Hospitality industry experts and restaurateurs in today’s economy have a lot to say about how to staff high-volume restaurants, train new hires, and keep long-term employees up to speed.
However, perspectives on effective hiring and retention in high-volume restaurants will differ. A lot of it depends on a restaurant or group’s geography, target market, and changing customer expectations. Consequently, there may not be simple answers for high-volume proprietors or management, but there are endless ideas those in leadership roles can tap into.
While some high-volume restaurants find it necessary to crew up for a seasonal rush, other managers plan for the long-term based on how they perceive the vicissitudes of the economy.
Forces of (Human) Nature
“High-volume restaurants continue to feel pressure from a tight labor market, especially as they gear up for peak seasons, whether that’s summer tourism, outdoor dining, and peak travel periods,” says Heidi Harman, senior principal industry, Retail & Hospitality for UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group), a workforce management software purveyor. To stay competitive this summer, she observes leaders are taking a “strategic and data-driven approach” to assembling and managing their seasonal workforce.
In this scenario, seasonal staffing is no longer just a matter of filling open roles, but also building a workforce strategy centered on flexibility, speed, and employee engagement. Furthermore, restaurants that invest in a positive seasonal employee experience, through clear communication, fair scheduling, timely pay, and recognition are more likely to retain workers throughout a busy season and bring them back annually.
On the other hand, Mitch Miller, vice president of Ocean Prime and operating partner of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants (CMR), says his firm leans on hiring programs that have been honed over decades. These programs not only change with widespread restaurant trends, but also more localized needs. “By staying ahead of seasonal demand and preparing our teams in advance, we ensure that new associates are fully supported while maintaining the high standards our guests expect. Although some of our properties experience seasonality, the swings are fortunately manageable," says Miller. "Our philosophy, ‘Yes is the answer. What’s the question?’ guides how we select our teams and empower them to ensure they are adaptable and dependable during busy periods.”
There are also cases with some high-volume restaurants where seasonal labor plays less of a role, especially in the fast casual segment. Cody Wong, president of CW Strong, a franchisee of Dave's Hot Chicken, say creating consistency is key for a workplace that will run in such a way that new hires are not learning everything through trial and error during peak volume. This can make a difference in parts of the country where a labor shortage exists.
“When expectations, labor rules, and workflows are clearly built into the system from the start, managers spend less time correcting issues and more time coaching their teams,” says Wong. “Volume flexibility, in turn, comes from giving managers the tools to make better decisions throughout the day. Sales forecasting [also] helps us staff appropriately. When managers are not buried in scheduling tasks, they can focus on positioning people effectively on the floor and responding to volume as it happens.”
Regardless of whether a high volume-restaurant or restaurant group has peak seasons, Shawn Tarter, founder and CEO of RealTime Reservation (a cloud-based software for hotels to manage ancillary revenue from pool cabanas, beach services, and dining), observes through the firm’s restaurant clients that labor challenges in high-volume restaurants usually aren’t about needing more people but finding ways to improve communications to reduce conflict.
“During peak periods, friction shows up fast, especially when systems and processes aren’t built to scale,” he says. “Technology helps most when it moves guest decisions earlier in the experience. When guests book dining times or choose add-ons early, staff aren’t stuck answering the same questions, juggling availability, or reacting to last minute changes in the middle of a rush. When those decisions live in one place, operators also have a much clearer picture of what’s coming, which makes planning easier and less reactive.”
“Hire” Intelligence
What’s the best place to find a great worker in the short- or long-term? Some will say it may be from the same place you will find your customers.
Jennifer Martin, former restaurateur and catering company owner turned business/leadership coach (Zest Business Consulting), recommends reaching out to places like ski resorts with winter high-season staff to promote summer hiring, especially if a business is located on a coast or another location that is a summertime tourist draw. She also believes hiring should be proactive, regardless of whether or not a venue experiences a higher-volume peak season.
“There's no bad place to meet the love of your life, and the same goes for your next ‘greatest team member,’” she says. “Make sure you are communicating at the register or when a check is delivered that you will be staffing up for the season. Also, as you are competing with other businesses in town paying minimum wage, ask yourself what you can do to make the opportunity sweeter. For example, consider paying more if you can, as 25 cents an hour more may give you more choices to fill the gaps.”
There are also some cases where adding extra staff for a busy season is less important than finding employees that are fully committed to a long- or short-term hiring arrangement.
“We have found ourselves a great deal of success through our onboarding and training process,” says Chris Moore, LBA Hospitality’s corporate director of Food & Beverage. “There are incentives that we offer staff at LBA, with 100 hotels across the Southeastern U.S., including the potential of career advancement from within. When we need staff for busier periods, I'm all for reaching out to high schools and community colleges that have hospitality or culinary programs. We find great staff that way, and some of them will stay with us. After their first summer rush, some will work weekends and future summers, for example. But two to three years down the road, they may move up to a banquet supervisor position.”
