Start from covers, not rooms
Room occupancy tells you a lot about breakfast, but lunch and dinner depend on something else: covers. Hotel guests eating in the restaurant, outside guests, groups, room service and bar snacks all count. Record per shift how many covers you had and how many you expected. After a few months you will see clear patterns by weekday, by season and around events in the city. Those numbers belong in the same forecast as the rest of the staff rota, so the kitchen is not scheduled separately on gut feeling.
Set a minimum staffing level per station
Every kitchen has stations that must be covered as soon as the menu is open, regardless of guest numbers: for example the hot side, the cold side and pastry. A menu with eight dishes cannot run with one cook, not even at twenty covers. Ask the head chef to write down per shift:
• which stations must be covered at minimum;
• at what level, for example chef de partie or commis;
• from what time to what time, including set-up and close-down.
That is the floor. If you cannot afford it on a quiet day, the question is more likely whether the menu should be smaller than whether you can drop a cook.
Agree thresholds for extra cover
Above the minimum, a simple agreement helps: from how many covers does someone extra come in? For example: up to sixty covers the core team, above that an extra commis on the hot side, and for a group menu or more than a hundred covers an extra cook. The right numbers depend on the menu, the kitchen layout and how much is prepared in advance, so set them together with the head chef and adjust them when reality turns out differently. What matters most is that the agreement exists. The scheduler then knows what to do when bookings rise, and the chef does not have to negotiate every week.
Do not forget kitchen porters and stewarding
Kitchen porters are often scheduled last and cut first. Yet a kitchen without clean plates, pans and gastronorm containers stops just as surely as one without cooks. Schedule the dish area for the moments when the work is actually there: after breakfast, during and after dinner and after banquets. A kitchen porter who leaves at half past ten while the banquet ends at eleven pushes the work onto the morning shift, which then starts behind. Include the end-of-day kitchen clean in the hours as well.
Plan mise en place as separate time
Chopping, stocks, sauces and desserts take time. If that prep happens during service, things go wrong as soon as it gets busy. On busy days, plan an early shift or a few hours of overlap for mise en place. That work can often be done by a commis or a less experienced person with a clear list from the chef. This keeps your experienced cooks free for service, where they are needed most.
Breakfast, à la carte and banquets are three different questions
Breakfast is easy to predict from room occupancy and has a short, intense peak. The à la carte restaurant varies from night to night. A banquet is known in advance but needs many hands at once. Do not treat them as one rota. A banquet for a hundred and twenty guests next to a full restaurant needs its own team or extra cover arranged in good time. Read more in banquet and event staffing and breakfast staffing.
Give new or extra cooks a fixed handover
An experienced cook working in your kitchen for the first time can cook, but does not yet know your menu, your recipes or your house rules. Mistakes happen mostly around allergens, labelling and food safety records. So keep a short, fixed handover at the start of the shift: which dishes, which allergens per dish, where the records are kept and who to ask. An allergen overview per dish posted in the kitchen helps everyone, including your own team.
Core team and flexible cover: who does what?
The head chef, the sous chef and the chefs de partie who know the menu and the kitchen belong to the core team. Commis roles, kitchen porters, prep shifts and extra hands for banquets can be filled more flexibly, with on-call staff or extra people from outside. That flexible cover makes sense for predictable peaks and for absence. It is less suited to covering a structural shortage of permanent cooks. If you have been bringing in outside cooks for the same station every week for months, that is a sign to open a permanent role.
Review staffing with the chef briefly every week
A quarter of an hour a week is enough: how many covers were there against the forecast, how long did plates wait at the pass, how much overtime was worked, which dishes came off the menu and how far behind was the dish area? Adjust the thresholds when they do not fit. Kitchen overtime is often the first sign that staffing is too tight, and long days are one of the best-known reasons good cooks leave.
Checklist for general managers and head chefs
• Do you record covers per shift and compare them with the forecast?
• Is it written down per shift which stations must be covered at minimum, and at what level?
• Are there agreed thresholds for an extra cook or commis when covers or groups increase?
• Is the dish area scheduled until the work is really done, including after banquets?
• Is there separate time for mise en place on busy days?
• Does a banquet get its own staffing when it coincides with a full restaurant?
• Do new and extra cooks get a fixed handover covering allergens and hygiene rules?
• Do you review covers, overtime and bottlenecks with the head chef every week?
When AXXAZ Hospitality helps
AXXAZ Hospitality supplies reliable hospitality staff to hotels across Europe, including the kitchen: cooks, commis and kitchen porters for busy weeks, banquets or absence. The more clearly your minimum staffing and thresholds are defined, the more precisely we can add to your team. It all starts with a clear staffing brief. Get in touch.
In one sentence
Plan the kitchen on covers, set a minimum per station and clear thresholds, schedule kitchen porters and prep time as part of the rota, and use extra staff for peaks and absence, not for a structural shortage.
Read more — Insights
