"closing time" news and stories

Are you the kind of customer that stumbles into a restaurant ten minutes before it closes, expecting the same level of service you would get if it were 6.p.m.? In some eateries, you may get that kind of professionalism, but clearly, many restaurant staffers disdain these types of customers -- especially if they endlessly linger, cause waitresses to miss the last bus home and prolong the day of kitchen staff who aren't paid overtime.

Dozens of websites are littered with complaints from fast food and casual restaurant staffers who say that customers show little regard for them when it comes to closing time. Should a restaurant that stays open until 10 p.m. take all comers until they lock the front door? If customers come in at 9:55, should the staff be compelled to stay until those customers devour their last morsel?

Some restaurants try to accommodate their clientele even if it's right at closing time or slightly after. Seating customers after closing time is "possibly the worst policy... that I have seen at a restaurant" according to the Insane Waiter, one of the many blogs that chronicles the travails of the food service industry. The "waiter" told a demanding couple that expected to be seated at 9:55, when the restaurant was closing at 10 p.m, "I'm sorry, but we have people that need to get home to their families, that's why we have posted hours."

If you're a bargoer, you know the feeling. At 1:30 every morning, the bartender bellows, "LAST CALL!" and a collective groan erupts from the hangers-on, as they order their last round. The lights go up, and everyone stumbles out.

In New York, it's different. Most bars don't close until 4 a.m., dragging the ruckus and partying late into the night. Turns out, not everyone is a fan of the late-night revelry.

Brad Linder, journalist and writer for sister site Green Daily, recently reported on this issue for NPR. He spoke to one woman who lives in the NOHO district and is a member of a community board that's trying to get liquor-licensed establishments to close at 2 instead of 4.

Community boards like hers now have so much pull that many bars and restaurants must ask permission before staying open 'til 4, like teenagers asking to extend their curfew.

I'm sure we'd all rather not experience loud arguments and car alarms at 4 a.m. But at some point, isn't the noise and general hubbub part and parcel of living in a trendy NYC neighborhood? If you don't like the scene, shouldn't you just...move somewhere else?

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