Over the years, it has come to my attention that Luxembourg has a few obvious issues 🙂 – and the one for today is me going hungry on Monday nights unless I cook myself! Unfortunately, this particular case only applies to my experience in Luxembourg, but maybe some of you out there will be able to identify my particular issue with one of their own?
So basically, as mentioned before, I really do enjoy going to good restaurants and have a good time with my friends. There are a few very usual places for me such as Adriano’s or Kyoto, but there are also a few more that I enjoy going to if I want to have a little change: Bacano, Miggi’s in Bonnevoie, Lo Sfizio, Patagonia and so on. But none of them seems to be opened on Monday nights! Now in a very catholic country such as Luxembourg, I would be totally understanding of restaurants being closed on Sundays (which most are anyway), but why are my favorites ALL closed on Mondays? Is it a common but secret knowledge that Monday is dine-at-home night? Or is it more the fact that they all tried Mondays, but as there might really be less customers out on Mondays, they all decided at the same time to be closed on Mondays?
It seems crucial to me that whatever business you’re in, that you identify the needs of customers. When I “roam the city” on a Monday night, there are people out there. To me it seems like at least as many as on a Tuesday or a Thursday. Then why not change the pace and announce: “We are opened on Mondays!”
For as long as I remember, my parents and I would go to this place called Pall Center in Oberpallen. It was a petrol station with a very very very large shopping area it was explained to me; effectively, it is a shopping center with a petrol station, but it has been that way for, well, as long as I remember. They are as a petrol station allowed to be opened on Sundays and close on Mondays instead. For as long as I remember, it was common knowledge for everyone in the area I lived in that if you needed anything on a Sunday, Pall Center was there for you; all others were closed. At the same time, everyone knew it unfortunately had to be closed on Mondays. But then again, every single Sunday, you’d have a huge mass of people in the place – all staff needed to be there on Sundays, and I can only assume it was and still is their biggest day of the week. Any why? Because they filled a gap! Pall Center is market-lead, it recognized a long time ago that people that worked during the week would enjoy shopping on a sunday, rather than just sit at home – as society shifted you might guess? Less church going, less family feasting, less “old-fashioned” families…
So if a shift might be guessed in eating patterns, I’d definitely put my money on more and more people dining out on Mondays. The first “good” restaurant to respond to this I am sure will benefit from first-mover-advantage, and with a message as simple as mentioned before: “We are OPENED on Mondays!”