Jennie Harman, director of Training for Baltimore-based Atlas Restaurant Group, says her firm casts an even broader net by actively partnering with high schools and youth workforce development initiatives to connect with students before summer begins. Spending time on high school and college campuses, and building relationships with career services, culinary programs, and hospitality departments also helps Atlas connect with young people considering future career options. Partnerships with Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), including local workforce boards, community-based organizations, and Departments of Labor, opens access to motivated candidates looking for structured summer employment.
“When students see the energy of our restaurants and meet leaders who started in entry-level roles, it shifts the narrative from ‘summer job’ to ‘career launch,’” she says. “We position summer roles as skill-building experiences emphasizing teamwork, guest service, leadership fundamentals, and exposure to structured training platforms. When candidates understand that they’ll gain transferable skills in addition to a paycheck, they show up with greater ownership and adaptability. We’re not just staffing for the season. We’re investing in the next generation of hospitality talent.”
Jean Hagan, partner at Eisner Advisory Group LLC, says that regardless of whether staff will be short- or long-term, there must be specific job descriptions and training programs. Hagan, whose specialties include profit and loss coaching, opening new restaurants, analyzing labor costs, and setting up management bonus structures, stresses that before seeking employees, management should clearly define what seasonal help they will need. This includes calculating the training expense against the value of the seasonal worker. “Sometimes its just easier to pay OT/DT to full-time workers and hire seasonal workers as support staff,” she says.
In areas affected by a labor shortage, Wong finds that the situation has pushed operators to think beyond the calendar and simply filling shifts. “In markets like California, the challenge is balancing staffing, compliance, and manager workload at the same time,” he says. “Rising wages and tighter labor regulations increase pressure on teams, so we’ve focused on building systems that reduce friction and create more stability for both managers and hourly employees.”
Atlas’ Jennie Harman argues that operators should take a proactive stance by using historical data and demand forecasting to anticipate staffing needs well before the season begins. Current hiring technology, including tools that streamline recruiting, onboarding, and scheduling, should also be considered upfront so managers can spend more time supporting their teams. When the right mix of skills is available when customer volume spikes, there will be fewer on-the-fly adjustments and greater flexibility for staffers on the floor.
“Technology isn’t about replacing hospitality,” Harman explains. “It’s about taking unnecessary work off [management’s] plate so they can focus on service. When systems handle the logistics and planning, people can do what they do best even when things are at their busiest. When workflows are consistent and easy to understand, cross-trained staff can step into different roles without slowing down...during seasonal surges or high-volume weekends.”
Efficiency through hiring software technology can also make a difference. When looking for new hires, Pietro’s Owner Pete Murdaca and his managers use the “R365 Hire” platform to suss out the best candidates for its San Francisco Bay-area restaurants. It allows the company to feature open positions directly on its website’s careers page while also posting those roles across multiple job boards like Indeed, Monster, and ZipRecruiter, simultaneously. Applicants are funneled into one centralized system, eliminating the need to manage multiple platforms and postings.
Pietro’s applicants answer a set of five to seven questions that cover availability, years of experience, and enthusiasm about the restaurant. If management decides to move forward, the applicant completes a 10-minute assessment that generates a score based on work ethic, teamwork, and other traits to evaluate whether he will thrive in Pietro’s restaurant environment. “These filters have significantly increased the quality of candidates, allowing us to weed out applicants who are simply mass-applying to jobs,” he says. “While these rankings are not foolproof, it is easier to identify candidates who may be a good asset to our team.”
Strength and Flexibility Through Cross Training
Even with different approaches to hiring, cross-training new and existing employees is widely embraced. UKG’s Heidi Harman, along with restaurateurs and executives like Murdaca, Miller, Wong, and Bill Graham (senior vice president, Human Resources and Organizational Development at Shakey’s USA), insist cross-training is a cornerstone of seasonal readiness. If employees can flex across roles, from front-of-house to bar support to food running, staff can readily adapt to unpredictable traffic patterns while giving employees more varied and engaging work experiences.
“Nearly all of our kitchen employees begin in the dish pit and then promote out of that role,” says Murdaca. “While it can sometimes be challenging to motivate employees to learn additional stations, we adopted a model in which each time a kitchen employee learns a new station, they receive a raise,” he says. “It encourages cross-training, teamwork, and camaraderie. There are times during a shift when one station gets hit particularly hard. Instead of staffing additional employees, we can flex team members to support their teammates because they are already trained on multiple stations.”
Murdaca acknowledges that traditional side-by-side coaching and training worked well in the past. However, as the restaurant group expanded, training became more frequent, rushed, and increasingly difficult to rely on individuals, “to consistently pass down Pietro’s culture, values, and training materials to all staff.” Pietro’s has since transitioned to a hybrid online training model where new hires are assigned to a structured learning track with videos, readings, quizzes, and hands-on sessions that must be completed before being tested at the end of the program.
