A casual dining restaurant lives on family and group traffic at lunch and dinner. It needs a cheerful floor team and a steady kitchen, mostly young, often new, and at risk of leaving after a season.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsA casual dining restaurant seats families, friends and office groups at moderate prices, often in malls, high streets and food streets. The team is a mix of line cooks, a kitchen head, waiters, hosts, a cashier and a floor captain, led by an outlet manager. Footfall peaks at weekends, in the evening and on festivals, and drops on weekday afternoons. Many staff are in their first or second job and live in shared rooms, so they move readily if a friend finds a better offer. Several owners run two to six outlets and move people between them. The food and beverage sector page and the restaurants and cafes hub set out what the whole trade shares.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
With no time to teach, a new server learns the menu from a table of unhappy guests, and the captain pays for it.
Rushes on Friday and Saturday nights find a short team because weekday staff are given offs on weekends.
Staff leave every few months, and each exit means interviews, a thin shift and a fresh trainee, though nobody has counted it.
A good captain is made manager and left to handle rosters, cash, stock and staff quarrels with no preparation.
Where tips go and who receives a share is local custom, and it is a common cause of complaints.
Wrong orders, slow dishes and cold plates are argued at the pass, and the manager is stuck in the middle.
Without simple measures, a waiter is praised or scolded for what happened last night, not what happens over a month.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Onboarding and Probation; Retention and Attrition Management; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for food and beverage, not in general.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a casual dining restaurants business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Menu tasting, tray and table basics, shadowing and a short test before solo service.
What this coversHideMenu tasting, tray and table basics, shadowing and a short test before solo service. The onboarding process lays it out.
Peaks get the strongest team, offs fall on quieter days and part-timers are booked for weekends.
What this coversHidePeaks get the strongest team, offs fall on quieter days and part-timers are booked for weekends.
A simple list by outlet with the date, the role and why they left, reviewed each month by the owner.
What this coversHideA simple list by outlet with the date, the role and why they left, reviewed each month by the owner.
Rosters, cash checks, giving feedback and handling complaints, repeated for each new manager.
What this coversHideRosters, cash checks, giving feedback and handling complaints, repeated for each new manager.
Who shares, in what way and who explains it.
What this coversHideWho shares, in what way and who explains it. Agree it with staff representatives and display it.
Order accuracy, time to table, guest comments and attendance, reviewed monthly.
What this coversHideOrder accuracy, time to table, guest comments and attendance, reviewed monthly. See performance management.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A first week that gets new waiters and cooks ready before they meet a full house.
Simple measures for waiters, cooks and outlet managers, with fair recognition.
A steady flow of candidates for peak seasons and new outlet openings.
A clear route for complaints between kitchen and floor, and for lateness and conduct issues.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in food and beverage, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Kitchen, service and outlet staff leave quickly in food and beverage. How to ask what lies behind the first answer, compare outlets and act on what you learn.
7 min readRead article
Hour by hour, then week by week, for a recruit's first month at a module, inverter, pack or junction box line: safety and handling first, a practice bench, a buddy, a sign-off and a day-30 review.
7 min readRead article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead article
Measures that show how reactor, console, lab and gantry staff are really doing, the ones that mislead or bury near misses, and a monthly sheet an in-charge can run in twenty minutes.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Start by counting who leaves and why. Then fix the common reasons, usually the first week, fixed offs, unclear tips and a poor boss. Small changes there pay back faster than a pay rise.
Give them a menu tasting, a short checklist of steps of service, a buddy and a few practice tables before solo service. A week well planned beats a month of confusion.
Let them act as manager for a few shifts, teach rosters, cash and feedback in short sessions, and name a senior to call. A planned step is safer than an overnight promotion.
Hold a brief meeting before service each day to share specials and issues, agree who decides at the pass and settle disputes the same day. Treat both groups as one team.
It can be, if the rule is clear and fair across roles. Decide the split with staff input, write it down and review it every year. Hidden rules cause the most trouble.
First we would count leavers by outlet and role, look at a week of rosters against your busiest hours and ask an outlet manager about the first week of a new waiter. A first-week plan with a leaver tracker is a natural first job, scoped in writing.
All 8 business types in restaurants & cafes · Find another business type
See all HR topics for food and beverage, or another industry.
Tell us what is slowing your team down. We’ll help you find a practical way forward, starting with a conversation.
