17

I call a restaurant today and ask them for "Are you open till what time today?" as today is Christmas Eve and the person on phone asked me twice what? What?

So how do I ask for a store/restaurant person on phone about store hours for that day?

  1. You are open till what time?
  2. Till what time is your store/restaurant open today?
Improve this question
6
  • 3
    What time do you close? / What are your hours today?/ What time are you open 'til?
    – WRX
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 19:55
  • 1
    At what time do you close today?
    – Mick
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 19:55
  • 3
    Note that 'til is a misspelling of till.
    – user230
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 20:36
  • 3
    @snailplane: Why do you say that 'til is a misspelling of till? I would call it a contraction of until, and a grammatical one at that: it's formed by the standard process.
    – wchargin
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 9:01
  • @wchargin Till is the older word, which means that the idea that it's a contraction of until is mistaken. The misspelling 'til conveys this mistaken idea and learners should avoid it, as it gives the impression the writer is uneducated. Your comment is simply incorrect.
    – user230
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 9:07

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
17

The reason the person was confused was because you started your question with:

"Are you open till...?"

That is the start of a yes-or-no question, such as:

Are you open till 8 o'clock tonight?

If you are asking for the time, you could have asked instead:

How late are you open until tonight?

The "How late are you..." opening of the question lets the listener know that you will be asking for the time, and not wanting a yes-or-no answer.

Improve this answer
4
  • Yes, you (@javanoob) need to learn to use the form of a sentence that’s like cutting a deck of cards and stacking the halves in the opposite order: begin an interogative sentence with the interogative pronoun. “what time are you open till today?” (same sentence you used but with the “cut deck of cards”) would have been understood easily. However you phrased the specifics, the first two words should be “what time… ?”
    – JDługosz
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 7:01
  • "How late are you open tonight?" would be how I would say it and seems most natural to me. It seems to me "until" extends the sentence without adding meaning.
    – Freewalker
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 19:04
  • 1
    @LukeW - No argument from me. The "until" isn't necessary.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 22:44
  • Can I ask "How long does restaurant stay open?"
    – ramanujan
    Commented Feb 14, 2022 at 19:10
10

If you only need to know what time the restaurant will close, you can say

What time do you close today?
What time does [name of restaurant] close today?

If you want to know about opening and closing times, you can say

What are your opening times today?
What are [name of restaurant ]'s opening times today?

Improve this answer
11
  • 4
    I see JavaLatte is English but I wanted to say "opening hours" wouldn't mean much much to me as an American speaker, and definitely wouldn't include closing times. I would ask simply "When are you open?"
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 5:17
  • @Mary I couldn't say. I've never heard this phrasing before.
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 8:43
  • @Azor-Ahai:This NGram gives the breakdown of opening times/opening hours for AmE: you can switch to BrE and see that the numbers are similar (if anything, a little lower).books.google.com/ngrams/…
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 8:48
  • @Mari-LouA: if you google opening time or opening hour, the suggestions will offer only plurals - opening times Aldi, opening times Cairo museum, etc.The use of the plural is because you are asking for two times: when the store opens and when it closes.
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 8:50
  • 1
    Native American English speaker here and I would not know what you meant by "opening hours," and like Azor-Ahai said, I would certainly not understand that question to have anything to do with the time the establishment closes.
    – Daniel
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 23:58
6

What time are you open 'til this evening?

or

What time do you close this evening?

(Since it's a restaurant and not a store, I assume they are open late on Christmas Eve. But you usually need to make reservations, if it's a popular place.)

Improve this answer
4

To ask about a shop or restaurant's opening hours (BrEng), you can use any of these:

  • What time do you close tonight?
  • What time are you closing today/tonight?
  • What time is (the bank, the pizzeria, etc.) closed?
  • Could you tell me when you're open?
  • Are you open every day?
  • Is the [pizzeria] open every day?
  • How late are you open?
Improve this answer
1

You can just simply say:

"What are your hours today?"

If you just want the closing time, along the lines of what you originally asked, you can say:

"Until what time are you open today?"

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .