The Dining Room Hours Conundrum

[RussellR]

Yes, technically this McDonald's location is open 24 hours.

If you've ever glaced at user reviews I'm sure you've seen your fair share of reviewers not so much reviewing a location or the product/service they received there, but they are basing their review on information provided thru Google Maps.

A fairly common complaint that I see is the old, "I drove 10 miles to this restaurant only to find out that their dining room was closed! 1 Star!".

Was it the restaurant's fault that a feature isn't included on Google Maps yet? No, but they're being blamed for it like they are.

So what I'm proposing is a feature that shows dining room and drive thru hours for restaurants. 

Also, it would be nice to have a little comment next to the hours of operation that says, "Only Drive Thru Available" in the same place where you would see "Seasonal Hours may vary" next to the hours of operation when dining room hours are over.

Even though my initial search through Local Guides Connect didn't seem to have this topic come up, I'm sure it's something a lot of us have thought of and I wanted to start that discussion.

P.S. While we're talking about hours of operation, what about including those breakfast only hours too? 

[Shirley]

@RussellR: Definitely an issue for not just restaurants but another example would be parks that would have seasonal hours, etc.

In addition to posting here for feedback, I've provided feedback directly in the Google Maps app as well as all of the feedback goes directly to the relevant teams at Google. The more feedback they get, the more reason for them to look into it to change. To do this, just go to the app menu, at the bottom, you'll find Help & Feedback. Google is always looking for ways to improve! 

[StephenAbraham]

@RussellR Yes, I have faced these issues personally before of turning up to find some place not opened. I suppose there could be many different permutations of "opening" hours. Maybe a solution could be a different tab in photos to show photos for opening hours only. Currently there are a few tabs under photos, so, to add another tab should not be too difficult. And this should solve all manner of different opening hours combinations. Although I am not sure if having so many different tabs is a good idea though. 🙂

[RussellR]

@Shirley Actually, I forgot to do that. Thank you for reminding me. 😆

[RussellR]

@StephenAbraham I agree. While I like having additional features, sometimes it's a difficult balancing act of being helpful without being confusing. But if course, submitting various ideas is great for creating solutions so I still appreciate your idea. Thank you.

[Shirley]

@RussellR: here's to hoping they'll come up with something that isn't too confusing for most users! 🙂

[deepakjhic]

Hi @RussellR,

Good evening. How are you today?

The main issue is operating hours for this business (may be others). Would you mind to share a link to this POI, so that I can try to answer your question? 

[RussellR]

Hi @deepakjhic, I'm doing good.

So this problem isn't limited to one location; it's thousands of locations across America (at least).

So this is the McDonald's I took a picture of above:

McDonald's
14100 Center Station Dr, Fort Worth, TX 76155
(817) 283-7028

https://goo.gl/maps/atT8B6DhHTv

As you'll see, the location states that it's open 24 hours on Google Maps, but as you can see from my picture; that only applies to the drive thru (not the dining room).

You can probably understand how some people can be confused by this since they're use to seeing one list of hours for most locations that they can walk into.

I really feel that the Google Maps team would need to add a separate list of hours for the dining room hours then alert users of certain details based on time of day.

For instance, at McDonald's you would see 24 hours (because they are technically open 24 hours), but between 5am to 10:30am there would be a label next to those hours saying "Dining room & Drive thru available" and a separate labeling saying "Breakfast only". 

From 10:30am to 11pm, it would say "Dining room & Drive thru available" and "Limited Breakfast".

And between 11pm and 5am, "Drive thru only" and "Limited Breakfast".

Of course, some places are different. Jack in the Box serves their entire menu (Breakfast and lunch) all day. Wendy's only has a lunch menu, but have different hours for their drive thru and dining room. 

It's complicated, but it's clearly information users want since they get upset and write negative reviews when they show up to the location with a closed dining room.

Anyhow, I hope you're doing well and that this response clears up any questions about my original post. 😊

[deepakjhic]

@RussellR- Thank you for the link and all information. As far as I know claimed POI has all options for putting operating hours. 

Yes just checked by me,  a claimed POI can easily edit active hours on listing. 

Well I'm tagging our connect moderator @Flash here who can help you further in this issue. 

P. S.  If you're thinking about to change these hours it'll not be easy(claimed POI). 

Thank you 

[CAT_Computers]

Is there a way to add a second set of regular business hours, with a description? I'm specifically talking about a business that has regular hours but then has other operational hours Monday through Friday, with limited staff.. and this case in particular it's a computer business and outside of their regular operational hours they have extended hours for computer check in through another business at the same address.  This isn't seasonal so much as a completely separate set of hours for Monday through Sunday that require a description.