Guide to Restaurant Training: What to Cover and Why It’s Important

Restaurant training is a method for restaurant owners and managers to equip staff with the knowledge and skills they need to do their jobs. This training covers key areas such as customer service, food preparation, and safety procedures. Effective training is crucial as it enhances service quality, improves staff morale, and leads to a profitable and well-run restaurant.

What Is Restaurant Training?

Restaurant training is the process of teaching new and existing employees the things they need to perform their job duties effectively. This includes everything from learning how to use the equipment and tools in the kitchen to understanding menu items, serving customers, preventing foodborne illness, and reacting appropriately in emergencies.

Restaurant training isn’t limited to new employees. It’s also crucial for existing staff to receive ongoing training to keep up with changes, trends, and standards. Providing high-quality training is an investment in your employees and your business, as properly trained staff can boost the efficiency and productivity of your restaurant, improving customer satisfaction and profits.

Why Restaurant Training Is Important

Restaurant training helps restaurant owners and managers build a competent staff and create a good dining experience for patrons. Restaurant training is important because it can:

  • Build skilled and motivated teams. Effective restaurant training ensures staff members have the skills and information necessary to perform their duties efficiently.
  • Maintain consistency. Through proper training, your staff members can learn the correct procedures, techniques, and standards to maintain consistency in service and food. This ensures a consistent experience for customers every time they visit your restaurant.
  • Improve customer satisfaction. Well-trained employees are better equipped to handle customer inquiries and complaints effectively. This improves customer satisfaction, leading to increased sales and positive reviews.
  • Reduce employee turnover. Investing in your employees through training can also help boost morale and reduce employee turnover. When staff members feel valued and equipped with the necessary skills, they are more likely to stay with your restaurant. 
  • Create growth opportunities. Good training also provides employees with opportunities for professional growth and development. Continual learning leads to increased knowledge, skills, and expertise, opening up new career opportunities within the restaurant industry.
  • Ensure compliance with regulations. The restaurant industry is highly regulated, with specific rules and regulations that you and your employees must follow. Through proper training, your staff can learn the guidelines and procedures to ensure compliance with health and safety regulations, food handling standards, and other requirements.

Types of Restaurant Training

You can implement several types of restaurant training to ensure your team is efficient, confident, and ready to provide the best possible service. These are the main types of restaurant training and why each is important.

Basic Training

Basic training in a restaurant primarily involves orientation and familiarization with the employee handbook. This includes introducing new hires to the restaurant’s culture, values, and expectations. You can also use orientation to clarify job descriptions, roles, and responsibilities. 

Basic training also covers a thorough understanding of the employee handbook, which outlines the restaurant’s policies, procedures, and standards, along with information about employee benefits, code of conduct, and guidelines for addressing grievances. The handbook serves as a reference tool that employees can consult whenever necessary.

Front-of-house Training

Front-of-house training refers to the education and instruction given to employees who directly interact with customers – including bartenders, servers, hosts, and bussers. This training is vital as these individuals are the face of the restaurant, and their performance directly impacts customers’ dining experience.

The training typically includes modules on customer service skills, menu knowledge, and restaurant operations. It teaches employees how to interact with customers professionally, handle complaints, and deliver an exceptional dining experience. It helps staff anticipate customer’s needs and exceed their expectations.

Back-of-house Training

Back-of-house training is for staff members who work behind the scenes, including chefs, line cooks, dishwashers, and prep workers. This type of training focuses on culinary skills, food prep techniques, plating presentation, inventory management, equipment usage, and safety protocols. 

Such training can ensure consistency in food taste and presentation, leading to a more satisfying customer experience. Employees are also trained on proper food storage, temperature control, cross-contamination prevention, and cleaning and sanitizing procedures. This helps prevent foodborne illnesses, ensures the health and safety of customers, and maintains the restaurant’s reputation.

Technology Training

Technology training is an increasingly critical component of employee training in modern restaurants. It involves equipping staff with the knowledge and skills to operate and maximize the use of various tools, including point-of-sale (POS) systems, reservation systems, kitchen display systems, and digital menu boards. It may also cover mobile and online ordering platforms and social media platforms for marketing and customer engagement purposes. 

You should train employees not only on how to use these systems but also on troubleshooting common issues and understanding how these tools contribute to the overall operation and success of the restaurant.

However, technology training is not a one-time event. As restaurant technology evolves rapidly, you must regularly update training programs for new features or systems. 

Cross-training

Cross-training in a restaurant is the process of training employees to perform multiple roles within the business beyond their primary job responsibilities. For example, this might involve a server learning how to operate the bar, a line cook understanding the nuances of customer interaction, or a host gaining a general understanding of the processes and pressures of the kitchen. 

Cross-training is immensely helpful in creating a versatile workforce that can adapt to various situations and lend a hand when necessary. Furthermore, cross-training fosters a sense of teamwork and empathy among staff. When employees have a first-hand understanding of the challenges their colleagues face, they are more likely to collaborate effectively and support each other.

