Key points at a glance
- What matters is not a day's revenue but its contribution margin: revenue minus cost of goods minus the costs that really disappear when you close. Rent and leasing keep running.
- Some guests come on another day instead. This revenue shift is what makes many closing days profitable; estimate it cautiously.
- Staff costs only fall if hours actually change. A four-day week and new rotas must comply with working time law and the collective agreement: in Austria among others § 4 (8) and § 19c AZG and the collective agreement for the hotel and hospitality industry, in Germany § 3 ArbZG.
- Before switching, check your lease, brewery and funding terms for an obligation to operate or minimum opening hours.
- Permanent changes belong in the regular hours on Google and Apple, not in special hours. Update your website, door sign and booking system and inform regulars on the same day.
This post is general information and does not replace legal or tax advice. Rules change and some differ between federal states: check the details with your chamber of commerce (WKO) or IHK, the competent authority or your tax adviser.
Why more and more venues add closing days
For a long time many inns lived by the rule: close and you lose guests. Today the maths looks different. Staff are scarce and expensive, energy and food costs have risen sharply, and on slow days revenue often no longer covers running costs. In 2024 the trade press reported from Saxony-Anhalt that restaurants were increasingly introducing one or more closing days and dropping lunch or evening services because of staff shortages, small rural businesses most of all.
How concrete the numbers are is shown by a traditional inn in Mecklenburg that the newspaper Nordkurier reported on in July 2026: the owner puts the cost of a single opening day at around 980 euros for wages, electricity, insurance and her own working time. She has given up fixed opening hours, opens only when reservations or parties are booked, and updates her hours on Google every Monday. That is an extreme model, but the question behind it applies to every venue: what does a day cost, and what does it bring?
- Staff: if you cannot find enough people for seven or six days, it is better to spread the team you have over fewer days than to overwork everyone.
- Costs: minimum wage and collective agreements, energy and purchasing make slow shifts more expensive than they used to be.
- Guest behaviour: many guests eat out less often but more deliberately; weekends and parties carry the business.
- Health and family: two fixed days off are often the difference between keeping going and giving up, for owners and team alike.
What an opening day really costs and brings
The most common mistake: comparing Monday's revenue with one seventh of the monthly costs. For the decision, only the costs that actually disappear when you are closed that day count. Rent, lease, leasing, insurance, accounting and depreciation keep running. What can disappear is cost of goods, hours of temps and mini-jobbers, overtime, part of the energy, laundry, cleaning and consumables.
Analyse revenue per weekday
Pull net revenue per weekday and shift for the last 6 to 12 months from your till. Leave out public holidays and outliers such as company parties.
Deduct cost of goods
Use your average food cost ratio, for example 28 to 35 %. How to work out the ratio properly is explained in the guide to menu costing.
Deduct day-related costs
Only the staff hours that really disappear that day (including employer contributions), plus energy, laundry and cleaning for the day.
Estimate the shift
How many guests will come on another day instead? Be cautious, for example 20 to 40 % for regulars, less for walk-ins and tourists.
Compare
If the lost contribution margin is smaller than the saved costs plus the margin from shifted guests, the closing day pays off on paper.
| Item | Monday open | Monday closed |
|---|---|---|
| Net revenue | €1,100 | €0 |
| Cost of goods (30 %) | – €330 | €0 |
| Staff hours that disappear (3 people × 9 h × €22) | – €594 | €0 |
| Energy, laundry, cleaning for the day | – €80 | €0 |
| Contribution margin of the day | €96 | €0 |
| Shifted guests (30 % of €1,100 on other days, minus cost of goods) | €0 | €231 |
| Result per week | €96 | €231 |
In this example the closing day brings around 135 euros more per week, so a good 7,000 euros a year, plus a day off for the team. The maths tips quickly if staff costs do not really fall, for example because permanent employees simply work their hours on other days without temps or overtime disappearing there. Then you mainly save cost of goods and energy, and the closing day only pays off through the shift. Also check whether break-even is still achievable with fewer opening days: the break-even calculator for restaurants shows how many guests you need per opening day if you open five days instead of six.
Whole closing day, shorter shift or seasonal hours?
A full closing day is not the only option. Often a single shift is the problem: a lunch service that barely works on weekdays, or the last two hours of the evening when only drinks are sold. Analyse revenue per hour in your till. It tells you whether to adjust a day, a shift or just the kitchen closing time.
| Model | Fits if … | Watch out |
|---|---|---|
| Whole closing day | one weekday is weak throughout and the team needs fixed days off | Actively redirect the regulars of that day |
| Drop lunch | lunch brings few guests but evenings run well | Lunch guests are often regulars; consider alternatives such as a lean lunch menu with a weekly card |
| Earlier kitchen closing | hardly any food is ordered after 9 pm | State kitchen hours separately from opening hours |
| Seasonal closing days | winter or summer is clearly weaker, for example at an excursion inn | Change everything in time, or your hours will be wrong for half the year |
| Reservations only | on weak days mainly groups and parties come | Unclear for walk-ins; communicate clearly when you are definitely open |
In a rural inn there is another factor: if it is the only inn in the village, the regulars' table, clubs and funeral receptions depend on it. Don't put the closing day on the regulars' evening, talk to the clubs before you decide, and offer to host parties above a certain group size on the closing day too. How to plan and bill parties is covered in the guide to parties at the inn. A booked function room on the closing day is often more profitable than a half-empty à la carte evening.
