In this article, you will find everything you need to know about Group Closing Periods: what it is, why to use it, and how it works across your restaurants.
Summary
- What are Group Closing Periods and why use them?
- How to create a group closing period
- Viewing and managing your closing periods
- Troubleshooting and FAQ
💡 What you need to know
[BETA] Until now, a closing period had to be created venue by venue. With Group Closing Periods, you create it once from your Multi-venue Hub and choose which restaurants it applies to. Nothing changes for your individual restaurants: each venue keeps its own closing period in its own back office, exactly as before. What changes is that you no longer have to create them one at a time, and that you can see all of them in one place.
Group Closing Periods is part of the Multi-venue Advanced add-on.
1. What are Group Closing Periods and why use them?
Set a closing period once, apply it to every restaurant in your group.
Seasonal closures, annual holidays, renovation weeks: these dates are usually the same across a group, but they previously had to be entered venue by venue. For a group of thirteen restaurants, one summer closure meant thirteen identical operations. Group Closing Periods replaces that with a single form.
It also gives you the view you were missing. Every closing period of every restaurant in your group appears in the Hub, including the ones a restaurant created on its own from its own back office. If one of your venues closes for a day you did not know about, you see it.
The Schedule section in your Multi-venue Hub gives you:
- A Calendar view: a month-by-month picture of every closure across your group
- A List view: the same closures in a table; you can view, edit or delete a closure venue by venue
2. How to create a group closing period
From the Multi-venue Hub, open Schedule and click +New.
Fill in the same fields you already know from single restaurant closing periods: name, start date, end date, and a note if you need one.
Then choose the restaurants. Every restaurant of the group is selected by default, so applying a closure to the whole network takes no extra clicks. Deselect the ones that stay open. If your group has more than ten restaurants, a search field appears above the list.
Click Create Closing Period. Zenchef creates the closing period on each restaurant you selected.
If a restaurant is already closed on some of those dates, Zenchef warns you before saving and lists the venues concerned. You confirm, and the existing period is adjusted around the new one.
See the FAQ below for exactly what happens.
3. Viewing and managing your closing periods
- The Calendar view
- Shows every closing period of every restaurant of your group, month by month, including past months. Restaurants closed on exactly the same dates are grouped into one entry with a counter, for example Closing period, 11/13. Open an entry to see which restaurants it covers.
- A closing period created by a restaurant on its own appears here like any other, with a counter of 1/13. This is how you spot a venue that closed on dates the rest of the group did not.
- The Calendar is for reading and for deleting. Deleting an entry there removes the closing period on every restaurant of that group entry, in one action.
- The List view
- Shows the same closures in table form, with one title row per date range and the venues underneath.
- Past closing periods are not shown. Each restaurant row can be edited or deleted individually, without switching restaurant first: change the dates for one venue, or remove its closure while the rest of the group stays closed.
4. Troubleshooting and FAQ
Common Issues
- The Schedule section does not appear in my Multi-venue Hub. Group Closing Periods is part of the Multi-venue Advanced add-on. If the Schedule section is not there, your group does not have that add-on. Contact your Customer Success Manager.
- The Schedule section is empty. No closing period exists yet on any restaurant of your group. Click +New to create the first one.
- The calendar shows "Closing period" instead of the name I gave it. This is expected. Each restaurant can rename its own closing period locally, so the group views show a neutral label and the number of restaurants concerned rather than a name that may no longer be the same everywhere.
- A closing period I created for the whole group now shows two separate entries. One of the restaurants changed its dates, either from the List view or from its own back office. Entries are grouped by exact date range, so a venue with different dates appears as its own entry.
- I cannot change the dates for all restaurants at once. Editing a group closing period across every venue is not available yet. Edit each restaurant from the List view, or delete the group entry and create a new one with the right dates.
FAQ
- What happens if a restaurant is already closed on some of those dates? The existing closure is trimmed around the new one rather than deleted. If the new period covers it entirely, only the new one remains. If the existing one starts earlier, it is shortened to end the day before the new period starts, and keeps its own name. If the new period falls in the middle of a longer existing closure, the venue ends up with three periods: the part before, the new one, and the part after. Nothing is lost as long as some of the original dates remain outside the new period.
- Can I apply a closing period to only some of my restaurants? Yes. All restaurants are preselected; deselect the ones that stay open. The entry then shows in the group views with its counter, for example 4/13.
- Will I see closures my restaurants created themselves? Yes. Every closing period in the group appears in the Schedule section, whoever created it. One created by a single venue shows with a counter of 1/13.
- Do my restaurant managers get notified when I close their venue? No. The closing period appears in their own back office like any other, and they can see and edit it there. If a notification is an expected behaviour, please send us this feedback.
- Can I tell which closures were created from the group and which ones were created by a venue? Not visually. The counter is the clue: a closure on a single venue in a thirteen-restaurant group shows as 1/13.
- Can I see closing periods that have already ended? In the Calendar view, yes, by navigating to past months. The List view shows only current and upcoming closures.
- Can I move a closing period by dragging it in the calendar? No. The Calendar view is read-only for the periods themselves. To change dates, use the List view or the restaurant's own back office.
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