How to work out staffing levels for a restaurant: roles, covers per server, forecasting by daypart, building a staffing plan, labor cost targets, hiring and keeping a bench.
| Area | Roles | Staffing driver |
|---|---|---|
| Front of house | Host, servers, bussers, food runners, bartenders, cashiers | Covers and tables in use |
| Back of house | Line cooks, prep cooks, dishwashers, expeditor | Tickets, menu complexity and prep volume |
| Management | General manager, shift leads, kitchen manager | Hours open and team size |
Quick-service and counter-service restaurants have fewer front-of-house roles and more cross-trained crew; full-service restaurants need more specialized roles. Cross-training is one of the most effective ways to make staffing flexible.
To build shifts, approve swaps and spot coverage gaps in one place, see EZTime employee scheduling software.
Use your point-of-sale history to see covers or transactions by day of week and hour. Note patterns: lunch rush, early dinner, late-night bar trade, weekend brunch. Adjust for known events: holidays, local events, weather, promotions, school calendars. Even a simple forecast, last year’s same week plus or minus recent trends, is far better than repeating last week’s schedule.
Decide how much each role can handle while delivering the service you want. For servers, that is often expressed as tables or covers per server per hour; for cooks, tickets per hour at each station; for dishwashers, the volume of service. Your standards depend on your menu, layout and service style, so set them from your own observation: watch busy shifts and note when service starts to slip. Write the standards down and review them when the menu or layout changes.
Combine the forecast and the standards into a chart showing how many people you need in each role for each hour. Then build shifts that match the curve, with staggered start and end times rather than everyone starting at once.
| Time | Forecast covers | Servers | Cooks | Dish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. | 30 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. | 70 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. | 80 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. | 50 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. | 20 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
Our restaurant schedule guide covers building the weekly schedule from this kind of chart.
Calculate the labor cost of the staffing plan, including payroll taxes and benefits, and compare it with forecast sales. If labor cost percentage is far above your target, look for slow periods where staff could be reduced, overlap that could be trimmed or roles that could be combined. If it is far below, check whether service is suffering. See our guide to restaurant labor cost percentage and our labor cost percentage calculator.
Count how many people you need on the roster to fill the plan reliably. Account for time off, call-outs, availability limits, minors’ hour restrictions and turnover. Many restaurants keep a mix of full-time staff for key shifts, part-timers for peaks and a few people who want extra shifts. A roster that only just covers the schedule leads to overtime, burnout and more call-outs.
Restaurant demand swings with the calendar: patio season, holidays, graduation weekends, local festivals and sports events. Mark these on a staffing calendar months ahead, using last year’s sales for the same dates. Ask employees about availability for peak dates early, plan time off around them and line up extra help before you need it. After each peak, note what worked and what did not, so the plan for next year starts from real experience rather than memory.
Compare forecast covers with actual covers, scheduled hours with actual hours and labor cost with sales, by day and daypart. Note where you were over- or understaffed and why. Small weekly adjustments to the staffing chart add up. Watch overtime closely; it often signals either understaffing or poor shift design. See reducing overtime costs.
A neighborhood bistro kept the same five servers on every dinner shift. A review of point-of-sale data showed Monday and Tuesday covers were about half of Friday’s. The owner set a standard of roughly 15 covers per server per hour at peak, built staffing charts by night and moved to staggered starts. Monday and Tuesday now run with three servers, one starting later, while Friday and Saturday have six. Labor cost as a share of sales fell, and servers on busy nights earned more in tips.
EZTime lets restaurant managers build schedules by role, publish them to the mobile app, let staff swap shifts with approval and record actual hours from clock-ins at a kiosk. Labor rule alerts flag overtime and missed breaks, tip pooling handles shared tips and reports show scheduled vs. actual hours. See EZTime for restaurants.
| Time | Expected covers | Servers | Line cooks | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 to 6 p.m. | 30 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 6 to 8 p.m. | 110 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 8 to 9 p.m. | 45 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| 9 to 10 p.m. | 15 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
Your ratios will differ. Use our labor cost percentage calculator and restaurant schedule guide.
Keep a small group of trained part-timers who want occasional extra shifts. Cross-train hosts to run food and dishwashers to prep. When someone calls out, you can fill the gap without overtime. See restaurant job positions and restaurant staff training.
Share the weekly labor numbers with your managers, not just the owner. When managers can see covers, hours and labor cost side by side, they make better calls during service, such as sending someone home early on a slow night or calling in help before a rush.
Tick each item already in place.
0 of 6. Staffing may be guesswork. Start with a cover forecast.
It depends on covers, menu, layout and service style. Forecast demand by hour, set productivity standards per role and build a staffing chart.
It varies with service style and layout. Set your own standard by observing when service starts to slip on busy shifts.
Targets vary by concept and market. Track yours weekly and compare with your own history and budget.
Keep a roster larger than the minimum, cross-train staff and maintain a list of employees who want extra shifts.
In some cities and states, covered food service employers must post schedules in advance and pay premiums for late changes. Check local rules.
Weekly, comparing forecast and actual covers, hours and labor cost by daypart.
EZTime schedules include shift reminders and real-time labor costing, and the clock can refuse punches outside an assigned shift.