AIBU to expect cafés to stay open after 4pm?

Yes I totally agree they should consider opening after 4.00. We have recently been to Scotland and commented frequently about lack of tea rooms/cafes open after 4.00pm. In some places there was a complete lack of cafes all together. On the Continent cafes are open for as long as there are people about, but on the continent service in cafes etc is regarded as a good job to have unlike in UK where it is often young people doing holiday jobs.

Where I live there is a cafe that stays open until 5pm. Always busy, mixed ages. You can order and sit until 5pm as the cook and clean later. Some comments about hobbyists getting cafes rings true . Lots just serve lunches then shut. Our local cafe has a great balance and loyal customers.

Much the same that we want/need the post office/banks that are not open when we are about. Also certin large shops that stick to 9am opening if you want our money you need to be open.

I can see both sides to this issue. It’s a bit Catch 22, isn’t it? If you don’t open, you won’t know whether you’ll attract customers but if you don’t attract customers, you can’t afford to open in the first place.

I live in an area of Scotland that has a tourist industry and I admit I do feel sorry for holidaymakers wandering around in the late afternoon and evenings, looking for somewhere open to go to that isn’t a pub. I find the random days they shut off putting, too, and I don’t go to those businesses now.

I feel like that in England on Sundays, too - everything is closed by 4pm! It catches me out every time.

I visit my son in America regularly and there is a thriving evening business in shops and cafes there. I don’t know why the UK is so different, although there the customer is king and service is so much better.

I live in a seaside resort and it is very common. I totally agree that 4pm is ridiculously early to shut! I took my DGS to cinema the other week and we wanted a hot snack afterwards (at 3 ) only to be told by 4 cafes that the kitchen was closing! And the whole place to be shut by 4 So drinks only! We ended up buying food in M&S and having a picnic which was nice but not what we had hoped for.

TerriBull

I don't think we have that cafe culture mainland Europe enjoys, sometimes that is down to the fact they have more of a split day than we do here, siesta in the afternoon when it's a bit of a dead time but come late afternoon onwards it's all go again. I think it's quite usual for the cafe day to finish around 4ish here, it's a shame really, but as others have said it does take a lot of work to run such a business.

Depends on where you are - only the south of Europe has the siesta culture, as you call it, but in Denmark, Germany, Holland and northern France cafés would only close around four if they had opened before six a.m to catch trade near wholesale fruit and vetetable markets or the like.

Smaller cafés would be more likely to open about 10 or 11 and remain open until shopping hours end.

Staff in America don’t get much choice. They don’t have many rights and can be dismissed on the spot.

We have much the same problem as we often go out and about in the afternoons and would like to stop for tea and a scone or cake but can rarely find anywhere open.

For me it was always around 3pm for tea and biscuits, half way between 1pm lunch and 5pm finish. It still is at home but then we do have ours main meal about 5.30.

It's all about trade and overheads. If there's profit to be made after 4.00 pm after accounting for staff wages, heating and lighting, then cafes stay open - witness Costas and Starbucks etc., in the absence of footfall however, a cafe remaining open will go to the wall - as so many did during Covid.

I babysat so my DD and DSiL could go out for an evening meal. They hadn't booked but drove around the small towns on the Moray coast looking for a welcoming sign. They found one but on entering were told last orders 7.30pm and it was past that.
They bought fish suppers and sat on a bench in the dark looking out to sea.

By contrast, camping in Northern France, on our final evening we put up our tent in the rain and with hardly any food left we found a small inn.
We asked if they served food, they told us to wait but opened a separate room for the 8 of us, 3 generations, and we had a wonderful memorable meal with wine ofcourse.

Don’t some people prefer to shift work early eg 8 am to 2 pm and others 2 pm till 8 am. We were in the south-west looking for a cream-tea at 4/5 pm a lot of tea shops had already ran out of them and were packing away.

I find that some cafes reduced their hours after lockdown,and didn't extend them again.I volunteer at a National Trust property,the cafe closes at 3 now,the house at 4,both an hour earlier than pre-covid.The ones in the nearby town also close earlier,at 4.It can be annoying ,but we just have to be prepared for it when we go anywhere.

Hi. Here in a tourist area in North Wales I have noticed exactly the same. Many cafes close as early as 3.30. I think it actually started after lock down

Well, I feel it's unreasonable, because around 4.00 is just the time I might like to have a cuppa and a cake! But I guess the bottom line is what profits them. I must confess that the early closing of a local tea room has put me off using them, even when I can.

We had the same in St Andrew’s, Grammaretto. We wanted a coffee & cake at about 3:40, and wanted to use an independent so we tried them. Either they were already closed or the one that was open, we were rudely told they were closing at 4pm.

So we took our business to Costa’s, which was absolutely heaving, we had to wait for a table! Clearly the custom is there but business people don’t want to take advantage of it. 🤷‍♀️

I think thats a good idea, sometimes I want to go out for supper, not to a pub or for a full meal and there just isn't anywhere open is there?

Cafes in my small town normally dont open until 11am and some of the shops don't open until 9.30am or 10am. We are a tourist small town believe it or not. Now that schools have broken up i hope they realise holidaymakers like to enjoy coffee earlier than 11.

I work for a bakery chain and many of our cafes are meant to stay open until 6 or 7 depending on where we are but unfortunately it is virtually impossible to get enough staff and the current staff aren’t prepared to work loads of extra hours as the work is hard and the pay low and we’ve seen a huge increase in abusive customers in the last few years. We have been closing at 5 and some of the worst effected cafes are closing all day Sunday and Monday.
I don’t people who don’t work in hospitality underestimate just how hard it is. I start at 6 in the morning to start making sandwiches/ baking etc then when we are closed the cafe has to be thoroughly cleaned as we have to meet very high hygiene standards.

As others have said, if it was profitable, cafes would find a way to open! My father's cafe re-opened around 1am when coaches went through his small town on their way to/from Blackpool lights - (limited menu, tea/coffee/sandwiches/homemade pies and chips, plus the use of his toilets!)

I'm sure cafe owners aren't cutting off their noses to spite their faces, and closing at 4.00 even though they could be making more money if they stayed open longer.

Adam Smith (died 1790): “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest."

You are being unreasonable and selfish.

Gosh that’s harsh! Cabbie is certainly not selfish.

Thanks for the warning if I ever holiday in the UK!

I find that very odd! I would expect cafes in a business area of a city or town to close after 'business hours' of about 5:30 .

Mind you, here we have Tim Hortons in almost every town, and they are always open! Some are 24 hours. It's the place shift workers go for coffee and muffin, after a late movie, where people go early morning to grab their coffee to go, etc. It's a big franchise, so nothing fancy or home-baked.

mabon1

You are being unreasonable and selfish.

Not selfish, Cabbie asked a question and received assorted answers. Many people ask all sort of reasonable questions.