If runners are scrambling to get meals out to customers and servers are overloaded with tables, it may be time to reevaluate your staffing needs. Having the right amount of cooks, servers, hosts, and other restaurant staff is essential to keeping things running smoothly.
Luckily, Qwick is here to assist you in getting shifts covered even during a labor shortage. This restaurant staffing guide will help you determine how much help you need. Read on to learn about how many tables a server can handle, how many cooks you need, and more!
How many servers are needed in a restaurant?
Knowing how many servers you need for your restaurant can be tricky. It can depend on many factors that vary from restaurant to restaurant. Hire too few servers, and your customers and staff will suffer the consequences. Hire too many tipped employees, and they’ll be disappointed by the lack of tables they’re able to serve. Speaking of tables, you may be wondering how many tables a server can handle at one time.
How many tables can a server handle?
When evaluating how many servers you need to staff your restaurant, you'll need to think about how many tables servers can handle. This may vary slightly depending on the individual server and their level of experience, but four to five tables at a time is an average number. This number can shift depending on the party sizes of the tables, as well.
Most servers can manage about four tables at any given time during their shift. The number of customers may ebb and flow during the shift, but typically, each server should have about four tables when it’s steady.
This ensures that servers have the chance to make enough money to make shifts worthwhile. Overstaffing servers can cause staff dissatisfaction due to a lack of income opportunities, so it's important to get the ratio right for your restaurant.
Sample server to table ratio
If your restaurant has 25 tables, you'll probably want to have around five to six servers.
This would mean if your restaurant was operating steadily at full capacity, each server would have about four or five 5 tables at a time, sticking with the optimal ratio.
25 tables / 5 servers ≈ 5 tables per server
25 tables / 6 servers ≈ 4.2 tables per server
If you’re struggling to find enough servers, Qwick is here to help! Qwick connects you to experienced hospitality professionals to fill open shifts at your business. Staff up in advance, or even call in the Qwick crew for last-minute needs. Create an account for free to get started!
What about other restaurant positions? How many staff members do you need? Let’s continue on to how many cooks should be in a restaurant each shift.
How many cooks are needed in a restaurant?
So, how many cooks do you need to be fully staffed? Three? Five? More? This number can vary depending on the complexity of your restaurant’s menu and the size of the kitchen, but the average is four back of house staff members per 50 tables in a casual seated restaurant.
This average number of staff members includes chefs and prep cooks in the back of house setting. These four cooks should be able to manage cooking meals for up to 50 tables during their shift. However, this number could change depending on the experience levels of the staff.
Now that you know how many servers and cooks you need per shift, it’s time to fill those open shifts. If you are looking for qualified cooks, servers, hosts, and other restaurant positions, look no further than Qwick.
Need to fill restaurant shifts? Use Qwick!
If you’ve written a killer server job description, but are still short on staff, create a Qwick account today. Qwick’s professional platform for the hospitality industry connects businesses seeking to fill shifts with skilled professionals eager to work.
Staff shifts with dependable talent quickly on the Qwick platform. We do all the prep work for you by vetting professionals and verifying their experience and certifications. Then once they’ve met our qualifications, they can join the thousands of other professionals picking up shifts using Qwick. It’s that easy—create an account to start filling shifts with Qwick today.
FAQs
This number can vary depending on the complexity of your restaurant's menu and the size of the kitchen, but the average is four back of house staff members per 50 tables in a casual seated restaurant. This average number of staff members includes chefs and prep cooks in the back of house setting.
How many cooks are needed in a restaurant? ›
A small fine dining restaurant may have four or five cooks. In a well-staffed fine dining kitchen, you must consider positions such as executive chef, sous chef, line cook, pastry chef, and prep cook. The exact number of cooks will vary based on the restaurant's needs and the volume of restaurant business popularity.
How many members of staff do I need in my restaurant? ›
General staff requirements may look like: Front of the house (FOH - Service/servers) - 1 staff member, per shift for every 4 tables. Maitre d' - 1 staff member per shift. Back of the house (BOH - Kitchen/cook staff) - 6 staff members, per shift, for 50–60 restaurant covers.
