How to roster kitchen and front-of-house employees

Written by Roster Flow. Published 23 June 2026.

A restaurant can have the right number of people on a Friday and still have a bad night, because the kitchen and the floor were rostered as if they were one team. The cooks arrive for prep while the floor is still empty, a server goes on break just as the mains come up, and the kitchen hand who could have run food is stuck at the sink with nobody to cover. The restaurant rostering guide covers the whole week. This post is about the join between the two teams: how to time them, how they cover for each other, and what the award says when they do.

Two teams on two clocks

Build each team’s day from its own work, then line the two up. The kitchen’s day is set by deliveries, prep and the clean down. The floor’s day is set by bookings and walk ins. The table shows the same dinner service from each side of the pass.

Two things follow. The kitchen usually starts earlier and finishes later than the floor, so kitchen shifts tend to be fewer and longer. And the floor needs its people in stages: one or two to set the room, more as the bookings build, and the first person sent home as soon as the room starts to empty.

Line the rosters up at the pass

Once each team has its shifts, lay both rosters on one timeline for each service and check the moments where one team depends on the other.

• First orders. A cook on every station the first orders need, before the first table sits down.
• The peak. Somebody calling the pass for the whole peak, and enough people on the floor to take plates as they come up. Food waiting under the lamps is the clearest sign that the two rosters do not match.
• Last orders. The kitchen stays staffed until the last order is out, even after the floor has started sending people home.
• The close. Kitchen and floor finish together or in a set order, so nobody is left locking up alone.

This is much easier when both teams sit in one roster, grouped by team and sorted by start time, than in two files that nobody compares. In a spreadsheet, that means one list of shifts with a team column, as in the weekly roster in Excel.

Stagger starts and finishes on both sides

Staggering is how a restaurant ties its wage bill to the trade. Rather than bringing everyone in at 5:00 pm, write down when each position is actually needed. The grill cook needs time to set up before the first order, not three hours of it. One server can set the room while the rest arrive with the bookings. A food runner is worth rostering only for the stretch when plates come up faster than servers can take them.

Finishes matter as much as starts. On the floor, send people home in the order the room empties, and decide in advance who goes first so it is not argued about at 9:00 pm. In the kitchen, close stations one at a time, and keep the kitchen hand until the clean down is done rather than until the last plate goes out.

Plan breaks so the pass never goes quiet

Under the Restaurant Industry Award 2020, an employee who works 5 hours or more and up to 10 hours is entitled to an unpaid meal break of at least 30 minutes, taken after the first hour of work and within the first 6 hours (clause 16.2). Clause 16.3 asks employers to make all reasonable efforts to spread breaks evenly across a shift, and under clause 16.5 an employee whose meal break is not allowed at its rostered time is paid 50% of their ordinary hourly rate extra until they get it or the shift ends.

• Before doors open or after the peak. Not in the middle of it, on either side of the pass.
• Never both ends at once. During service, the person calling the pass and the floor supervisor should not be on break together, and neither should a bartender and the only person who can cover the bar.
• Written on the roster. A break time on the roster is one the team can plan around. A break taken when it quietens down often never comes, and under clause 16.6 a meal break with no rostered time that is not allowed attracts the same extra 50% from 6 hours after starting.

The break calculator works out paid hours once unpaid breaks come off. Other awards set breaks differently, so check yours with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool.

Cross-training and what the award says about it

The kitchen hand who can run food, the server who can plate desserts and the bartender who can make coffee are what get a restaurant through a sick call. The Restaurant Industry Award 2020 and the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020, whose coverage includes hotels and taverns, both allow it. Clause 17 of each lets an employer require an employee to perform duties across the classification streams in Schedule A that the employee is competent to perform. In the Restaurant Industry Award, those streams include food and beverage, where waiting, bar work and floor supervision sit, and kitchen, where kitchen attendants and cooks sit.

Moving someone up is where the cost changes. Under clause 18.8 of the Restaurant Industry Award, an employee who performs the duties of a higher classification for 2 or more hours on a day is paid the minimum rate for that higher classification for the whole day. For less than 2 hours, they are paid the higher rate for the time spent on those duties. The Hospitality Industry (General) Award has the same 2 hour rule in clause 22, except for Food and beverage attendants grade 2 and 3. So if a kitchen attendant spends the night cooking on a station and that work is a higher classification, the whole night is paid at the higher rate, and the timesheet should say so. The classifications and their rates are on the Restaurant Industry Award pay rates page.

