Labour Shortages: How to Keep Your Restaurant Running

Labour Shortages Are Not Temporary—Here’s What Changes When Staff Quit in Bulk

A restaurant with 10 full-time staff and 5 part-timers can suddenly find itself short of 6 bodies after a single week. The reasons don’t matter—burnout, better pay elsewhere, or a sudden surge in orders you didn’t forecast. What matters is the damage: slower service, longer queues, and customers who leave without ordering or who order less because the wait is too long. The cost isn’t just lost sales; it’s the reputation hit when regulars assume you’ve gone downhill.

The first rule is to stop treating labour shortages as a hiring problem. You can’t always fill gaps fast enough, and even if you do, the churn means you’re constantly retraining. The real question is: How do you run the restaurant you’ve got, not the one you wish you had? The answer lies in three levers: cutting waste in how you use staff, automating what doesn’t need a human, and shifting demand so it matches the hands you’ve got.

The Hidden Cost of ‘Just Hiring More’

Most operators’ first instinct is to throw money at the problem—raise wages, offer bonuses, or hire agency staff. That works until it doesn’t. The second-order costs are where it breaks:

Agency staff cost 20–30% more per hour than permanent hires, and they’re often less reliable. If you’re paying £12/hour for a permanent server but £15/hour for an agency fill-in, you’re not just covering the gap—you’re funding someone else’s profit margin.
Overtime becomes the default. When you’re short, managers and chefs start clocking extra hours to cover shifts. That’s not sustainable: burnout turns into turnover, and you’re back where you started.
Training never ends. Every new hire—even a temporary one—means 2–3 days of onboarding. At £10/hour, that’s £240–£360 per person before they’ve even taken an order. Multiply that by 6 hires in a month, and you’ve spent £1,440–£2,160 on staff who might not stick around.

The maths is simple: if you’re losing £500 a week in sales because service is slow, but hiring to fix it costs £800 a week in extra wages, you’ve made the problem worse. The solution isn’t more bodies; it’s smarter workflows.

Where Staff Time Actually Disappears

A 2023 UK Hospitality Report found that 30% of a server’s time in a busy restaurant is spent on non-sales tasks—chasing tables, reconciling orders, or dealing with no-shows. That’s not just lost revenue; it’s time that could be spent taking more orders if it were automated. The biggest time sinks are:

Order corrections. A guest changes their mind mid-order, or the kitchen gets it wrong. Without a system that flags changes in real time, a server spends 5–10 minutes per incident sorting it out—time that could be spent upselling or clearing tables.
Payment delays. If you’re still running a till that requires manual keying of orders, every card transaction adds 30–45 seconds. At 50 transactions an hour, that’s 25 minutes wasted—enough to serve 3–4 more tables.
Loyalty friction. If your regulars have to dig out a card or remember a code every time, they’re less likely to order. A system that auto-applies discounts or tracks habits saves staff from chasing details and customers from dropping out.

The fix isn’t hiring more people to handle these tasks—it’s removing them entirely. Tools that sync orders, payments, and loyalty in one place cut the friction that eats up staff time.

How to Shift Demand When You’re Short-Staffed

You can’t always control how many customers walk in, but you can control how they arrive. The goal is to flatten peaks so your existing staff aren’t overwhelmed at 7pm while sitting idle at 3pm. Here’s how:

Pre-orders and reservations. If 60% of your lunch trade is walk-ins, but you’ve got staff gaps at that time, switch to a reservation system. Even a simple table-booking tool (like the one in Berryin) lets you manage capacity without overpromising.
Off-peak incentives. Offer a 10% discount for orders placed between 2pm–4pm, or a free dessert with any meal ordered before 6pm. The discount isn’t the cost—it’s the redistribution of demand. If you’re losing £20 on a £100 order, but that order lets you serve 2 more tables instead of 1, you’ve made a net gain.
Delivery as a buffer. If your dine-in staff are stretched, push more orders to delivery. The margin might be thinner, but it’s revenue you’d otherwise lose. The key is controlling the cut: use a system that lets you set your own delivery fees (e.g., £2.50 per order) instead of handing 25–30% to a marketplace.

The worst mistake is assuming you have to say no to customers. The better play is to steer them to times when you’ve got the staff to handle them—without them even noticing.

