We all love the idea of a city that never sleeps, with opportunities to eat and dance until the wee hours of the morning. But your enthusiasm for a night out isn’t worth much if the restaurant you’re heading to isn’t even open.
According to data from food blog Chef’s Pencil, it’s not very common in San Francisco to order food late at night. Sometimes the party ends and restaurants close their doors while you’re still trying to keep them going.
Many cultures around the world eat dinner much later than in the U.S., so it’s easier to go out and find restaurants and streets that are still packed with people. In Cairo, for example, the average last table time is midnight! (It’s number one on the list.) The study examined the table reservation calendars of more than 4,400 restaurants in 89 cities worldwide and recorded the last weekend table times for each restaurant. It then ranked cities based on the median last table time, or last food order time.
In the US, it is easiest for restaurant-goers to book a late dinner in Miami and Las Vegas. In both cities, the average last dinner reservation is 10:30 p.m. In San Francisco, however, people seem to go to bed early (perhaps due to their healthy lifestyle) and not come out in full force to hit the town. The average last dinner reservation is 9 p.m., much earlier than any other North American city in the study. Globally, San Francisco ranks 73rd out of 89 cities.
The international city with the earliest restaurant closing time? Auckland, New Zealand, where reservations closed at 8:30 p.m. That’s only a 13.5-hour flight from SFO, so if you leave now, you could be there for dinner.
