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Coastal restaurants close in November and don't reopen until March. Ski-town venues do the exact opposite in May. And in nearly every city there's a place that goes dark all summer because its regulars are on holiday. Closing for the season feels like giving up — but staying open with a half-empty terrace feels like progress. Neither feeling is usually backed by a calculation.
Every seasonal business — a coastal town restaurant, a place beside a ski slope, a kitchen in a university town through the long break, a venue next to an events hall between editions — faces the same question every year: close the doors during the off-season, or stay open with fewer covers than you'd like? Most owners answer it on gut feeling. Closing feels like failure, so many stay open. Staying open feels like burning cash, so others close — without ever having worked out what either choice actually costs.
Both instincts skip the same piece of arithmetic. Staying open costs more than just the extra groceries: you're paying staff to be there even when the room stays half full, heating or cooling that same room, and keeping the kitchen, the insurance and the maintenance running at full pace — costs that exist ONLY because you're open. Closing isn't free either: you have to prep the building for the off-season or for reopening, write off stock that won't keep, and rehire and retrain staff who may not come back.
This piece runs the decision seven ways: what an off-season week earns above your variable cost, what it costs you ONLY to keep the doors open, how those two weigh against each other, the revenue you'd need for staying open to be worth it, what closing costs once to shut down and reopen, the risk that your staff doesn't come back, and what the whole off-season nets out to under each choice.
The worked example below is a venue with off-season revenue of €3,200 a week over 10 weeks, a variable cost of 34%, and an extra cost of €2,600 a week purely from staying open. Further down you plug in your own numbers — everything runs in your browser, nothing is sent or stored.
Why this decision almost never gets calculated
Most owners compare the wrong two numbers: revenue against zero. "Something's coming in either way" sounds like a good reason to stay open, and on its own it's true — but it's the wrong comparison. The real question isn't whether revenue comes in, it's whether that revenue earns more than what it costs you ONLY to be open: the staff who wouldn't be there otherwise, the heating or cooling of a room that mostly stays empty, the extra maintenance and the higher insurance premium a trading building carries.
Closing, meanwhile, is often treated as if it's free — lock the door and the costs stop by themselves. That's true for the costs you'd pay anyway (rent, a loan repayment and a base insurance premium run whether you're open or shut), but not for what closing and reopening themselves cost: prepping the building for the off-season, stock that won't keep long enough, and staff who don't automatically return weeks or months after being let go.
The result is a decision made on the same gut feeling every year — usually the same call as last year, regardless of whether the underlying numbers have changed. A venue that was right to stay open three years ago may be better off closing this year if rent has gone up or off-season revenue has dropped. Without the calculation, you never notice.
The 7 numbers, and what each one tells you
They're in the order they build on each other: first what a week earns, then what it costs you purely to be open, then the break-even point between the two — and only after that what closing itself costs and what the whole off-season adds up to.
1. The contribution: what an off-season week earns above your variable cost
Every euro of off-season revenue costs something first: the ingredients on the plate, the drinks in the glass, and the staff who scale directly with the number of guests. At €3,200 a week and a variable cost of 34%, you're left with €2,112 — the amount available to cover your fixed costs AND the extra cost of simply staying open.
That number often looks comfortable at first glance. The mistake is in what still has to come out of it: €2,112 isn't your profit, it's only what's left after the direct cost of every plate and every glass. What's left after THAT — the staff who are there regardless of how many guests show up, the heating of a room that's a third full — is the next step.
2. The price of being open: the cost that exists only because the door is unlocked
Some costs you pay whether you're open or closed: rent, a loan repayment, a base insurance premium. Those don't belong in this decision — they're happening either way. What DOES count is the cost that exists ONLY because you're keeping that door open: the minimum crew you need to run service at all — even at a third full — a chef, a server, someone on the dishes, plus the extra heating, lighting and cooling of a trading room, and the routine maintenance that keeps running.
In the worked example that comes to €2,600 a week. You do NOT pay that amount when you close — it's the real price tag of choosing to stay open, separate from what you'd pay anyway in rent and loan repayments.
3. One week, seen two ways
Put the previous two numbers side by side and the question becomes concrete: does an average off-season week earn more than it costs to keep the doors open? At €2,112 in contribution against €2,600 in extra cost, this example loses €488 a week — money that disappears, every single week, for as long as you stay open at this revenue level.
That's not a thin margin a busy Friday fixes: it's a structural loss that persists until revenue clears the threshold calculated in the next step. A room that looks lively and still takes in money can be losing money every week at the same time — precisely because the cost of being open is rarely counted.
What an average off-season week earns above your variable cost, against what it costs you purely to keep the door open.
Weekly result: a loss of €488
The gap between the two bars is the weekly result of staying open — a loss in this example, because the cost of being open exceeds what's left of the revenue.
