Former restaurant worker shares 'stock phrase' used as 'coded hint' to get people to leave

As anyone who’s worked in retail or hospitality will tell you, customers can make or break your day.

Being the face of a problem is never easy, and just about every service worker will have a story about getting chewed out for something they had no control over. The majority of customers might be pleasant, friendly, and patient, but you only need one nightmare to set your teeth on edge for the rest of the day.

When it comes to the end of the day, even the nicest customers can start to become problematic.

Working in a restaurant can be a high-stress job (Reza Estakhrian/Getty Images)

Closing time’s approaching, but they just won’t leave: they might be browsing a shelf they’ve already looked at twice, they might only be half a glass deep into their drinks, they might not notice that the place has cleared out and it’s just them left.

If it’s a common fixture in your life, there are some tricks of the trade to help you to hurry people along without having to grab them by the collar and waistband to yeet them through the door.

Writing for Food & Wine, former restaurant worker Daniel Lavery explained his strategies for clearing tables towards the end of his shift, with one phrase generally doing the job.

“This was the stock phrase that served me well: ‘Just so you know, we’re closing in 20 minutes’,” said Lavery.

“If you have ever worked in the kind of restaurant where the kitchen closes an hour before the rest of the joint, then you have likely experienced the involuntary sundowning of your ‘helpful server’ personality and the subsequent development of a Mr. Hyde-style replacement, who fears neither God nor man and lives only to see the restaurant empty of all signs of human existence,” he continued.

Lavery went on to add that, at his next job, this mode of thinking became more entrenched.

“Once the kitchen closed, everything I valued changed,” he said. “My job was no longer to talk to people and bring them food, but to sweep the restaurant clean of its natural enemies, namely customers. The catchphrase for this mental shift was ‘Just so you know, we’re closing in 20 minutes.’

“There is an art to the coded hint. Too explicit, and you risk losing a tip, or worse, having your manager talk to you afterwards.”

Generally speaking, the polite nudge would be enough to get people to move on. Failing that, Lavery had another trick up his sleeve.

“If they didn’t take the hint right away, I’d come back and repeat myself in 10 minutes, this time wielding a wet rag and aggressively wiping down nearby tables: You’re still here? I need to wipe all the tables down with this wet rag!

We're gonna need the rag for this one (SolStock/Getty Images)

“That always did the trick. The clean, wet rag is the universal sign of the server’s final authority, because it means you’re a cleaner now. I no longer live to serve; I live to wipe the crumbs away, and that includes customers. The cooks are all heading home. The busboys are long gone. Management is a distant memory. It’s just me and the rag now, friends.”

He admitted, rather sardonically: “You hate to have to use it – it’s such an overpowered weapon in the table-waiting arsenal – but sometimes they drive you to it.”