Why isn’t “Siesta or Riposo” a thing in the US and or stores closing on Sunday?

18 comments

1. Sundays were always the second busiest days when I worked retail, in terms of gross sales. People like to shop then and stores like the money.

2. Privately owned small businesses being closed on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (depending on the religion of the owners) or shutting down for an hour during the middle of the day is pretty common in the south. Liquor stores are closed by law in some states and counties.

   But I think that, for corporate America, it’s always going to be about the cost of being open versus the potential profits to be made by being open at any given time. And until that makes staying closed on Sundays or extended midday breaks more profitable than staying open, I don’t think anything will change— unless you can unionize the service industries and convince the union to bargain for it.

3. You’re more than welcome to close your store at noon for a siesta or on a Sunday. But it is likely the competition won’t and it will affect your bottom line.

4. Siesta just isn’t part of our culture, and I don’t see that ever changing.

   Stores being open on Sunday has nothing to do with secularism and everything to do with capitalism. Consumers expect stores to be open on Sunday and any store that isn’t is leaving money on the table, to the point where today pretty much the only places not open Sundays are either small businesses that can’t afford to staff seven days a week or those who are making a specific religious statement (e.g. Chick-fil-A).

5. There are quite a few businesses where I live that are closed on Sundays and Mondays, and there’s at least one restaurant that’s not open on weekends at all. I’m pretty sure they’re all locally-owned.

6. Lots of local restaurants and businesses near me are closed on Sundays and usually Mondays. Although some are Monday and Tuesday. I had a local post office that closed midday for about an hour. It was only one person working there.

   I feel like it could become something that some might do. However it will be less so because of religious beliefs or Latin influences and more so because of how we have moved to working from home. I know several people who just start their days earlier and are finished with their work mid afternoon. They’ll have a nap and get on with their days.

7. Plenty of stores are closed on Sundays in small towns like the one I grew up in, it’s just you’ve never heard of those places because they are small towns.

   As far as immigrants making it a thing, unlikely. It’s a touchy subject to talk about in public but expecting immigrants to assimilate isn’t necessarily seen as racist in the US, and to tell the other side of the story our immigrant tend to do a pretty good job of it.

8. 1. Ubiquitous air conditioning makes the idea of taking a mid-day siesta unnecessary.
   2. US consumers expect you to be open for business. You are, as a business owner, within your rights to set whatever hours you wish. But if I know that your competitor is open on Sundays and wont be closing for an hour or so during the day, I’m going to your competitor.

   ***”Do you think these ideas will be a thing in the future due to immigration from Latin America or would secular society dissuade the idea of Sunday closing of stores or the concept of breaks like these?”***

   Maybe in places like government offices, banks, and doctor’s offices it might catch on, because they already get to play the “fuck whatever literally everyone else does with their business hours–we do what we want” game. But I don’t see it catching on in the country as a whole. Because, like I said before, businesses that adopt this practice will get out-competed by businesses who don’t.

   Now, if we do have green legislation in this country that massively disincentives the use of air conditioning, then we’d have to resume the conversation. At that point, it might become a much more compelling concept.

9. Sunday’s are the busiest day per hour that we are open in my business.

10. Blue laws were indeed common in the past, but its kind of a relic of a religious type of law that society has moved on from. No need to go back there. Businesses should be open when the business wants to be open. As far as afternoon siestas, sounds like unproductivity to me. If that means we have to extend our work day, thats a hard pass from me.

11. 40 years ago it was the norm for a lot of places to be closed on Sundays or only open half the day. It’s still not unusual for places to open late on Sundays, even big box stores. But people want to shop and eat out in Sunday, society (even in more religious states) is secular enough to make blue laws restricting commerce unpopular, so capitalism encourages places to be open on Sundays when people want to shop.

    Not much point in closing for a few hours in the US in the afternoon. Places that have that seem to have insanely late evenings and nights, so it seems to balance out in terms of life being imperfect. Maybe if AC wasn’t so common afternoon closings would make more sense.

    Unless the entire country had as much Latin influence as the city of Miami *and* most of that influence was from the specific Latin cultures that had a siesta culture, this won’t change because of Spanish speaking immigrants. Which is a long way of saying definitely no to your edit.

12. In America, money comes before wellbeing, always.

13. I’ve lived in plenty of places where people shut stores down on Sunday. Small towns, and even smaller cities will have plenty of places that are shut down on Sunday.

14. Stores used to close on Sundays in the US. When Saturday and Sunday are all the free time you have to get your errands done, it’s really darned inconvenient to have the stores closed for 50% of that time though. As it is, they still tend to close early on Sundays, and that is also inconvenient.

    I hope we get siestas. They’re a reasonable response to climate change. It’s hot; take a nap.

15. We used to close our stores on Sunday. We moved away from that. People need them open when they’re not at work.

    And siestas are common in places with very hot climates, but they’re also horrible for productivity at work. You ate a big lunch, took a siesta and then returned when things were cooler.

    I don’t see this happening.

16. Oh my word, I just put my toddler down for a nap and told him “es la hora de tu siesta” (I think that’s proper Spanish).

    I wish I could take a snooze with him.

17. I don’t want stores closed on Sundays; that’s when I typically do my shopping. Anyway, it’s unnecessary. Not everyone wants the same days off. I’d rather have weekdays off when the recreation stuff is less crowded; unfortunately not really an option with my regular office job.

18. Having grown up in the Deep South I recall how businesses closed after lunch on Wednesdays, and many didn’t open on Sunday.