The Essentials: Build a Full-Service Restaurant's Kitchen and Team

How do I test my kitchen before opening?

Run mock services with the people who will work opening night. Simulate a full Friday: a printed set of tickets at the pace you expect, all stations firing, and someone timing every plate from fire to pass. Log where tickets stack up, whether that is a single sauté station, a fryer that cannot recover temperature, or a dessert station with no refrigeration. Compare each dish's plate cost and prep time to your target food cost, commonly 28-35% of menu price. Cut or simplify any dish that needs more than two or three steps at the pass during rush. A menu that tastes great in a quiet test kitchen but jams the line on a 100-cover night is a design problem, and it is far cheaper to fix in week minus two.

Who should supply a new full-service restaurant?

Most restaurants use both a broadline distributor and specialty suppliers. Broadline companies such as Sysco, US Foods, and Performance Food Group cover dry goods, dairy, frozen, paper, and chemicals with one delivery and one invoice, and they may offer credit terms once you are approved. Local farms, butchers, and fish purveyors give you the freshness and the story that a concept built on ingredients needs, usually at a higher price per pound and with smaller minimums. Before opening, negotiate delivery days, order cutoff times, and minimums, and line up a backup vendor for your five most critical items. Count on a few weeks to open accounts, and expect new accounts to start on shorter payment terms.

How many front-of-house and back-of-house staff do I need?

Build the schedule from projected covers, not from a headcount you saw at another restaurant. A common starting point is one server per three or four tables, plus hosts, bussers or food runners, bartenders if you serve alcohol, and a kitchen of line cooks, prep, and dishwashers sized to your busiest night. Front-of-house pay is shaped by tip credits; the federal cash wage floor for tipped employees is $2.13 an hour, but many states require much more, so budget from your own state's rule. Interview and hire 10-20% more than you need, cross-train servers to run food and cooks to prep, and keep a standing pipeline of applicants, because turnover in restaurants is high and never stops.

What POS and reservation systems should I set up?

Pick a restaurant-specific POS such as Toast, Square for Restaurants, or Clover, and load the real menu with modifiers, course firing, and tax settings weeks before opening. Test split checks, voids, comps, gift cards, and tip adjustments with staff, because these are the tasks that go wrong under pressure. Confirm the kitchen display or printers route tickets to the right stations. If you take reservations, a system like OpenTable, Resy, or Tock also captures guest preferences and no-show data. Compare the total cost, including hardware, monthly software fees, and card processing rates near 2.5-3%, not just the sticker price.

What should opening-week staffing look like?

Expect a surge from curiosity and press, followed by a dip when the novelty fades. Staff the first week to handle the surge with a full floor, but do not lock in permanent hours at that level. Schedule managers on the floor for every service, keep menus tight for two to four weeks, and hold a 15-minute pre-shift meeting each day covering 86'd items, specials, and one thing to improve from yesterday. Review labor percentage and average ticket times daily for the first month, and adjust prep pars weekly. Plan to fine-tune scheduling for two full months before you trust your labor numbers.

What build mistakes sink new restaurants?

Three come up again and again. Stress-testing only for taste, so the first busy Saturday exposes a bottleneck with paying guests waiting. Relying on one vendor for a critical item such as protein or produce, so a missed delivery forces you to 86 half the menu. And under-hiring to control payroll, which produces slow tables and errors exactly when first impressions form. Guard against each: run at least two mock services at 80-100% of projected volume, keep a second supplier account open for your top five ingredients, and schedule to your forecast, not your budget hope. Review the first month's numbers weekly with your management team: labor percentage, ticket times, waste, and comps, then adjust the schedule and prep pars before habits set.

How should I cross-train and plan opening-day roles?

Cross-training gives you a buffer against call-outs. A server who can expedite, a line cook who can run prep, and a host who can bus tables let a short shift keep moving. Write a simple role card for each position with its opening, side work, and closing duties, and run a two-day training block before soft opening that covers the menu, allergens, POS, and service steps. Track who is trained on which station in a shared grid, and update it monthly. Pay for training hours, since unpaid training creates wage and hour problems in most states.

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