How to change your café's opening hours: read the hourly numbers, run a trial, staff it and tell everyone

Opening hours are usually set once, before the café opens, from a guess about the neighborhood. A few months in, you know more. The first hour after opening is quiet, the commuters are already at your door at 6:40, and the last hour is one barista, two laptop guests and a cleaning job that can't start until they leave.

Changing hours can be one of the cheapest improvements you'll make, or a quiet way to lose regulars. This guide is a way to decide with your own numbers, test before you commit, and make the change everywhere on the same day.

Step 1: Read your sales and labor by hour

Pull at least eight weeks of sales by hour from your POS, by day of the week. Next to each hour, put what that hour cost you in staff. Look at the first two and last two hours, and at any day you're thinking of closing.

A hypothetical example for the last hours of a weekday (made-up numbers; use your own):

The 5–6 p.m. hour here takes in $40. After the cost of what was sold, it doesn't pay for the person working it, before you count lights, the espresso machine or the closing work it delays. Some hours are worth keeping anyway, so check two things before you decide:

• Who comes in that hour. If the 5 p.m. guests are regulars who also come in at 8 a.m., closing at 5 may cost you two visits, not one.
• What else happens in it. If that hour is when prep or cleaning gets done, the hours don't disappear when the doors close; they move.

For an earlier opening, you have no sales to read for the hour you'd add. Count the people waiting at the door, check the hour after you open now, and look at what the businesses nearby open for (a gym at 6, a train at 6:30).

Step 2: Count what an hour really costs

Work out the break-even for the hour: how much it has to sell, after food and drink cost, to pay for its labor and running costs. Our guide to the break-even point for a small café shows the math.

Step 3: Run a trial before you change the sign for good

Test a new hour for four to six weeks, on the same days, before you announce it as permanent. One week tells you about the weather; six weeks tell you about the hour.

• Decide the target in advance. For example, "the 6:30–7 a.m. half hour has to average $___ by week six."
• Tell guests it's a trial. "Opening at 6:30 on weekdays, starting [date]" is honest and easy to roll back.
• Staff it lean. One experienced person who can open alone, if you can do that safely.
• Write down every week's number, not just the end result, so you see whether the hour is growing.

Closing earlier is harder to test, because guests who find you closed may not try again. If the numbers are clear, make that change once, with plenty of notice.

Step 4: Staff the new hours

New hours change shifts, and shifts are people's lives.

• Ask first. Before you build a 6 a.m. shift, check who's available for it, and update availability. An availability form helps.
• Give notice. Post the new schedule well ahead. Some cities and states have fair workweek rules that require advance notice of schedules and pay for changes; check our city pay pages, such as New York City and Chicago, if you're in one of them.
• Watch the teen hour rules. Under federal law, 14- and 15-year-olds may work only "Between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. in any 1 day, except during the summer (June 1 through Labor Day) when the evening hour will be 9 p.m." (29 CFR 570.35(a)(6)). A 6:30 a.m. opening or a 7:30 p.m. close can't go to them, and many states add their own limits for older teens.
• Re-check overtime. Longer days can push full-timers over 40 hours.

Step 5: Tell everyone, everywhere, on the same day

Guests trust whatever they see first, which is usually a map app. Change every listing the same day, and keep a list so nothing gets missed.

For a few weeks after the change, have whoever opens and closes write down anyone who arrived expecting the old hours. If that list doesn't shrink, a listing somewhere is still wrong.

Step 6: Change the routines behind the hours

• [ ] Opening and closing checklists: new times on every line
• [ ] Delivery windows and order cutoffs with each vendor (see your vendor order guide)
• [ ] Alarm schedules and door codes, if they're on a timer
• [ ] POS: scheduled menus, happy hours and online ordering windows
• [ ] Prep pars for the new first and last hours
• [ ] Lighting and signage timers

Your opening hours checklist

• [ ] Eight weeks of sales and labor by hour, by day
• [ ] The guests in the hour you'd cut, and what else happens in it
• [ ] A break-even for the hour you'd add
• [ ] A four-to-six-week trial with a target set in advance
• [ ] Availability checked, notice given, teen hour limits and overtime checked
• [ ] Every listing changed the same day, from one list
• [ ] Checklists, deliveries, alarms and POS updated
• [ ] A log of guests who arrived at the old hours, for a few weeks

Where Mays fits

• Sales and labor by the half hour. With Square or Union POS connected, Insights → Labor Cost has a Staffing vs Revenue Heatmap with a row for each half hour of your day and a column for each weekday, showing labor % of revenue, revenue, clocked-in employees or labor cost. See Labor cost insights.
• Units by hour. With Square, the Unit forecast card shows how many of the items you choose sell each hour, and the peak hour. See Sales forecast and labor budget.
• Teen hours checked. With work rules for minors on at a location, Mays checks the hours and times of anyone under 18 against federal and state law and warns you on the schedule. See Scheduling minors.
• The time clock's own cut-off. If you use Auto punch-out, move its time to match your new closing time, or late closers will be clocked out early. See Grace periods, rounding and auto-approval.
• Your phone line. The AI receptionist doesn't know your hours on its own; it answers from the What are your hours? FAQ, so update that answer the same day. See FAQs and missed questions.

What Mays doesn't do: it doesn't change your hours on Google, Apple Maps, Yelp or your website, and there's no screen to set a location's opening hours, so the listing list above is still yours to work through.

Change once, tell everyone once

Let your hourly numbers make the case, try the change before you commit, and update every listing on the same day. Done that way, new hours look like a café that knows its guests, not one that can't make up its mind.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll look at your hourly numbers in Mays with you.