Why do restaurants close in this sudden manner? It’s a shitty thing to do to your staff and it’s weird.
because a restaurant owner/operator/manager has to. restaurants open and close every week, the restaurant biz is very transient. anyone who makes a career working on the floor - cooks/chefs, waiters, kitchen staff, bartenders, cleaners, etc. - needs to be transient as well. they have to look out for themselves because their bosses aren't. as soon as they hear that their current employer isn't doing well, they immediately start looking for their next employer. they don't go down with the ship, they cut bait ASAP.
so an owner/operator/manager can never let on that things aren't going well. they need to maintain a facade of "everything is fine" until the last second, otherwise their staff will leave you and they'll be forced to shut down not by creditors, but by the lack of people on the floor.
the rumor that you might shut down will shut you down. it's shitty, but it's the nature of the biz. bourdain goes into this in kitchen confidential (a great read, if you haven't already).
(also, back in college i i was lucky enough to get hired at a shmancy french restaurant in toronto's theater district so i experienced this dynamic first-hand. i was a kid who didn't belong there in the first place, so i was grateful just to have the gig. the lifers, on the other hand, would always have feelers out for which other joints were doing good/better and someone would inevitably leave as soon as sales slumped for more than a week - they didn't wait for the pink slip.)
so, agreed that it's shitty and weird, but the alternative is to be transparent and lose everyone as soon as things aren't perfect.
