For restaurants

Restaurant rota software: kitchen, floor and bar on one screen

A restaurant runs three teams on three clocks. The kitchen is in for prep hours before the doors, the floor is sized to the bookings, and the bar stays until the last table pays. InShift keeps them as departments on one rota, with shift types for each, a Saturday that can ask the team for two more people, and an app where every chef and waiter sees their own week.

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Two services, three departments and a shift that ends after midnight

A 70 cover room lives in two waves: lunch from 12:00 and dinner from 18:00, with a hollow afternoon in between. Putting everyone on one long shift from 11:00 to midnight is the expensive way to cover it, because from three to five you are paying seven people for the work of two. The rota that pays uses four or five shift types instead: prep from half eight for the kitchen, a lunch shift for the floor that ends when the last table leaves, a dinner shift from five, a split for the chef de partie who holds the same section for both services, and a bar shift that closes with the room.

The second thing a spreadsheet hides is that the jobs are not interchangeable. When the grill chef calls in sick, the answer is another chef, and the gap has to show up as a kitchen gap before Saturday; a name in a group chat hides it. The third is the clock itself: a bartender who starts at 17:00 and finishes at 00:30 has worked one shift, and the hours have to add up as one shift, on one day, at one rate, with the night part paid as night.

Restaurants that run the rota as a photo in the chat lose the same things every week. Changes after the photo went out reach nobody. A busy Saturday is covered by ringing round. At the end of the month the hours for kitchen, floor and bar come from three places and rarely agree. Below is the same restaurant in InShift, screen by screen.

Positions and departments

Kitchen, floor and bar as rows on the same rota

On the “Job positions” tab of “Employees” the positions of a restaurant sit in departments: kitchen with head chef, chef de partie and kitchen porter, floor with waiting staff and host, bar with bartenders. The planner shows people in rows by department, so a kitchen short on Saturday is visible on Tuesday, when there is still time to do something about it. The frame is the demo organisation, with its own departments.

  • “Add position” and “Add department” without a limit on either
  • Each department gets its own shift types: prep from 08:30, a lunch shift, a dinner shift, the bar until close
  • A waiter who can cover the bar gets the bar as a second position in “Add positions for cover” and sees bar open shifts too
  • Two shifts for one person on one day, lunch and dinner, with a “Time conflict” warning if they overlap
The admin panel screen by screen

A Saturday on the rota of a 70 cover restaurant

Lunch from 12:00, dinner from 18:00, the book close to full. The kitchen is in long before the doors, the floor is sized to the covers, and one split holds a section through both services.

08:30–16:30 · Head chef

Deliveries and prep, then runs the lunch service

10:30–15:00 and 18:00–23:30 · Chef de partie

A split: the same section for lunch and for dinner

11:30–15:30 · Waiting staff × 2

Lunch only, out when the last table leaves

15:00–23:30 · Sous chef

Takes the handover at three, runs dinner, closes the kitchen

17:00–23:30 · Waiting staff × 5

Dinner: one per twelve to fourteen covers on a full book

17:00–00:30 · Bartender

Sets up, holds the bar until the last table has paid

17:30–00:00 · Kitchen porter

In for the dinner push, out when the last pan is clean

Across the week the day repeats with a different headcount: three on the floor for a Tuesday dinner, five on Friday and Saturday. A shift type that ends at 00:30 is entered as 17:00–00:30 and counts as one shift on the day it started.

The busy Saturday

An open shift the team picks up themselves

A party of thirty on Saturday needs two more on the floor and one more in the kitchen. Instead of ringing round, the manager opens “Open shift for the team”, sets the position, the shift type, the days and “How many people needed”, ticks “Offer to the team” and publishes the rota. Everyone whose position matches sees it on the “Open shifts” tile of the app and taps “I want it”. The manager picks from the volunteers.