Cross-training is especially important in Ocean Prime’s kitchens as it allows teams to maximize efficiency and flexibility. By giving associates exposure to multiple roles, it becomes easier to shift resources seamlessly during high-volume shifts without compromising service or quality. “We are currently researching AI technologies that may enhance operational efficiency and optimize labor during peak times,” Miller says. “While these tools are promising, our focus remains on empowering our teams and maintaining the high-touch, guest-focused service that differentiates Cameron Mitchell Restaurants from others.”
The training department at Shakey’s USA recently launched, “Team Member Cross-Training Program,” a structured curriculum for cross-training all team members across front-of-house and back-of-house stations. “It promotes engagement, enhances shift coverage, and increases productivity during peak periods, ensuring all employees gain new skills across front-of-house and back-of-house stations on a regular basis,” says Graham. “This approach enhances shift coverage and increases productivity during locations’ busiest periods, which include February for the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day, graduation season in late May and June, and December holiday celebrations. We complement this with our ‘Certified Trainer’ program with long-term employees, which ensures training quality and consistency across all locations.”
“We focus heavily on retention as a strategy to maintain operational and service consistency, he says. “Our annualized turnover has been consistently below industry benchmarks over the past year. We track and monitor 90-day retention rates to ensure new hires successfully complete their introductory period. By combining proactive hiring practices with strong retention initiatives, we address labor challenges from both angles while building a skilled, engaged workforce.”
Wong says workforce technology plays a big role in supporting shifts in labor, especially as restaurant jobs increasingly often become longer-term career paths. Tools that support accurate timekeeping, predictable scheduling, technological innovation, and clear labor rules reduce confusion and disputes, help build trust and improve retention.
“When managers are not constantly dealing with scheduling changes or compliance issues, they can spend more time developing their teams and creating a more sustainable work environment,” he says. “We’ve invested in technology that helps us handle high volume more efficiently while maintaining consistency. Self-ordering kiosks now represent about 25% of our total orders, and those orders typically come in with higher check averages, generally running 4 to 6% above counter service with some locations seeing increases closer to 7 to 10%. That adoption reduces congestion at the front counter during peak periods and improves throughput.”
Engineering Menus for Better Performance
According to the restaurant-focused Eisner Advisory Group’s Jean Hagan, menu engineering can backfire, creating lower sales and lower average checks if customers find the quality of the food or experience compromised. While reviewing a restaurant’s product mix and identifying lower-selling menu items is important, streamlining need to be intentional. She points to a strategy of buying pre-prepped vegetable to cut the amount of time it takes to create a dish. While these cost more on the front end, doing this cuts labor dollars in prep time without compromising overall quality.
Chef Chris Moore, meanwhile, acknowledges that the cost of food has prompted LBA Hospitality to reengineer menus not only based on overall customer preferences but also regional differences. While garnishes have been simplified or eliminated throughout the network, she says that thinking about presentation and visual impact can further expedite the process.
“As less is often more, we consider how we can plate things differently, perhaps by using a more flavorful or color-forward sauce on something that can eliminate the need for microgreens,” she says. “We also try to look for alternatives based on what dishes are successful in some locations. The price of beef is insane right now, while bison and venison are less expensive and will be embraced at some of our outlets. While dishes with bison and venison may not work well in parts of Florida, these will appeal to customers in Appalachia. While well-thought-out substitutes cut costs, we can still deliver the quality of cuisine LBA’s restaurants are known for.
At Pietro’s, a combination of menu, service, and front-of-the-house engineering have helped Murdaca and his managers keep costs in check. These decisions were driven by both the availability of quality labor in the San Francisco Bay area and the realities of labor management in the state of California. Owner Pete Murdaca cites the “Market Cut,” a menu selection that required sauce from the pasta station, seared prawns from sauté, steak from the grill, and fried basil from the fry station, with extensive garnish. By simplifying the dish, less labor was needed, service was expedited, and the dish remained popular. “Line cooks are difficult to find, hire, and train, making this a necessary and impactful change,” he affirms.
“We previously had [cooks] using small tweezers to place fried basil and freshly grate cheese on dish after dish,” Murdaca explains. “At the volume we operate, this was not sustainable. To keep plates hot and moving efficiently, we would have needed to double our expo staffing, which was not feasible from either a labor cost or staffing standpoint. Therefore, we adjusted several garnish standards to be less intricate while still maintaining quality and consistency. On the bar side, we reduced the number of liquor products we offered. With such a large selection, bartenders frequently had to climb ladders to access bottles, which slowed service and created inefficiencies. This setup did not support speed, safety, or staffing needs. In this case, less truly was more.”
Atlas Restaurant’s Jennie Harman says that batching cocktails at various properties not only cuts prep time but also preserves the integrity of their restaurants’ concepts. “Many of our cocktails are labor-intensive, and batching them ensures the guest receives the product as intended,” she says. “We are consistently evaluating our steps of service and teams’ product knowledge to ensure we are able to deliver on high expectations. If there’s a step of service or a method that team members are consistently skipping or cutting corners on, we reevaluate to see what we can change to exceed expectations while keeping team members engaged and valued.”
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