Welcome to the fifth and final installment of our series, Bar & Restaurant Management 101, written by Doug Radkey, founder and president of KRG Hospitality Inc. (you may remember Doug from his How to Build a Menu series). This month, we cover employee retention.
There’s no easy way to say this: If your staff keeps walking out the door, your guests will start to follow.
And to be blunt, that is a reflection of you, your systems, and the culture that you’ve created.
Because in hospitality, your product isn’t just the items on your menu—it’s the experience you provide, to both your guests and your staff. And that means staff retention isn't just an HR checkbox. It’s a culture strategy, a stabilization strategy, and a scalability strategy.
Let’s break down what employee retention really means in hospitality today. We’ll ditch outdated thinking and give you a proven, people-first mindset to build a team that not only sticks around—but a team that crushes it.
The Myth: “It’s Just a High-Turnover Industry”
Let’s start here. Too many operators shrug off turnover like it’s a rite of passage in this business. They accept the status quo: endless hiring cycles, increased training costs, low morale, and burned-out leaders.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Repeat after me: There is an easier way.
I’ve helped launch and stabilize hundreds of bars, restaurants, and hotels, and I can tell you that the best-run brands don’t accept high turnover as inevitable. They design against it.
Let me introduce you to one such place: a fictional-but-real Taco & Tequila Bar that we’ve used in other articles as part of this 101-series. It’s a 40-seat bar with a strong takeout game, vibrant music-driven energy, and a brand story rooted in modern Latin street culture. Let’s walk through what works for them through the lens of staff retention.
Hire for Values, Not Just Experience
This is the first mindset shift operators need to make.
You have to stop prioritizing résumés that scream “10 years of bartending experience” and start looking for people who fit the vibe.
For this concept, the intention was to hire for energy, curiosity, humility, and passion (not just skill) as that’s what aligned with their core values.
Why? Because skills can be taught. Personality cannot. Remember this quote: “Values beat experience, when experience doesn’t work hard.”
That’s how this bar brand ended up with a team of barbacks, servers, and kitchen staff who, while not always the most seasoned, showed up aligned with the brand’s needed energy. They brought the heat. They believed in the mission. They helped build the experience, not just deliver it.
Your job is to hire the right people and teach them how to be great at hospitality. That’s the recipe for success and staff retainment.
Design an Experience-Driven Onboarding System
Onboarding isn’t just about paperwork and shadow shifts (if you even offer that).
It’s about setting the tone for what it feels like to be part of your brand.
Most places hand you a menu and a uniform and throw you into service.
The first 30 days will determine whether your new hire becomes a long-term asset or a short-term frustration. Most turnover in bars and restaurants happens within the first 60-90 days, often because the onboarding process is rushed, disorganized, or simply non-existent.
In this industry, you can't afford that.
Instead, implement a thoughtful and strategic 30-day onboarding experience; one that reinforces your culture, builds confidence, and cultivates connection from day one.
Here’s what that can look like:
1. A Welcome Letter from Ownership
Before their first shift, send a personalized letter. It should thank them for joining the team, outline the company’s values, and set the tone for the experience they’re about to have. This positions them not just as “another hire,” but as a vital part of something meaningful. This is your chance to show hospitality to your own people first.
2. A Digital Brand Story Tour
On day one, provide access to a short video or microsite walking them through your brand's origin, vision, and what makes you different. Show them the heart behind your concept. For this Taco & Tequila Bar example, this might include a behind-the-scenes story of how local farmers, distillers, and creatives shaped the venue. When people understand the why, they’re more likely to protect the how.
3. A 30-Day Learning Roadmap
Give your new team member a tangible 30-day roadmap that outlines:
- Weekly goals and learning milestones
- Daily tasks or “wins” to complete
- Who to check in with and when
- When their progress review will take place
Don’t just throw them on the floor and hope they figure it out. That’s not onboarding, that’s chaos. A clear roadmap builds momentum, helps them track their own progress, and gives managers a framework to support them.
4. Scenario-Based Role Playing
Training should go beyond shadowing. Integrate daily or weekly role-playing scenarios that reflect real guest situations: an upset table, a food allergy, a large group with split checks. Practicing these in a low-stakes environment helps staff develop problem-solving skills and confidence faster, which are two traits that significantly reduce early burnout.