Restaurant Training Methods

The methods employed for restaurant staff training can significantly influence the effectiveness of the training program. Whether traditional face-to-face training, interactive online modules, or on-the-job training, the goal remains: to equip your staff with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide exceptional service and ensure smooth operations.

One-on-one Training

One-on-one training is a personalized approach to personnel development where a more experienced staff member – often an owner or manager – provides direct instruction to a less experienced employee. This training method allows for immediate feedback and ensures the trainee comprehends all aspects of their role. It can be used to cover everything from specific job skills to restaurant policies, customer service standards, and understanding the restaurant’s culture and values.

One-on-one training is particularly beneficial when new employees first join a restaurant staff and need to understand their roles and responsibilities comprehensively. It is also a good fit when an employee transitions to a new position, needs to improve specific skills, or when the restaurant introduces new equipment, software, or procedures. The targeted instruction and individual attention can help the individual understand and adapt to their new responsibilities or changes more effectively.

Group Training

Group training involves providing instruction to multiple employees simultaneously, often in a group setting or through seminars or workshops. This method can facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences among participants, promote teamwork, and create a sense of camaraderie. 

Group training can be effective when you need to train many employees at once, such as during restaurant-wide policy changes, menu updates, or new system implementations. It also proves advantageous when reinforcing general knowledge or skills that apply to all staff, such as customer service principles or food safety norms. Additionally, group training can be a good fit when promoting team-building and enhancing internal communication.

Online Training

Online training is the use of digital resources to deliver training programs to employees in the restaurant industry. This method leverages digital platforms such as training software, videos, webinars, and virtual reality simulations to instruct employees on various aspects of restaurant operations. 

Online training may be a good fit in several scenarios within the restaurant industry. For instance, it’s particularly effective when training on theoretical concepts or standard procedures that do not require hands-on practice, like understanding company policies or learning how to use a new software system. It can also benefit ongoing learning, allowing continuous access to resources for self-paced learning. 

Which Method of Training Do Most Restaurants Use?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to restaurant training. Every restaurant has unique needs and preferences, depending on factors such as the size of the staff, type of cuisine, and company culture. However, most restaurants tend to use a combination of one-on-one, group, and online training.

For example, one-on-one training is essential during the initial hiring process and when introducing new employees to the restaurant’s culture, values, and specific job skills. Group training is typically used for delivering standard information across all employees, promoting teamwork, and enhancing internal communication. Online training can be a convenient and flexible option for ongoing learning and development, especially in today’s digital age.

Ultimately, any restaurant’s most effective training program depends on its specific needs and goals. A well-rounded training program that incorporates a mix of one-on-one, group, and online methods can ensure that all employees receive comprehensive instruction and have the skills they need to excel in their roles.

How Much Does Restaurant Training Cost?

The cost of restaurant training can vary widely, depending on the type of training and the size of staff, the complexity of operations, and other specific business needs. Many restaurants may handle all training in-house, using their resources and staff members as trainers. In this case, training is often more expensive, requiring only the time of existing employees.

However, some restaurants may opt for external training programs that provide instruction to the restaurant industry. These programs may offer a broader range of topics and more comprehensive training plans, but they can also come at a higher cost.

For businesses that choose to leverage outside programs, the costs of training can vary significantly based on the types of training provided, the systems being covered, the complexity of the restaurant’s systems, and the number of employees being trained. Some providers offer packaged courses for a set fee, while others may charge per user or course.

The Importance of Ongoing Training

Comprehensive restaurant training ensures that employees are up-to-date with the latest information and equipped with the necessary skills to perform their duties effectively. This training can also improve employee morale and retention and enhance job performance, ultimately benefiting the restaurant’s overall success.

Effective training is a vital component of any successful restaurant. Whether through one-on-one sessions, group training, or online courses, investing in the development of employees can lead to improved job performance and contribute to the overall growth and success of the establishment.

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For restaurant owners looking to boost teamwork and make sure every employee gets their fair share, a tip pool or tip share seems like a natural solution. But like there are pros and cons to tip pooling that every operator should be aware of.

Of course, it doesn’t always make sense to pool tips. (And when it does make sense, tip pooling policies are definitely not one-size-fits-all!) 

If you’re on the fence, check out our tip pooling pro-con list below and consider how they would affect your restaurant’s unique dynamics. 

What are the pros of tip pooling? 

It takes a lot of hard work and collaboration to deliver an excellent guest experience. For most restaurants, the primary goal of tip pooling is to ensure all employees are fairly rewarded for their contributions.

Here are a few of the benefits that tip pooling offers restaurant teams.

1. Improved performance 

When executed strategically, tip pooling can bring your team together around a shared goal — delivering a top-notch guest experience — and reward them for doing so.

And when employees are all working toward a common goal, they’re much more likely to work together and go out of their way to lend a helping hand or fill in gaps. This can be particularly true for tip pools that include employees who generally aren’t directly tipped, like bussers, hosts, and back-of-house employees. 