  • One open shift for several people: “How many people needed” goes up to the number you are short
  • The mode lives in “Request rules”: “Requests, manager picks”, or off, and gaps are filled by the manager only
  • The same move closes a gap after a sick call: an open shift instead of a phone list
  • Volunteers wait on the “Open shifts” tab of “Requests” with their status, and only one can be picked per shift
Swaps and open shifts in the app

Team chat

Tonight’s specials and what is off the menu, read by name

Every service has news that all of the floor has to know before the first order: the specials, the dish that ran out, the party of thirty at eight. “Team chat” in InShift has a “General chat”, a channel for every location and “Announcements” with a “Read by” count that names who has and has not opened it. The waiter who never saw the message about the sold out sea bass is visible before a guest orders it.

  • Groups for the kitchen or for the weekend crew, separate from the general chat
  • Direct messages between colleagues inside the app
  • A push for every announcement; a person can put one channel on “Mute” without losing the rest
  • The manager can delete a message, and a report goes to InShift support

In the waiter’s pocket

Their own shifts once published and who is on the section tonight

After “Publish”, everyone sees their own shifts on iPhone or Android: the day, the time, the location, and “Who else is working” for the same day. A swap starts there too: “Substitute”, then “Find a replacement” or “Available swaps”, a colleague taps “Take shift”, the manager approves. A push arrives for every change to the rota and before the shift.

  • Sign-in with a six digit invite code or a QR code from the manager
  • The rota in the phone’s own calendar through “My schedule in the phone calendar”
  • Their own hours and pay on “Stats”; nobody sees anyone else’s rate
  • “Quiet hours” for the people who close the room at one in the morning

Moving a restaurant onto InShift

One evening for a restaurant of twenty, the team joining included.

  1. 1

    Sign up and the location

    Email or Google. The restaurant is a location with an address; a second site or a summer terrace with its own team is a second location.

  2. 2

    Departments, positions, shift types

    Kitchen, floor and bar with the positions inside. Shift types like “Prep 08:30–16:30”, “Lunch 11:30–15:30”, “Dinner 17:00–23:30”, “Bar 17:00–00:30”, each with its days of the week.

  3. 3

    The team

    “Add multiple” pastes a list of names at once, and each person gets a position and a department. “Invite team” gives a QR code and an invite code for the app.

  4. 4

    The first week and publish

    Shifts from the cell menu, the Saturday party through an open shift, then “Publish”. Next week is “Copy last week” plus the days off.

Frequently asked questions

Can one person work lunch and dinner as two shifts on one day?▾

Yes. A location has shift types such as “Lunch 11:30–15:30” and “Dinner 17:00–23:30”, and one person can be given both on the same day. Overlapping times are flagged as a “Time conflict”, and the hours of both add up in “Payroll” for that day.

How are shifts counted when the kitchen closes after midnight?▾

A shift type can cross midnight, for example 17:00–00:30, and it counts as one shift on the day it started. The hours inside the “Night hours” window set on the “Premiums” tab are paid with the premium you choose, and they show as their own column in the accruals.

How many waiting staff does a 70 cover room need?▾

On a full book one waiter per twelve to fourteen covers is the usual dinner ratio, so five for 70 covers, and two or three at lunch. The weekly need is the sum of hours per day across seven days divided by the contract week: five people on six and a half hour dinner shifts plus two on four hour lunch shifts come to roughly 280 hours a week, or seven to eight full-time equivalents with some slack.

How fast does a gap in the rota get filled?▾

Two ways. The person who cannot come in opens “Substitute”, picks the shift and a colleague, the colleague taps “Take shift”, the manager approves in one tap. Or the manager creates an open shift with the position and the number of people, the team sees it in the app, and volunteers tap “I want it”.

Does it connect to the till?▾

Outside Ukraine, POS systems are connected on request. What is there today for every restaurant: API keys and webhooks in “Integrations”, so sales or payroll data can move to your own system or accounting, and an export of the rota and hours to Excel.

What does it cost for a restaurant of twenty?▾

Free for one location and up to 10 people. Beyond that it is a subscription per active person on the “Employees” list, with locations, payroll and the team app included. The numbers are on the pricing page.

Get the whole restaurant on one rota

Departments, shift types and the first week take one evening, and the kitchen, the floor and the bar see the rota in the app the same day.

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