Have to send guests out of town.

[TheBeachHouse]

Our town is small and touristy. It is a summer town. One restaurant says they are doing all they can to extend the season to year 'round. Great!
So last night we sent our guests down there telling them to arrive early because they likely close early. Guests called to tell us the place was only doing a buffet and were closing at 5:30! WHAT? So I gave them a couple other options.
That is it. We will now recommend that guests travel to the next town over where they are assured there are restaurants open.
We tried.

 

[gillumhouse]

When I think the restaurants will be closed (most are on Sundays), I suggest they stop on the way in for dinner. They may arrive later, but they will have full bellies which makes for happier guests.

 

[user 26]

Very hard and frustrating.
I tried so hard to draw guests in but when restaurants would simply shut down WITHOUT NOTICE and guests then have to drive an hour each way for a meal ... well, it's an epic fail for a b&b not allowed to serve supper. I tried and tried to get them to tell me, used to call and say 'Are you open today?' sometimes they would still simply close for lack of business.
New owner got a restaurant license and a liquor license and bought up two more properties so if she chooses to be open, serve dinners, she's open year round.
(sigh)

 

[Jcam]

see we have it the other way round - open sunday night for locals and then close mondays

 

[Silverspoon]

I guess we are really lucky...even in the dead of winter we have several restaurants within 5 minutes drive that are open until 9 pm. Sometimes you just don't have control no matter how much you want to. In that case it may be better to just close up when your business gets so thin that it costs more to heat and run the place than you can bring in by being proactive.

 

[TheBeachHouse]

When I think the restaurants will be closed (most are on Sundays), I suggest they stop on the way in for dinner. They may arrive later, but they will have full bellies which makes for happier guests..

We do that when given the chance. If we get a call about a later in the day check in, we will advise them to eat first. They love it and consider it very good customer service.

 

[Anon Inn]

Our only restaurant closed completely in the aftermath of the Great Recession. We started doing dinners with advance notice. I'll be doing two on Saturday. Although the restaurant has re-modeled and re-opened with new owners, the menu is plain jane small town American. So we still do dinners and light suppers.

 

[TheBeachHouse]

Our only restaurant closed completely in the aftermath of the Great Recession. We started doing dinners with advance notice. I'll be doing two on Saturday. Although the restaurant has re-modeled and re-opened with new owners, the menu is plain jane small town American. So we still do dinners and light suppers..

(I'd go crazy if I had to do dinners.)
When I was a kid, I worked at an inn in this town (still exists) where the guests would stay the whole summer and had reserved tables. They were served breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. No tipping, but usually a nice gift at the end of the season for the servers. Those were the days of real resorts.
These days, we are excited if people stay three days in a row, much less the whole summer!