4. The break-even point: the revenue that makes staying open worth it
Flip the question around and a concrete revenue figure falls out: how much needs to come in per week for the contribution to exactly match the extra cost of being open? That point sits at €2,600 divided by your margin after variable cost — €3,939 a week in this example.
That's the number your own off-season revenue should be measured against — not last year's, and not what the venue down the street is doing. In this example, actual revenue of €3,200 sits well below that break-even point — a gap a busy Saturday doesn't close, because it's a gap per average week, for the whole off-season.
5. The cut-off: what closing costs you once
Closing isn't a zero-cost move, even if it feels that way the moment the door locks. Before you close, the venue needs preparing for the off-season: draining pipes so they don't freeze, protecting equipment, clearing out perishable stock — €450 in this example. Before you reopen, add the restart on top: a deep clean, restocking, and letting guests know you're back — €900 in this example.
Together that's €1,350 — an amount you pay once per closure, unlike the weekly cost of being open from step two. That difference in rhythm is exactly why the comparison can't be "closed is free": closing has a price, you just pay it once instead of every week.
6. The staffing risk: who's still there when you reopen
The biggest uncertainty in closing isn't the pipes or the stock — it's the team. Staff who go weeks or months without hours often find other work, and don't come back when you reopen. Count 3 key people you'd rather not lose, a 40% chance a given person doesn't return, and €900 in recruiting and training time to replace someone: together that's €1,080 in expected risk.
That figure belongs in the cost of closing, not as an afterthought but as a real euro amount — a venue that reopens with half a new, untrained team loses speed and quality in the first weeks regardless of the hiring cost itself. Together with step five, the total one-off cost of closing comes to €2,430.
7. The whole off-season, added up
Now total everything over the full period. Stay open, and that's €488 a week times 10 weeks: a loss of €4,880 over the whole off-season. Close, and you pay only the one-off cost from steps five and six: €2,430 in total, regardless of how long the off-season lasts.
In this worked example, closing wins by €2,450: that's what a venue at this revenue level saves by locking the door instead of trading through it at a loss. It isn't a moral choice or a sign of failure — it's the answer to a calculation most seasonal venues never make.
The weekly result of staying open, times the number of off-season weeks — against the one-off cost of closing and reopening.
The shorter bar is the cheaper choice for this off-season. Change your own numbers in the calculator below and both bars update instantly.
Calculate your own seasonal decision
Enter your own venue's numbers — your expected off-season revenue, your variable cost, what it costs you purely to be open, and what closing and reopening would cost. The calculator instantly shows your weekly result, your break-even revenue, the one-off cost of closing, and what the whole season nets out to under either choice.
Everything runs live in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored — change your number of off-season weeks or your staffing risk, and every figure on this page recalculates instantly.
Seasonal closure calculator
Your weekly result, your break-even revenue, and what each choice costs over the whole off-season — with your own numbers.
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Rule of thumb: only costs that exist ONLY because you're open belong in the weekly comparison. Rent, a loan repayment and a base insurance premium are due either way, so they cancel each other out.
In the worked example above — €3,200 revenue a week, €2,600 extra cost to stay open, over 10 weeks — closing wins by €2,450. That difference shifts as soon as your own numbers do: a venue with a shorter off-season, or a lower incremental cost of being open, can just as easily come out with staying open as the winning choice.
The point of this calculator isn't that closing always wins — it's that you know the answer before the season starts, rather than finding out halfway through from an empty bank balance.
What to do with this, this week
Making the call isn't a decision you take on a quiet Tuesday in the dining room — it's a calculation you make before the off-season starts. This order works.
Today
- Work out your own contribution: expected off-season revenue per week, minus your variable cost.
- Set that against what it costs you ONLY to be open: minimum crew, extra energy, extra maintenance — not your rent or loan, which you pay either way.
- Compare the two: if the contribution is smaller than the cost of being open, you're already losing money by staying open.
This week
- Calculate your break-even revenue and hold it up against your actual numbers from last off-season.
- Estimate what closing and reopening would cost you: winterising, stock, a deep clean, marketing to announce you're back.
- Have an honest conversation with your key staff about what happens if you close — who stays available, who looks for other work.
Before the off-season starts
- Settle the decision with numbers, not a feeling: weigh the loss of staying open against the one-off cost of closing over the whole period.
- Communicate the decision in good time to staff, suppliers and regulars so nobody is caught off guard.
It's a calculation, not a feeling
Closing for the season feels like giving up, and staying open with too few guests feels like holding on — but neither feeling tells you which choice is actually right. Only the comparison does: what an off-season week earns against what it costs purely to be open, totalled over the whole period against the one-off price of shutting down.
The contribution protects you from a closure that wasn't necessary. The cost of being open protects you from an off-season that quietly drains you. The break-even point isn't a rule of thumb from another venue — it's your own revenue line, with your own costs.
Run it once with your own numbers, and the decision that returns on gut feeling every year becomes a figure you know in advance.