That is like “banker’s hours”…LOL…
The kitchen does most of the clean up in the restaurant and are done by close. Drivers are gone by close unless there are still deliveries. I stop taking delivery orders five minutes before close, as these orders don’t tend to make up for the extra labor of keeping myself and a driver on the clock. Our delivery area is massive. If it’s close by though I might take it. Outside of that, I’m usually done with balancing the till, doing a soda inventory and calculating the days labor within thirty to forty minutes after closing. The most I usually end up getting out is an hour after closing and that’s usually due to a late night rush happening before we close.
I never understood the “last order 20 minutes before close” thing. Why not just close 20 minutes earlier and take orders until close?
Why not open at 11am, but not take orders until 11:30 because it takes 30 minutes to get set up?
Our stores did this forever until I changed it. It didn’t make sense when we would tell people “We close at 10pm, but I’m sorry, I can’t take your order. Yes sir, I know it’s 9:30”. No logic in it from a customers point of view.
If we actually stopped doing work before we closed, I’m sure we’d be walking out a whole lot sooner than we do, but we take all orders to the times posted.
Plus, if you stop taking orders before you close those rules that you have (10, 15, 20 minutes) might start to get bent depending on who is working that night. Also, it gives your customers a reason to try out your competitor that is still open and taking orders. Who will they call next time they want food late - your competitor.
We take orders until 5 minutes AFTER our published closing time. I don’t think customers understand a “closing” time with an order cut-off that is earlier… so if our hours are 11-9 we take orders until 9:05.
In our slower season if we have not had an order in the last half hour (happens pretty often) the guys are out of there at 9:05… standing at the door waiting to see if the phone rings… If we get an order near the end I would say they get out about a 30-40 minutes hour after the order is taken.
In the busier part of the year 30-60 minutes after published closing time is pretty typical.
If they are taking longer than that I am getting on the manager about hours… but since I started bonusing on revenue per labor hour the problem is pretty much gone.