Know who can move

Keep a short skills list beside the roster: each person, the stations they can work on each side of the pass, and anything else they can cover, such as the bar or the coffee machine. Then use it when you build the week.

• Name at least one person on every service who can move from the floor to the kitchen, or the other way, if someone does not turn up
• Give cross-training shifts to the people who want them, on quieter services, rather than learning on a Saturday
• Note higher duties on the roster and the timesheet, so payroll pays the day correctly
• Check that a swap between teams leaves both sides with the skills they need, not just the right number of people

A worked example: Friday dinner at a 60 seat restaurant

A restaurant seats 60, opens for dinner at 6:00 pm and takes its last food orders at 9:00 pm. This Friday it has 85 bookings, and the room is full from 7:00 to 8:30. The kitchen runs a grill station and a larder and dessert station. Every shift of 5 hours or more has a 30 minute unpaid meal break. This is an example of the method, not a staffing recommendation.

The kitchen has 22.5 paid hours (7.5, 5.5, 5 and 4.5) and the floor has 22 (5.5, 4.5, 4, 3 and 5), so the night comes to 44.5. Through the peak there are four people in the kitchen and five on the floor, including the runner who takes plates from the pass. The breaks taken before 6:00 pm are all before the doors open. The three taken during service all fall after the peak: the head chef covers the grill, the grill cook helps at the sink, and the supervisor covers the bar. Nobody works more than 5 hours in a row after a meal break, so no extra rest break is needed under clause 16.7.

Two costs are worth a second look. Four people finish at 10:30 pm, and under clause 24.2 of the Restaurant Industry Award, ordinary hours worked between 10:00 pm and midnight Monday to Friday attract an extra amount per hour or part of an hour, so finishing the close by 10:00 would save that amount for each of them. And if the head chef works lunch on Saturday as a full-time employee, clause 15.1(e) means the earliest start is 8:30 am, 10 hours after Friday’s finish.

Split the wage cost by team

Total the hours for each side of the pass separately, as in the example, and compare each with the sales it supports. A kitchen that needs the same hours whether the room holds 40 or 70 guests, or a floor that grows every week while covers stay flat, only shows up when the two are counted apart. The labour cost percentage calculator turns the hours and rates for each team into a share of sales.

Split shifts in the kitchen

Kitchens that serve lunch and dinner often use split shifts, with a cook working both services and going home in the afternoon. Under the Restaurant Industry Award the spread from the first start to the last finish is at most 12 hours (clause 15.1(g)), and full-time and part-time employees with a broken working day are paid a split shift allowance for each separate work period of 2 hours or more (clause 21.3). The Hospitality Industry (General) Award also caps the spread at 12 hours for full-time and part-time employees (clauses 15.1(c)(v) and 15.2(e)) and pays its split shift allowance by the length of the break between the two periods (clause 26.14). The split shift roster template lays out a week of them, and the Hospitality Award pay rates page shows that award’s rates.

Brief both teams together

The roster puts people in the right places. A five minute briefing before the doors open tells them what the service holds. Bring the kitchen and the floor together rather than briefing them separately, and cover the bookings and large tables, dishes that are off, dietary notes on bookings, who is running food and who covers whose break. Anything the next service needs to know, such as a dish running low or a table that complained, goes on a shift handover sheet at the close.

Publishing and changing the roster

Publish both teams at the same time, in one roster, so the floor can see who is cooking and the kitchen can see who is on the floor. For full-time and part-time employees, the Restaurant Industry Award requires a roster showing each person’s name and start and finish times, posted where the team can easily see it, and a change needs the employee’s agreement or 7 days’ notice (clause 15.3). When a sick call comes in from one side, look at the skills list before the phone list, and check that the cover does not push anyone past the limits above.

Roster Flow handles the week around the roster: availability and leave from staff phones, the roster published to everybody at once, clock ins that become timesheets, and approved hours sent to Xero, MYOB or a CSV file. See how it works for restaurants.

A checklist for kitchen and floor rosters

• Each team’s shifts are built from its own work, then lined up on one timeline
• A cook is on every station before the first table sits down
• Floor numbers at the peak match the plates coming up at the pass
• Meal breaks are rostered before doors open or after the peak, never both ends at once
• Somebody on every service can move between the kitchen and the floor
• Higher duties of 2 hours or more are paid at the higher rate for the day
• Hours are totalled for the kitchen and the floor separately
• Split shifts stay within a 12 hour spread

Sources

• Fair Work Commission: Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119]
• Fair Work Commission: Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 [MA000009]
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award
• Fair Work Ombudsman: breaks

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