Cafe rostering guide for Australian small businesses

Written by Roster Flow. Published 22 June 2026.

A cafe roster is built around a short, lopsided day. Somebody has to be in early to turn on the machine and take the milk delivery, the coffee queue builds before most people start work, lunch brings a second peak, and by mid afternoon the room is quiet and the close has started. Weekends move the peak later and make it bigger. The general steps for any business are in the complete guide to staff rostering, and the restaurant rostering guide covers venues built around lunch and dinner services. This guide covers what is particular to cafes.

What makes a cafe roster different

Four things set a cafe roster apart from most others.

• Early starts. The opener’s shift begins before trading, and on weekdays any time before 6:00 am can cost more under the award, as set out below.
• One bottleneck. Coffee goes out only as fast as the machine and the people on it. Another person on the floor does not shorten the queue if the barista is on their own.
• Short days. A cafe that closes at 3:00 pm has little room for staggered shifts, so minimum shift lengths and meal breaks shape almost every shift.
• Weekends. Saturday and Sunday are often the busiest days, their hours cost more than weekday hours under the award, and the people who want them are often students and casuals.

Check which award covers your cafe

Many cafes are covered by the Restaurant Industry Award 2020, which includes cafés in its definition of the restaurant industry in clause 4.2. There are exceptions. Clause 4.4 leaves out the fast food and retail industries, hotels, motels and registered clubs, and restaurants run in connection with hotels or clubs. A cafe run by a hotel usually falls under the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020, whose clause 4.2 includes restaurants operating in connection with premises that award covers. A business selling food and drink mainly to take away can fall under the Fast Food Industry Award 2020, although its clause 4.2 leaves out coffee shops and cafes in food courts and shopping centres that provide mainly a sit down service.

The award decides your minimum shifts, penalty rates and breaks, so confirm yours with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool before relying on anything below. The rules in this guide are from the Restaurant Industry Award as consolidated to 1 July 2026. If your business has an enterprise agreement, its terms may be different.

Start from the trade, half an hour at a time

Your point of sale already knows when the cafe is busy, and many systems can report sales by the hour. Pull three or four ordinary weeks, leave out school holidays and one off events, and write down for each day of the week:

• Coffees sold in each half hour, because that sets how many people the machine needs
• Food orders in each half hour, which sets the kitchen
• When the first customers usually arrive, and when the last table usually leaves
• Deliveries, baking and prep that have to happen before opening or after close

Then decide what one person on the machine can keep up with in your cafe, and at what point a second person on milk and handing out orders pays for itself. There is no universal figure: it depends on the machine, the grinders, the menu and how many orders are for takeaway. Watch a few rushes, write the number down and adjust it as you learn. The staff coverage calculator sets the number of people you need in each half hour against the shifts on your roster, so the gaps stand out.

The roles a cafe roster needs

Roster roles, not just names. In a small cafe one person may cover two roles in a day, but the roster should still show who is on the machine, who is in the kitchen and who is on the floor at every point in the day.

Train at least two people on every role that can stop the cafe. If only one person can make coffee, their sick day closes the machine. A short list of who can work which station, kept beside the roster, makes sick calls and swaps much easier to fill.

Opening and closing shifts

The open and the close are where cafe shifts most often run long. Write down what each involves and how long it really takes, then roster to that rather than to habit.

• The open. Turning on and warming up the machine, checking the grind, taking deliveries, filling the cabinet, setting tables and counting the float.
• The close. Cleaning the machine and grinders, packing down tables, cleaning the kitchen and floors, putting stock away and cashing up.

If the open takes 30 minutes, a 6:00 am start for a 6:30 am opening is enough, and on weekdays the difference matters. Under clause 24.2 of the Restaurant Industry Award, ordinary hours worked between midnight and 6:00 am Monday to Friday attract an extra amount per hour or part of an hour on top of the usual rate, so a 5:45 am start brings that amount in for the part hour before 6:00. Split the close the same way: the person closing the kitchen does not need to be the person who opened it, and one closer can do the front while the kitchen hand does the back.

Build the week in order

1. Mark the trading hours and peaksFor each day, note opening and closing times, the coffee rush, the lunch peak and the quiet stretch, taken from your sales history.
2. Place the openers and closersRoster the open and the close first, with somebody trained on the machine and the register on each.
3. Add the fixed shiftsPlace full-time employees, then part-time employees on their guaranteed hours and inside the availability they agreed in writing.
4. Cover the peaksAdd casuals to the rushes and to weekend brunch, checking each person’s availability before you place them.
5. Place the breaksPut a meal break on every shift that needs one, in the dip after the morning rush or before lunch.
6. Check the rules and the costCheck minimum shifts, breaks and days off, then total the hours with weekend and public holiday hours shown separately.
7. Publish itSend the roster to the team and post it where everyone can see it, with the date it was published.