How to get it right
- Back up the weakest day with figures from the till, not gut feeling
- Check individual shifts first, then whole days
- Set a three-month trial period and evaluate afterwards
- Allow groups and parties on the closing day on request
Better not
- Set closing days spontaneously and differently every week
- Close the day when the regulars' table or the office lunch crowd comes without talking to them
- Overhaul prices, menu and concept at the same time as the closing day
- Change opening hours without updating Google, website and door on the same day
Team, rota and four-day week
A closing day is also a recruiting argument: two fixed days off a week, ideally consecutive, are rare in hospitality. Some venues therefore combine the new closing day with a four-day week for the team, with the same weekly hours spread over fewer but longer days. This works if it fits working time law and the contracts.
| Austria | Germany | |
|---|---|---|
| Four-day week | Under § 4 (8) AZG (Working Time Act), a works agreement, or a written agreement where there is no works council, can allow up to 10 hours of normal working time a day if weekly hours are regularly spread over four days. However, the collective agreement for the hotel and hospitality industry (in force since 1 November 2024) generally provides for a five-day week with 8 hours of normal working time a day, and at most 9 hours within an averaging period. Clarify with the WKO or the Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer) beforehand whether and how a four-day week works in your business. | Under § 3 ArbZG (Working Hours Act), 8 hours per working day are allowed, up to 10 hours if an average of 8 hours per working day is not exceeded over six months or 24 weeks. Four 10-hour days are therefore possible in principle; observe collective and employment contracts. |
| Changing the rota | Under § 19c AZG, the scheduling of normal working hours must generally be communicated at least two weeks in advance. | If there is a works council, it has a say in the start and end of working hours and their distribution over the weekdays (§ 87 BetrVG). |
| Fewer hours | Contractually agreed hours cannot be cut unilaterally. Agree changes mutually and in writing. | The same applies: change agreed hours only by mutual consent; for mini-jobs, watch the earnings limit. |
Check first: lease, brewery and funding
Before you announce new opening hours, take a look at your contracts. Especially with leased inns and brewery-owned premises, they sometimes contain obligations that nobody thinks about in everyday life.
Check contracts and conditions
- Lease: is there an obligation to operate or minimum opening hours? This is not unusual in leases from municipalities and breweries.
- Beer supply agreement: will fewer opening days push purchase volumes below an agreed minimum?
- Funding: some funding programmes attach conditions to ongoing operation. Lower Austria's Wirtshausprämie 2026, for example, requires the inn to be open at least four days a week all year round and to be kept running in full for at least five years. Read the terms or ask the funding body.
- Partnerships: lunches for companies, schools or hotel guests, agreements with clubs.
- Vouchers and bookings: sort out tables and parties already booked on the future closing day.
Communicating new opening hours properly
Most guests check opening hours on their phone: on Google, in Apple Maps or on your website. If the details there are wrong, guests stand in front of a locked door, and some write a bad review. So switch all channels on the same day and tell your regulars in person beforehand.
Four weeks before: team and regulars
Inform the team, adjust rotas. Speak personally to regulars, the regulars' table and clubs, and put a notice up at the bar.
Two to three weeks before: announcement
A notice on the website, a post on your Google profile, social media and a short newsletter to your guests.
A few days before: prepare the listings
Check your logins for the Google Business Profile, Apple Business, website and booking system and have the new hours ready, so that everything can be changed within minutes on the day.
On the day: switch everything
Regular hours on Google, Apple Maps and Bing, website, booking system, delivery platforms, Tripadvisor, door sign and menu.
Afterwards: check
After a few days, check whether Google has taken over the hours and whether user suggestions have changed anything.
| Channel | What to do | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Change regular hours, publish a post with the notice | Special hours are only for temporary changes of up to six days. From seven consecutive days: temporarily closed. More in the guide to the Google Business Profile |
| Apple Maps | Adjust regular hours in Apple Business | After saving, check the place card preview; details in the guide to Apple Maps |
| Website | Opening hours in the footer, on the contact page and in a notice bar | Update the structured data with the hours so search engines read them correctly |
| Booking system | Block the closing day, groups on request | Personally rebook tables already booked on the closing day |
| Door and venue | New door sign, note on the menu and receipt | One sentence with the reason comes across better than new numbers alone |
| Regulars | In person, by newsletter or WhatsApp | Tell them first, before they see it on Google |
On your website, opening hours belong in a fixed, easy-to-find place, ideally in the footer of every page and on the home page. What else guests look for there is shown in the guide to website content for restaurants. For consistent wording on the door, website and Google, the free generator helps.
New opening hours in one step
Create consistent opening hours with closing days for your door sign, website and Google, including ready-made text for your notice.
After the switch: evaluate and adjust
Give the new arrangement eight to twelve weeks before you judge it. Guests need time to adjust. Then compare not just weekly revenue but contribution margin per week, staff hours and the mood in the team. Also look at your reviews: if comments like “open on Google, but closed” pile up, a listing somewhere is still wrong.
Closing day checklist
- Revenue and contribution margin per weekday and shift analysed from the till
- Costs that disappear and the revenue shift estimated cautiously
- Break-even checked with fewer opening days
- Team involved, rota and working time law clarified
- Lease, brewery and funding contracts checked
- Regulars, regulars' table and clubs informed in person
- Google, Apple Maps, website, booking, platforms and door switched on the same day
- Evaluation after eight to twelve weeks scheduled
A website where the opening hours are always right
We build your website so that opening hours, closing days and notices can be changed in a minute and match your Google profile. The preview is free and without obligation.
A free preview of your venue website, designed by us.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help: Set special hours
- Nordkurier: Traditional inn changes its business model (16 July 2026)
- Tageskarte: More closing days in Saxony-Anhalt's restaurants (2024)
- RIS: Working Time Act (AZG), § 4 (8) and § 19c
- WKO: Collective agreement for the hotel and hospitality industry, notes on working time and averaging
