Those Closing Times Are Baked In

There is a local market in my city that happens once a year. The bakery I work at will have a booth there and will regularly sell in a single afternoon three or four times what we normally sell in an entire week.

To prepare for this each year, the bakery will close down for a few days before the market to focus fully on prep work and cooking. We make this very clear, never scheduling any orders for pickup during prep time and posting large signs that we will be closed on those dates.

Still, we inevitably get customers banging on the door right next to our large sign about being closed.

Customer: “Hello?! Hello?!”

Coworker: *Through the glass* “Sir, we are closed.” *Points at the sign*

Customer: “I just need [some small items] for my kid’s birthday!”

Coworker: “We’ll be open again on [date], or you can visit us at [Market], but we are closed right now.”

Customer: “You just lost a customer!”

It never fails that we will get a dozen people who, the moment we are closed for the festival, suddenly find an absolutely urgent need to have cakes or pies or whatever, and they get indignant at the fact that we won’t drop everything so that they can come in, wander around, and ultimately end up maybe buying a muffin.