How many servers do you need per table? ›
For seated dinners, 1 server for every 2 tables. For a buffet, 1 server for every 40 guests.
What is the ratio of servers to customers in restaurants? ›
Guest-to-staff ratio: Strive for 1 server per 4-6 tables, adjusting based on the complexity of the menu and the size of the groups. Kitchen staffing: Scale your kitchen staff in line with menu complexity.
How do I calculate how many staff I need for a restaurant? ›
Sample server to table ratio. If your restaurant has 25 tables, you'll probably want to have around five to six servers. This would mean if your restaurant was operating steadily at full capacity, each server would have about four or five 5 tables at a time, sticking with the optimal ratio.
How many servers are needed for 100 guests? ›
How many servers do I need? For a buffet, we recommend one server for every 25 to 35 guests. For a seated, plated event, we suggest one server for every 10 to 15 guests. For passed hors d'oeuvres, we recommend one server per 25 guests.
How do I know how many staff I need? ›
These are a few of the factors to consider when determining how many employees to hire for your company:
- Monthly revenue. ...
- Company culture. ...
- Benefit plans. ...
- Maximizing productivity. ...
- Examining your KPIs. ...
- Reviewing current employees. ...
- Consider your needs. ...
- Analyzing employee ROI.
It takes several types of workers to make a full-service restaurant kitchen successful. Some, such as dishwashers, earn less on average than the servers who wait on patrons and survive largely on tips. Others, such as prep cooks, earn comparable wages. Cooks and head cooks make significantly more than servers.
How many hosts does a restaurant need? ›
This answer will depend on the size and location of the restaurant, seasonality, employees' availability, etc. Taking all this into consideration, it's safe to say that to be fully staffed with backups in place it would require a team of at least 12-15 hosts for a medium-sized establishment in a busy location.
Measure the number of requests made to the server during a given period and then multiply that by that amount of power needed for the server's tasks. If you don't have a server of your own to reference, you can use your market research or study similar servers used by other businesses.
How to calculate server requirements? ›
For example, if the application is 100MB and you have 5000 users, each requiring 1MB, you need 100MB + (5000x1MB) = 5100MB or 5.1GB to host your database files. Similarly, if you have 100 email accounts, each using 250MB disk space, you will require 100x250MB = 25GB.
How many people should a server have? ›
Casual dining: One server for every five to six tables per shift and four back-of-house staff per 50 tables. Fine dining: One server for every three to four tables per shift and six to seven back-of-house staff per 50 customers.
How many chefs per customer? ›
FAQs About Staffing a Restaurant
Typical ratios for one shift is one front-of-house staff members (servers, bartenders, etc.) per three to five tables and four to seven back-of-house staff members (chefs, dishwashers, etc.) per 50 tables.
How many staff should a restaurant have? ›
Expect staffing approximately three to five line cooks per shift, and a similar number of prep cooks. In a larger restaurant, you may have more. You'll also need a dishwasher on each shift. A good starting estimate is to assume approximately four back of house employees per 50 guests in a casual restaurant.
How many people does an average restaurant serve? ›
The average restaurant serves approximately 100 customers per day. (Source: Liberty Cheesesteaks) In 2022, off-premise dining accounted for over 40% of all restaurant sales.
What is too many cooks in business? ›
There may be “too many cooks in the kitchen” when members of a team or a group of employees from different departments are having difficulty working on a project together. You may also hear someone use this expression to describea team that has too many people contributing conflicting ideas to a project.
Do cooks make more than waiters? ›
It takes several types of workers to make a full-service restaurant kitchen successful. Some, such as dishwashers, earn less on average than the servers who wait on patrons and survive largely on tips. Others, such as prep cooks, earn comparable wages. Cooks and head cooks make significantly more than servers.
What percentage of the population cooks? ›
Survey Reveals 81% of Consumers Cook More Than Half of Meals at Home.
