Taking customer orders right at closing time
Restaurant owners often expect staff to accept orders until the exact closing minute while simultaneously demanding that closing duties be finished immediately, creating impossible demands for the kitchen and front-of-house. When management always accepts late orders or fails to set clear boundaries, staff are forced to work past closing time to accommodate last-minute customers.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1closing the kitchen 30 minutes earlier than the front of houseDid this help you?
- 2closing early on slow shifts to save laborDid this help you?
- 3lying to customers that the point of sale system has already locked out ordersDid this help you?
- 4Messaging the seller to state the deadline and ask for a definitive shipping dateDid this help you?
- 5Requesting an order cancellationDid this help you?
- 6Looking for a replacement from a different sellerDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Just to have a general idea, in the place I worked they always accepted late orders even if it was 5 mins before closing 😭.”source ↗
“Usually the most complaints I've seen are from staff when owners expect them to take orders until the exact closing time, but also expect them to be done closing duties by then. Just idiotic and unrealistic expectations”source ↗
“Essentially my question is how many times would you let the seller change the shipping date before you would just request that they canceled the order?”source ↗