What Time Should Hotel Breakfast End?
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A good hotel breakfast is one of the highlights of staying away from home. We often will consider one hotel over another just for a delicious breakfast in the morning.
Hotel breakfasts vary greatly amongst major hotel groups like Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, with some including it in the room rate while others partner with a restaurant that is within the hotel but comes at an additional charge.
One of the biggest considerations with hotel breakfast is timing. Many start early in the morning from 7am or 8am onwards but the time it ends also changes greatly.
There are many factors that go into determining when a hotel should end breakfast including the hotel class, room rate, if it is located in a restaurant or dedicated space, and how long they expect guests to stay in the hotel vs going out.
So really, what we want to determine is what is the ideal time for hotel breakfast to end?
9:00 AM
It is common for many hotels to end their breakfast early and as soon as 9:00 AM. This means you will have to get up early if you want to grab something to eat. The offering in these types of hotels is either a continental breakfast or one with a few hotel items as well.
This is most common in lower tier hotels like Holiday Inn, Courtyard Marriott, as well as long stay hotels like Marriott Residence Inn. This doesn’t provide a lot of time for guests to enjoy a meal but these hotels are designed for people that get up early and want to get on with their day outside of their hotels.
In our opinion this is too early to end hotel breakfast and we expect many many guests simply skip it. Given the cheap rate at many of these hotels it is not surprising they want to minimize the food offering but still claim to include it with each stay.
10:00 AM
The most common time we have seen hotel breakfast end is 10:00 AM. This leaves ample time for people that are early rises or just getting up in the morning to grab a bite before they start their day.
What you can expect in this category is a full breakfast spread that includes both hot and cold items. Many hotels that offer executive lounges also close their breakfast by this time however the lounge will remain open afterwards.
We find the majority of hotels fit into this bucket and include everything from The Westin, Sheraton, Hilton, Conrad, Intercontinental, and many others.
While 10:00 AM means that you need to be down by 9:30 AM, we find this to be the most reasonable time
11:00 AM
Hotel breakfasts staying open till 11:00 AM is not common but in our opinion is the ideal time to end breakfast. This gives you sufficient time in the morning whether you are getting up early or wanting a little more time to sleep in.
A common practice amongst hotels is once breakfast ends they close the breakfast area. This is what we saw at the JW Marriott Istanbul although the spread they offered was definitely better than most hotels. If they remain open till 11:00 AM this will allow guests plenty of time but could also cause issues if the breakfast area converts into a lunch restaurant shortly after.
12:00 PM
Keeping breakfast open till 12:00 PM is a rare thing to find but it is designed for a very specific hotel or should I say resort. These hotels are ones that guests spend the majority of time in and want to have plenty of time to eat a meal before they enjoy the rest of the hotel amenities.
We’ve observed this only at resorts in vacation heavy areas throughout the US, Mexico, Turkey, and the Maldives. The Bodrum Edition was a recent experience that served their entire Turkish Breakfast spread until 12:00 PM and let you stay within the restaurant for as long as you want afterwards.
Summary & Takeaways
Since there are a lot of factors that go into when a hotel breakfast will end it is hard to assign one time across all.
If we had to choose, the ideal time to end hotel breakfast is: 10:30 AM.
This provides ample time for both early rises and those that want just a bit more sleep in the mornings.
Do you know of hotels that offer breakfast even later? Let us know in the comments so we can plan a visit for the breakfast alone.
