Take out-Customer service

They may have been in the process of closing.

Does the restaurant close at 10:00 on Thursdays? They might have
"accidentally on purpose" put you on hold.

depending on how old this location is it could just be that they have
a bad phone system and corporate won't pay for the replacement. i
work in a restaurant (the building is 20+ years old) and our phone
system sucks. they have replaced all the phones but it's the wires in
the walls and corporate won't spend the money or time to replace them.

Is this the first time this happened? I would call and speak to a
manager. It may have just been a bad night for them.

Since you are not out any money I don't understand your request for a
free meal.

I dont think you deserve a free meal due to this. You didnt
physically lose anything like money. I do however think management
should know about this just in case they did it on purpose.

My guess is they close at 10pm, and they had everything cleaned up
early (maybe a slow night) and they stalled you until they could
legitamally close.