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Ten Tables to seek extension to eponymous closing time in JP
By adamg on Tue, 07/15/2014 - 2:33pm
The Centre Street boite plans to start talking to neighbors about extending its current 10 p.m. legal closing time, after it got caught by police serving dinner at 11:15 p.m.
At a hearing before the Boston Licensing Board today, the restaurant's lawyer and general manager said the sophisticated-palate JPers who savor the restaurants offering are more of a late-night crowd , especially on warm summer nights and sometimes come in as late as 9:30 p.m. seeking sustenance. Clearing them out by 10 p.m. has proven to be increasingly difficult, they said, admitting that they were, in fact, serving dinner at 11:15 p.m. on May 17, when detectives from the BPD licensing board paid them a surprise inspection visit.
Board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer said she sympathizes but that it's not like the restaurant doesn't know what its current closing time is and that they need to stick to that until they can convince the neighborhood and the board to extend it.
The board decides Thursday what punishment, if any, to levy over both the closing and the bolted exit the detectives also found. The restaurant's lawyer said that was a mistake that won't happen again.
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Comments
That's funny
I am sympathetic to their desire to be open later, but to claim that 'clearing out' their customers an hour after closing was difficult seems a bit unlikely. You control the pace of service, when they get the check, food, etc... What a passive aggressive JP-ish way to present the issue.
To the commenter above. Your
To the commenter above. Your comment is petty and putting down an incredible community like JP is
Childish. This restaurant obviously cares about customer satisfaction and boston doesn't make it easy on small businesses. This is a fantastic neighborhood restaurant and it would be a shame to punish them. If boston wants to become a food city they need to learn how to work with restaurant owners and not against them.
I give up
What is a "food city"?
Where ...
... the avenues are paved with sliced cheese, of course!
Delhi
Seoul. Pisa. Sandwich.
"Cloudy with a chance of
"Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs", that was a food city.
And restaurant owners need to
And restaurant owners need to work with the city by obeying the current rules that are in place.
Lisa, Lisa, Lisa
The restaurant owner can care about customer satisfaction but your still have to abide by your restaurant closing time of 10:00pm.
The "rules don't apply to us" crowd are getting tedious. If you wish to have your establishment open later, go through the proper channels and get the proper approval to do so.
Also, the bolted exit is so not cool.
I take it...
you've never worked in service? Or eaten out with a group of friends for the social aspect and not just to eat? If a customer comes in at 9:50 and gets sat, you're not going to rush them out the door in ten minutes. Most people are going to take about an hour to eat or more. How would you like it if you were sat to have a meal and the waitstaff was over your shoulder every ten seconds, whipping out the entree before you finished your appetizer, and handed you a check instead of the dessert menu?
Similarly, you're not going to lock the doors at 9 to make sure your customers are wrapping up their meals at closing, that's crazy and a great way to loose money, not to mention piss people off who see "10pm" on the locked door.
If the restaurant was admitting people in after 10pm, then that's a no-no. But if the customers were just taking a longgg time with their pre-dinner drinks and appetizers, it's completely understandable they would be there past 11. It's not like the cooks in the kitchen and the waitstaff aren't pissed off and wanting to clean up and go home. But that's just how it is.
actually, no
"If a customer comes in at 9:50 and gets sat, you're not going to rush them out the door in ten minutes. "
That's not the issue. The issue is that they were being served food at 11:15, an hour and a half after they were supposed to be closed.
The whole "we can't serve past X pm" thing is pretty well established and handled by most restaurants in JP. I've repeatedly come into some places not realizing it was 10pm or almost 10pm, and been declined service. I've also been there eating and I wasn't shoo'd out the door, but I was informed prior to 10pm that if I wanted anything else, the kitchen was closing soon.
Yet somehow these people were served at 11:15...
I have
And would never take an order 10 min prior to closing.