5. A Buddy System That Actually Works
Assign each new hire a peer mentor for their first 30 days. This should be someone experienced, respected, and aligned with the brand culture. This buddy should:
- Be available for questions during shifts
- Share insights about workflow, unspoken norms, and guest expectations
- Debrief together at the end of each week
This builds camaraderie and reduces the isolation that often causes early turnover. But choose wisely, make sure that buddy is a top performer or brand ambassador with coaching skills.
The mindset shift is to embrace the fact that onboarding isn’t just training, that it is an emotional investment that begins on day-one.
Build Real Systems and Support
Retention works when chaos dies. To develop retention, you need to build systems that actually support your team. Here's what that can look like:
- Culture and brand-driven job ads, screening, and interviewing
- Clear SOPs for every role and every shift
- A shared resource hub with how-to videos, tools, and training docs
- Pre-shifts that align the team around upcoming promos, service reminders, and challenges
- Transparent scheduling and time-off protocols
The goal? Predictability and professionalism.
When your team knows what to expect and feels supported in their roles, they’re more likely to stick around. It’s that simple.
The New KPI: Keep People Informed, Involved, Interested, Inspired
Let’s redefine KPI for a second. It can extend beyond a Key Performance Indicator.
The taco and tequila bar? They focused on four “people-first” KPIs that drove team engagement:
- Informed: Daily and weekly team huddles with updates from ownership
- Involved: Staff input on new menu ideas and event themes
- Interested: Rotating in-house workshops on everything from cocktail theory to leadership skills
- Inspired: Celebrating wins, big or small, through shoutouts and surprise perks
This helps build a culture of inclusion and recognition. When people feel like they belong, they stay.
Give Them a Voice
Pre-shift meetings aren’t just for checking boxes.
Find way to turn every pre-shift into a two-way conversation.
- “What’s working well?”
- “Where did we drop the ball yesterday?”
- “Any guest feedback we need to know?”
Even better? Start recording and sharing the highlights within your staff communication channels and consider repurposing some short-clips for social content (with consent).
This can help ensure your staff feel seen while giving them pride.
With the Taco and Tequila bar, they also held quarterly “Listening Sessions” where front-line staff could give anonymous feedback, vote on new ideas, and help shape policies.
Guess what? Some of the best bar ops ideas they implemented came from a hostess.
Create Experiences For Your Team
This is hospitality. So be hospitable both externally and internally. We always talk about the guest experience, but what about the staff experience?
With the right systems in place, you can start a Staff Experience Fund. Here's what it covered for the Taco and Tequila brand:
- Bartenders received a branded roll-up bar-tool kit
- Quarterly field trips to tequila distilleries or mezcal tastings
- A monthly dinner for the top-performing server and one guest, on the house
- Sending the bar lead to Bar & Restaurant Expo in Las Vegas to network and level-up
- Revenue-sharing once quarterly goals were hit
- A birthday bottle or day off, the employee’s choice
People don’t stay for the paycheck. They stay for how you make them feel. Give them a memorable experience.
Ditch Exit Interviews. Try Stay Interviews.
One of the simplest shifts you can make after staff have been with you for 6+ months?
The implementation of “Stay Interviews.” Twice a year, sit down with every team member and ask:
- “What’s going well?”
- “What’s frustrating you?”
- “What would make you want to stay another year?”
- “What skills do you want to build?”
- “What resources can we provide to help make your job easier?”
- “Why do you love working here?”
At the Taco and Tequila bar, the leadership team documented the answers. They celebrated them. They even published video clips and summaries on the hiring page. Why? Because transparency builds trust.
The result? Minimized staff turnover.
Final Thought: Retention is Hospitality
If you take nothing else from this article, take this:
You can’t call yourself a hospitality brand if you don’t practice it internally.
Retention isn’t about clinging to staff who want to leave. It’s about creating a culture where people choose to stay. Start receiving resumes from people who want to work for you and who will become a brand ambassador for you and your business.
You must believe in building teams as much as you believe in building your vision. Your bar or restaurant will never outperform the quality of your people or the way you treat them.
So put people first. Hire with heart. Onboard with energy. Support with systems. And lead with clarity. Because in the end, your guests will only love your business as much as your team does.
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