Staffing a service by feel usually means overstaffing on slow nights and running short on busy ones. Set your expected covers and a ratio for each role, waiters, kitchen, bussers, whatever applies to your outlet, and this calculator rounds up to the staff count you actually need.
Staff needed for a role = expected covers divided by that role's covers-per-staff ratio, rounded up to the next whole person.
| Role | Covers per staff (ratio) | Staff needed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | |||
| 11 | |||
| 5 |
A restaurant expecting 150 covers, running a 1:18 waiter ratio, 1:14 kitchen ratio and 1:35 busser ratio, needs 9 waiters, 11 kitchen staff and 5 bussers, 25 people on the floor and in the kitchen for that single service.
It depends heavily on service style. Full-service dining often runs one waiter per 16-20 covers, quick-service can stretch to 1:30 or more, kitchen line staff commonly sit around 1:12-15, and bussers around 1:35-40.
Not necessarily, weekend and banquet covers can justify a tighter ratio since guests expect faster turnaround and higher service standards during peak demand, while a slow Tuesday lunch can run leaner.
No, it gives you a snapshot for the covers you enter. For a service spanning many hours, run it separately for lunch and dinner peaks and build in overlap coverage for breaks.
Track total payroll cost as a percentage of revenue, one of the fastest signals of an operation running out of control.
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