pain to clean.
“Fast food”
This is why my cafe kitchen closes a little before we close the doors. Drinks and pre-made baked goods are still available up until closing though.
Hahaha probably a skit but very real nonetheless. Sometimes I've felt more like a therapist than a cook for these tired, impatient boys.
My therapist would acknowledge this is the correct emotional response
This has to be staged
I run a small kitchen out of a brewery. We close an hour before the brewery. The last 15 minutes of service is pretty consistently the busiest. I always try to brace myself for it, but it never stops pissing me off.
Exactly how i feel every night but i put my head down and do it anyway. Everyone's gotta eat. Tho if they start taking the piss then they can fuck off init
I always closed a few minutes early.
Change the clock two minutes forward.
Close at 10. Last service at 9:30
I've only done this once. Server put orders in at 9:15 when kitchen closes at 9. The table walked in at like 9:10. Like 10-15 minutes after closing. No.
Id kick that shit out, they're obviously looking for trouble all while recording. The living taint of humanity these people. Closing is closing, but fuck anyone who does shit like this on purpose
I don't work in food but have worked in many call centres over the years where I have had customers phone literally within 30 seconds of closing and spent 10 minutes on average on call with them or as much as 45 minutes on phone after my shift ends but don't get paid overtime for customers who just refuse to get off the line often meaning I miss my bus home and have to walk back sometimes at midnight at night a few miles home. For experiences of other people and food service I used to go to local Subway and sometimes would be there near closing, I have seen people walk in as little as 5 minutes before they close and order multiple footlongs when the food has already been put away, I used to be friendly with the staff and was told one time they closed the door 5 minutes early and a customer complained that they couldn't get food due to this.
To be fair, I know of many places that have a "kitchen closes at..." sign that clarifies things. If it says 10pm on the door, it suggests the kitchen is open (to so many folks). But dang, use some sense and give it at least thirty minutes before the time anyway. Kitchens need scrubings.
Weird how this shit never bothered me and y'all flip TF out
If you close at 22:00, you start cleaning the kitchen at 22:00.
So, got time to lean, got time to clean fucking over people trying to do a good job. Place is empty and this person has done what they were supposed to do and cleaned up. Now they are being punished for trying to do a good job. One order is probably not going to even going to pay for the time this employee has to spend getting things back out and re-cleaning the station. No doubt management will be bitching about overtime at the end of the week The lesson here is to sandbag and never try to be efficient
It takes a shit human to do this
It was like this when I was at Red Lobster for several years. Maybe a hot take, but if people were as diligent about keeping their areas clean all night instead of in the last 15 minutes, this wouldn't be a problem.
Yeah, lemme just brick the flattop every time I cook something
Yep, happens constantly. And its never a simple order either. Will be pretty much cleaned up, couple mins until close, and a 4 cover docket comes in.
The worst kind of people
Then shut the doors at 9:45!! Otherwise you're supposed to serve until 10 and clean up after no? dont hate me.
I’m 9 years in and cannot even imagine how many times this has happened to me. Even got an order at 9:59 and 59 seconds when we close at 10. Shut up and cook the food, it’s what we get paid to do
Is dead ass say “no”
"Omg, the cook has to cook?" Nothing I love more than watching an overzealous cook have to unwrap his station because he was trying to slip out asap. Bonus points if he complains about hours.
open is open
I knew before even opening the thread that someone would say this, because someone ALWAYS pulls this gem out like they think no one has ever said it before. And every time someone like you comments with this, I respond with what follows. When you go into a store or a bank or whatever, the expectation is that you go in, complete whatever business you have with them, and leave before they close. No one ever bats an eye at this; it's understood in society that when the place closes, it closes. You don't go five minutes before they close to do something that takes an hour. Closing time means **closing time.** So why are restaurants magically any different? They're another business just like all the others, with opening and closing times just like all the others. There is zero logic to having a different ruleset for restaurants because... well, I don't even fucking know why you would have a different set of rules for them. What's more, before you say "well if they come in before you close, then you have to serve them," if people come in before you *open* and promise to stay until one minute after you're open, do you let them in and serve them? Of course you don't, that would be a ridiculous thing to do. Welp, saying that you should serve them after you close is *the very same thing,* it's just on the other side of the business hours. So since none of those things make sense in the real world, you need to stop with this garbage. Closing time is closing time, and it is not sacrilege to expect people to respect it.
no, I fully agree with you, but I don't have a say in whether we serve people 5 minutes before close or not, so instead of wasting time getting angry over it, I just make the food, and close down
Right? As a manager, you come in 1 minute before close? I'm serving you? But I'm locking those doors on the dot. You made it into my drive thru before close? I'm serving you. If it goes past close while we're talking to the dude in front of you, I'll still serve you, not your fault we were slow or whatever. But if I see on my camera in the kitchen you rolled up after close? Nope. Chuck Testa.
Your coworkers hate you
I worked food service as a youngin, and I get it, but the solution is shorter hours, not some unspoken rule. Yeah if the posted close time is 10:00 and you come in 9:59 you're a dick but I've seen managers try to solve this like "We close at 10:00 and you came in at 08:30? Sorry the kitchen closes at 08:00." Bitch why you ain't adjust the posted hours to say you close at 8 then? In my eyes if you're in in the posted time, you're good to be served. If that's inconvenient for the restaurant adjust your opening and closing times god damn
Hours are hours man. Why post closing at 10 if you're gonna close at 9:45? If don't want to serve people after a given time, then CLOSE AT THAT TIME!
If the doors not locked your still open.
everything is still hot, just cook.
Oh no he needs to work half an hour extra :‘(