"Closing time - time for you to go out, go out into the world.
Closing time - turn the lights up over every boy and every girl.
Closing time - one last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer.
Closing time - you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

            The Semisonics

Not every restaurant has a closing time. Denny's is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. There are other restaurants where the dining room is always open, but for the most part, being a restaurant means that you have a closing time. A time of day where you are officially closed to new customers, and are working the remaining customers out of the restaurant and on their way somewhere else. The way that a restaurant handles the transition from open to closed varies greatly by concept, by location, and by manager. Some handle the transition seamlessly; others stumble badly.

Managing a closing time in restaurants is a balancing act with competing interests at stake. First, there is a financial interest. Begin the closing process too early, and sales can be affected by cutting off orders from customers sitting at the tables pondering a second drink or dessert. Late arriving diners might decide not to stay and eat in a place that is visibly shutting down. Worse than that, you may have just trained them to not consider your establishment on their next late night visit. Begin the process too late and your payroll costs take a hit as your staff have to stay longer to prepare the restaurant for closing.

Second, there is a quality of operations factor. Everyone has been in a restaurant with a 10:00 closing time where the staff goes into cleaning mode at 9:30. Carpets and floors get swept, tables and chairs get wiped down, and condiments get replaced, removed, or refilled. Customers are something to work around. It is not a great feeling.

Third, there is a morale factor. No one likes to work longer than is necessary, especially late at night. Most restaurants, as they approach the witching hour, begin preparing for closing in stealth mode. The staff is aware of the process, but the customer is blissfully unaware. This helps to prepare the restaurant for "serious" closing activity once the customers have left the building.

Most customers have eaten in enough restaurants over the years to know that "open till 10:00" can mean a lot of different things. It might mean that you are welcome to come in the door at 9:55, but don't expect to order anything from the kitchen. It closed at 9:30. It might mean that if the door is open, you are welcome to sit, order, and enjoy your meal just like you arrived at 8:00. And it can mean everything in between.

I no longer wonder. I always ask when I enter a restaurant at the end of the evening. "Do you want one more party tonight, or are you ready to call it a night?" I certainly don't want to begin a meal under a cloud of discontent. The places that really impress me are the ones that truly act like you just arrived during the middle of the daypart, not at the end. That is a tough thing to pull off when the staff is at the end of a long day.

I am curious what the policies are of your operation. You post a closing time of 10:00 and a party of four arrives at 9:50. What can they expect and what will they experience? Does your labor matrix allow you to close, then clean? Or operate while cleaning? Not every restaurant has a closing time, but for those that do the personality of the restaurant is certainly reflected in how it shuts down for the evening.