What's with restaurants who close on Mondays?

[Theophila]

I used to have a small restaurant.....
We were independent so we had to close one day a week to get a day off...plus Monday's are the slowest days in the biz...

[inspirit]

Originally Posted by Theophila

I used to have a small restaurant.....
We were independent so we had to close one day a week to get a day off...plus Monday's are the slowest days in the biz...

I understand when a small restaurant with only a few employees does it. It's when a popular restaurant with rotating employees closes one or two days a week that I don't fully grasp. Unless they only have one manager I guess. I can see why the manager would want to close rather than hire another manager so that they don't have to think about work on their days off.

[Shivani Devi]

It is a modern trend in business practice now to only stay open on their busiest days, so they can pay their staff casual or part-time rates.

Today, Saturday...10:30am, I went into my local township and about 3/4 of the stores were all closed and closing down where they all had been open before...the only shops that were open were the Asian variety shops and the Asian restaurants, because they have their families and extended families work in these shops for little to no wage.

I wanted to go and look at all the Pawn Broker shops, but noticed the retail side changed business hours from '10 hours, 7 days a week' to '6 hours, 3 days a week'...so I went into the 'Loans' side, which was still open and asked why...

Basically they can't afford to pay the staff, can't afford to put more staff on, too much competition from eBay, Gumtree and other Pawn Broker shops...the rent is too high...the overheads and upkeep is too much....etc etc

I can see a time, in the near future where IRL 'shops' will not exist anymore because ALL business will be done online...

You are lucky your restaurants only close on Mondays!!!

Around here, they are all closed from Sunday - Tuesday inclusive, but then, we Aussies are a bloody lazy bunch as well...

You go anywhere on a Sunday, and except for a few grocery stores in the huge shopping malls, EVERYTHING is closed!!!...you could fire a cannon down the street and hit nothing but Church goers...

....Australia is EXACTLY what America was like in the 1930's and 1940's...

[inspirit]

It's not just Mondays. That's just the most common day. Some restaurants are closed two or three days a week. I'm sure it's nothing like Australia though. I've traveled and one nice thing about America, most grocery and department stores are open 7 days a week, and they're open late, etc.

I understand saving money on staff but you don't save money on rent that way. In the end it's cheaper to just hire staff 7 days a week so that your monthly income is higher. The only real benefit for closing that I can think of is that you can take a day off if you're the only manager and you can't take time off any other way.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by inspirit

It's not just Mondays. That's just the most common day. Some restaurants are closed two or three days a week. I'm sure it's nothing like Australia though. I've traveled and one nice thing about America, most grocery and department stores are open 7 days a week, and they're open late, etc.

I understand saving money on staff but you don't save money on rent that way. In the end it's cheaper to just hire staff 7 days a week so that your monthly income is higher. The only real benefit for closing that I can think of is that you can take a day off if you're the only manager and you can't take time off any other way.

It all has to do with a little thing called 'penalty rates' over here - our government is trying to abolish it - time and a half on Saturdays and double-time on Sundays and public holidays.

Yeah, Woolworths, Coles and Aldi are open from 8am to 8pm 7 days a week...and 9pm on Thursdays, but that is basically it.

Go into any huge shopping mall of a weekend, and these stores are open, as well as 'Hot Dollar' and 'Asian Shop whatever'...but everything else is closed.

Any shops outside the major shopping malls are usually closed all weekend and Monday too - this gets much worse the more 'rural' you get.

You also must understand there are lots of other costs too....fresh produce, the cost of transporting fresh produce, electricity/gas bills etc and these are only rising day by day.

In winter, I cannot afford to eat anything fresh whatsoever! Tomatoes are like $8-99 a kilo, lettuce is like $4 each, silver beet is like $6 a bunch, bananas are like $5 a kilo...etc etc

Australia is the third most expensive place to live next to Sweden and Japan...

Plus, we are heading into another global recession...

[taurmel]

Just think, restaurants don't get delivery on Sunday, so come Monday they're using leftover weekend stock so they don't waste it...we never eat out on Monday because of that ;) Plus, like others have mentioned, less busy so instead of paying rent AND wages, they can cut wages and just pay rent. Small town living, a lot of the places to eat out here that aren't chains close between lunch and dinner hours too on weekdays to save money...so if you're craving sushi at 3pm you're going to have to drive an hour away to the city!

[jojobean]

Yes, what knight said. some privately owned mom & pop restaurants around my area close on Monday's because they were open both weekend days and are usually open 6 days per week.