Retail Watchers

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑April 14th, 2024, 8:34 pm Recent Burger King remodels have removed a large amount of chairs and tables. The seating capacity is probably only a third of what used to be there. There is a lot of empty floor space.

No more outdoor tables or chairs. Those were removed for a double drive-thru.

Perhaps they think that fewer dine in customers mean less labor.

The entire restaurant still needs to be cleaned. The floors still need to be mopped whether or not they are dirty at the end of the day.

It is actually a lot faster to mop the floors if there are fewer tables and chairs in the way. It makes the process go much more quickly.

Also if there are fewer tables the employee does not have to "hunt" for the 2 tables that were used/need to be cleaned among a batch of 36 tables; they now have to "hunt" for the 2 tables that were used/need to be cleaned among a batch of 12 tables, which also saves some time.

If these lower capacity dining rooms need less labor then restaurants should keep them open. Closing dining rooms doesn't save much labor at all, but causes a huge loss in sales.

The remodeled Burger King that I pass by almost daily has their dining room open from 6 am to Midnight. The double drive-thru is open 24 hours. Then again the Carl's Jr. across the street is open 24 hours.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑April 14th, 2024, 10:38 pm If these lower capacity dining rooms need less labor then restaurants should keep them open. Closing dining rooms doesn't save much labor at all, but causes a huge loss in sales.

The remodeled Burger King that I pass by almost daily has their dining room open from 6 am to Midnight. The double drive-thru is open 24 hours. Then again the Carl's Jr. across the street is open 24 hours.

I agree these dining rooms should be open pretty much during all hours the restaurant is open. The only reason I see to close them before drive through is very late at night for safety reasons or to clean them.

In my area I am seeing dining rooms open more and more. I think certain franchisees are hurting to the point in my market that they finally decided to tell the employees that they cannot just be drive through only whenever they feel like it. The McDonalds and one franchisee's Wendys units still don't have any dining room hours posted though.