What Breaks When You Cut Staff

Automating tasks or shifting demand won’t work if the system itself creates new problems. Here’s what goes wrong when you’re not careful:

Over-reliance on tech. If your staff aren’t trained to use the tools you’ve introduced, you’ve just replaced one bottleneck with another. A server who can’t quickly adjust an order on a tablet is worse than one writing it down—because now the kitchen gets it wrong, and you’ve lost the customer’s trust.
Hidden kitchen delays. If you’re pushing more orders to delivery, but your kitchen display isn’t synced with the front of house, tickets get lost. A 2022 study found that unsynced systems add 12–18% to kitchen prep time—meaning your “solution” just made service slower.
Customer frustration. If you’re redirecting walk-ins to reservations but your booking system is clunky, they’ll assume you’re too busy to handle them. A smooth experience—even with fewer staff—keeps them coming back.

The fix is pilot changes in small steps. Test a new workflow for a week, measure the impact on speed and sales, then scale what works. If automating orders cuts 10 minutes off a server’s shift, that’s time to take 2 more tables—or give your staff a break.

The Trade-Off: Speed vs. Staff Costs

Here’s the hard choice: Do you prioritise speed (and risk burnout) or efficiency (and risk slower service)? The answer depends on your margins and your regulars’ tolerance for waits.

Priority	What You Gain	What You Lose	Best For
Speed	Faster tables, happier walk-ins	Higher staff costs, more turnover	High-footfall, low-margin venues (e.g., fast casual)
Efficiency	Lower labour costs, smoother service	Longer waits, potential lost sales	Sit-down restaurants with loyal regulars

Example: A café with £3 average order value (AOV) can afford to wait 2–3 minutes per table. A restaurant with £25 AOV might lose £50 in sales if a table waits 10 minutes. The trade-off isn’t just about money—it’s about what your customers expect. If your regulars are used to a 5-minute wait, making them wait 10 will hurt more than saving £200 in wages.

What to Do When the Shortage Hits Hard

If you’re already in the red and staffing is a crisis, here’s the order of battle:

Audit your busiest hour. Track which tasks eat up the most time (e.g., order corrections, payments) and automate them first. Even a £29/month tool that cuts 5 minutes per server shift saves £300–£500/month in labour costs.
Offer staff flexibility. Let servers choose their shifts (within limits) to reduce no-shows. A happy server is a reliable one—and reliability is more valuable than an extra £1/hour.
Cross-train. If your chefs can also take orders during quiet periods, or your managers can jump in during rushes, you’ve just added 2–3 extra hands without hiring.
Negotiate with suppliers. Ask for longer payment terms or bulk discounts in exchange for guaranteed orders. Cash flow is just as critical as staffing when you’re stretched.

The goal isn’t to hire your way out of the shortage—it’s to run leaner until the market balances. Most labour crunches last 6–12 months. If you survive the worst of it, you’ll emerge with tighter controls and happier staff.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if I’m overstaffed or just short-staffed?

Run a sales-per-staff-hour report for a week. If your average server takes £80 in orders per hour but your busiest hour only hits £50, you’re likely overstaffed. If the same server drops to £30 during a rush, you’re short. The fix isn’t hiring more—it’s redistributing demand (e.g., reservations, off-peak discounts) or automating tasks that eat up time.

Will automating orders make my staff resentful?

Only if you don’t train them properly. Staff resist tools that make their jobs harder, not ones that make them easier. If a tablet system lets servers adjust orders in 10 seconds instead of 2 minutes, they’ll use it. The key is showing them the benefit—fewer arguments with customers, more time to upsell, and less physical strain from running back and forth.

Can I really make money on delivery if the marketplaces take 30%?

Yes, but only if you control the cut. Use a system that lets you offer delivery through your own website (no commission) or set your own rider fees (e.g., £2.50 per order). The margin isn’t in the delivery fee—it’s in keeping the customer in your ecosystem. A regular who orders from you directly spends 30–50% more over time than one who goes through a marketplace.

What’s the fastest way to cut labour costs without losing sales?

Focus on high-impact, low-effort fixes:

Switch to a self-ordering kiosk (even a basic tablet) for 20% of your trade—cuts staff time by 15–20%.
Pre-authorise payments for regulars so servers don’t have to chase cards.
Limit menu choices during rushes (e.g., “Today’s specials only”) to speed up ordering.

How do I handle staff who refuse to use new systems?

Start with a volunteer pilot group. Pick 2–3 staff who are open to change, train them thoroughly, and let them show the rest how it works. Offer a small incentive (e.g., an extra half-hour break) for early adopters. Resistance fades when staff see the system saves them time or makes their job easier—not when it’s imposed from above.

If you’re drowning in staff shortages, the first step is to stop treating symptoms. Audit where time and money are leaking, then plug the biggest holes with tools that work for your existing team—not the one you wish you had. Start with a free trial of a system that syncs orders, payments, and staff tasks, and measure the impact on your busiest day. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s keeping the doors open without breaking the bank.