Go to Vee Vee
If there were a substantial penalty for this infraction you can be damned sure they'd find a way to give their precious and oh-so-sophisticated customers the old heave-ho. But since it's easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, they send in the lawyers after the fact to tell what sounds to me like a pack of lies.
The Food used to be excellent at 10 Tables but in the last year I've found the quality to have dropped off considerably. Maybe they should worry less about staying open more hours and doing a better job during the hours they're actually licensed to be open.
What's Vee Vee got to do with it?
Vee Vee closes at 10 pm too, at least they're supposed to....thanks to you, perhaps inspectors will check them out next.
If you don't like TT, don't go. I patronize both places and always leave happy.
Seriously, 10 pm is early in the restaurant business, at least Thurs-Sat nights. Both restaurants are on Centre Street, the main drag thru JP, not in the middle of a residential area. I thought the city was trying to keep things open later? Stupid regulation IMHO.
Both the food and service are
Both the food and service are far superior at Vee Vee, that's what Vee Vee has to do with it. And the owner is isn't a twat.
Oh so this is personal?
If you have a gripe with the owner you should've just said so. But either way, no need for the language, OK?
What language, girl? Look it up!
Wrong (again) sally. I went to TT for the food, despite the major twattiness of the owner, same as I would patronize your establishment, if you had one, and you served a quality product.
Do you know the standard definition....
... of the word "twat"?
If you behave in restaurants
the way you behave on this site, they probably spit in your food. Enjoy.
Not surprising you aren't
Not surprising you aren't able to keep a man, Sal
LOL--I keep him just fine, thanks.
But sadly it's not surprising that you continue to post creepy, misogynistic crap on here. The Internet is not your therapist, mkay? Get a real one. Meantime, continue to enjoy the countless loogies hidden in your food.
Perhaps Vee Vee wants to stay open late, too?
It would be wise to let Ten Tables do all the hard work and money spending that it takes to figure out what it takes to exorcise the puritan spell first then, no?
Good point
A lot of times the neighbors supporting a later closing is all it takes. I wonder what kind of relationship TT has with their neighbors.
This isn't the Cheesecake
This isn't the Cheesecake Factory or friendlys. People go to neighborhood restaurants for more than to stuff themselves and head out as soon as possible.
maybe they could do a better job passing their health inspection
http://www.cityofboston.gov/isd/health/mfc/insphistory.asp?licno=22379
Which they did
That page shows they passed on 9/27.
....and they failed the first two.
one outta three ain't bad, eh? Took them two tries to get it right.
It'll be fascinating to see what happens in a month or two. Given how most restaurants in JP seem to flunk their random inspections 100% of the time (and then pass on the follow-up a week later), I won't be surprised.
Only in Boston would you read
Only in Boston would you read a sentence like "..got caught by police serving dinner at 11:15 p.m."
Centre Street is a busy commercial area
so I don't see why the city should be regulating business houirs there at all. If a restaurant wants to stay open until 11:30 pm or 1:30 am or 4:30 am, why is that a problem for anyone else?
Not that I disagree with you,
Not that I disagree with you, Ron, but: Boston!
New concept
Ron, it sounds as though you've never heard this before. Is that true? You haven't read anything online about how restaurants and bars are required to close at certain times, at times either set for the city as a whole or agreed to by owners of the establishments after communicating with residents in their neighborhoods?
Yes, but usually those controversies are over truly late hours
like closing at 1 am vs 2 am.
10 pm is an absurdly early hour to require any business to close.
Not all commercial
Actually, that part of Centre Street is very mixed-use - there are residential buildings all around Ten Tables, including two apartment buildings directly next door, whose residents might well find it a problem if they were to stay open until 11:30 PM or 1:30 AM or 4:30 AM.
really
Hows thats? Are there going to be big rowdy crowds streaming out of ten tables, creating a din that is so loud it overwhelms the noise of the traffic going by on Centre Street and knocking people off their beds? I mean wtf and for real.