A spreadsheet handles this well for a small team. The weekly roster in Excel sets one up with totals that add themselves up, and the free cafe roster template has a filled in cafe week to start from.

The award rules that shape a cafe roster

These are the rules in the Restaurant Industry Award 2020 that come up most often on a cafe roster. Read the clause itself when a situation is not straightforward.

Before changing someone’s regular roster, clause 33 requires you to consult them: explain what will change and when, invite their views, including about family or caring responsibilities, and consider what they say. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on rosters sets out the same steps.

Weekends, early mornings and public holidays

Clause 24.2 sets the rate for ordinary hours by when they are worked, as a percentage of the minimum hourly rate. For casuals the percentage already includes the 25% casual loading from clause 11.1. These are the figures in Table 8 as consolidated to 1 July 2026.

Two things follow for a cafe. Sunday hours for full-time and part-time staff cost half as much again as weekday hours, so plan Sunday from Sunday’s own trade rather than copying Saturday. And on a public holiday, clause 24.4 sets a minimum payment of 4 hours for full-time and part-time employees and 2 hours for casuals, even if they work a shorter time. The dollar figures change every July, so take them from the Restaurant Industry Award pay rates page, and check the public holiday dates for your state before you cost any week that includes one.

Breaks on a short cafe day

Under Table 2 in clause 16.2, 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. If that break is rostered later than 5 hours after starting, they also get a 20 minute paid meal break within the first 5 hours. A shift of more than 10 hours adds two 20 minute paid rest breaks. The table gives no break for a shift of under 5 hours.

In a cafe the natural time for a meal break is the dip between the morning rush and lunch. Two clauses make the timing matter. Under clause 16.5, if an unpaid meal break is not allowed at its rostered time, the employee is paid 50% of their ordinary hourly rate extra from when the break was due until they get it or the shift ends. Under clause 16.7, an employee required to work more than 5 continuous hours after their meal break gets an extra 20 minute paid rest break. An opener whose meal break ends at 8:30 am and who then works through to 2:30 pm is owed that rest break as well.

A worked example: a weekday at a 40 seat cafe

A cafe seats 40 and trades from 6:30 am to 3:00 pm on weekdays. Its sales history shows a takeaway coffee rush from 6:30 to 8:30, steady trade through the morning, a lunch peak from 12:00 to 1:30 and a quiet last hour. The owner has found that the machine needs two people from opening until late morning. The figures are an example of the method, not a recommendation for any cafe.

That comes to 35.25 paid hours: 8 each for the opener and the cook once their 30 minute breaks come off, 4.75 for the part-time barista, 4.5 for the kitchen hand, 4 each for the morning floor casual and the closer, and 2 for the lunch casual. The opener starts at 6:00 am, so no hours fall before 6:00. The two shifts of 5 hours or more have a meal break after the first hour and within the first 5 hours, and neither person works more than 5 hours straight after it: the opener works 4 hours 45 minutes after their break and the cook 4 hours 30 minutes. The part-time barista’s shift is inside their agreed availability and above the 3 hour daily minimum, and the lunch casual’s 2 hours is the shortest casual engagement the award allows.

The machine has two people on it from 6:30 until 11:15, apart from the opener’s half hour break after the rush, and the closer is trained on it for the last hour. Saturday is built the same way from Saturday’s own sales, with a later brunch peak and every hour costed at Saturday rates.

From the roster to the pay run

Pay is based on the hours actually worked, and cafes drift from the roster in small ways every day: an opener who comes in early for a delivery, a closer who stays to finish the machine, a break taken late because the queue did not let up. Record start, finish and break times as they happen, compare them with the roster before payroll, and approve the differences rather than finding them later.

Roster Flow handles that part of the week: 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 cafes.

A checklist for every cafe roster

• The award is confirmed, and the rules checked are the ones in that award
• Each day is rostered from its own sales by the half hour, not copied from last week
• The open and close are rostered to what they really take, with weekday starts at 6:00 am or later where possible
• At least two people on each shift can work the machine
• Part-time employees are inside their agreed availability and on at least 3 hours
• Casual shifts are at least 2 hours
• Shifts of 5 hours or more have a meal break after the first hour and within the first 6
• Saturday, Sunday and public holiday hours are costed separately
• The roster is posted where everyone can see it, with the date it was published

Sources

• Fair Work Commission: Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119]
• Fair Work Commission: Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 [MA000009]
• Fair Work Commission: Fast Food Industry Award 2020 [MA000003]
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award
• Fair Work Ombudsman: rosters
• Fair Work Ombudsman: breaks

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