2. Reduced competition among servers

Does one section get all of the large parties (aka all the large tips)? Or does your patio section get too hot for most guests during the summer? When employees aren’t sharing tips, your workplace culture might start to feel (overly) competitive and even lead to tension or disputes. When servers start feeling slighted or get hung up on who-got-which-table, not only does that affect morale — it slows everyone down.

An equitable tip pool can keep servers from feeling like they need to keep score, so they can focus on providing top-notch service to all of the guests in the restaurant. 

3. Increased focus on training

When you bring on new staff, you typically have them train with your best veteran servers. And when those vets know that their trainee will be part of their future tip pool, they’ll be more invested in the training, making sure to give them a master class in upselling and customer service. 

4. More equitable distribution 

Unfortunately, customer biases — conscious or not — can impact tip amounts. Whether based on race, gender, or other factors, this kind of discrimination can affect your employees’ livelihoods.

While restaurant operators can’t control if some employees receive preferential treatment, they can help to compensate for those injustices by pooling and fairly distributing tips.

Cons of Tip Pooling 

While most restaurants these days run some form of tip pool or tip share, there are some common drawback and pitfalls to tip pooling, which are worth considering before you implement a new policy

1. Top performers may feel negatively impacted

If your best servers are consistently bringing in far more than the standard 18-20% in tips, they might not be so pleased to share with employees who may not have the same experience, talent or work ethic.

Couple that with the fact that some servers can turn tables much quicker than others, resulting in a higher volume of sales and a whole lot more tip income — well, your top earners could start feeling cheated by the tip pool. 

And in a tough labor market, if a hardworking employee isn’t happy with their earnings, they likely have other options.

2. Under-performers can slip through the cracks

On the flip side of that: a tip pool could allow lower-performing employees to slip through the cracks. If you’re not closely evaluating the average tip amount (and average check size!), you may miss that one of your employees is struggling with their customer service. 

3. Compliance is an added consideration

Tip pooling is regulated at the federal and (usually) state level. Some municipalities also have their own rules around how to legally pool tips. These laws can get pretty complicated, making it all too easy to fall out of compliance without even knowing it. For example: managers can’t participate in a tip pool; but what happens if a manager is also performing server duties? Can you include back-of-house in your tip pool? Does your eligibility for the tip credit change if you operate a tip pool? It’s important to know the answers to all of these questions and fully understand the laws that apply to each of your locations. (Especially if you have locations in multiple states!)

Tip Pooling Pros and Cons at a Glance 

That’s a lot of information to take in, so here it is a handy-dandy pro-con chart.

To Pool or Not to Pool?

The majority of restaurants in the U.S. operate some form of tip pool. At Kickfin, we’ve worked with thousands of restaurant teams who participate in tip pooling or tip sharing. We’ve found that often, the positives outweigh the negatives. 

But that comes with a major caveat: the best tip pooling teams have been strategic and intentional with their policies — and as a result, no two tip pooling policies look exactly the same.

If you want to set yourself up for tip pooling success, here are a few general rules of thumb.

  1. Evaluate your requirements: Ask yourself why you’re running a tip pool. What needs are you trying to address or problems are you trying to fix? Specifically consider your restaurant type, team size, org chart, and local market to find the best policy for you.
  2.  Don’t overcomplicate: It shouldn’t require a degree in calculus to calculate your tip pool. If you feel like it’s getting unwieldy, it’s possible you’re setting your team up for mistakes and tracking issues.
  3. Get feedback for better buy-in: This shouldn’t be a decision-by-committee scenario, but it’s worth checking with management and even some of your team’s unofficial leaders to get their input before running with a new policy. This can help get the rest of your employees on board.
  4. Write it down and run it by your counsel: Your tip pooling policy should be on paper, in black and white. You should also have your legal counsel review it to make sure you’re not inadvertently out of compliance with tip pooling regulations. 
  5. Communicate everything: Once you’re feeling good about your policy, share it. Make sure every tip-eligible employee understands how it works and has the opportunity to ask questions.
  6. Ensure transparency by tracking everything: It’s not enough to share your policy. It’s important that every payout is tracked, including how those payouts were calculated. Not only does that streamline accounting and reporting; it also creates a culture of trust with your employees. If there is ever any question around a payout, having a digital paper trail is invaluable. 

The best tip pools are automated 

Tip pool calculations often happen in a spreadsheet, which is less than ideal. Kickfin integrates with your POS, so you can eliminate spreadsheet math, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring every payout is accurately calculated and tracked. Plus: Kickfin customers can send instant, cashless payouts directly to their employees’ bank of choice.

The result: All the benefits of tip pooling, without the hassles, risk, and time required. (In fact, many of our users can calculate and pay out tips at the end of each shift in under 60 seconds!)

Want to learn more? Request a demo today. 

 

 

Kickfin has earned a top spot on the 2025 Inc. Regionals list in the Southwest region! This recognition places us among the fastest-growing privately held companies in America—and we couldn’t be prouder of what this means for our team, our customers, and the restaurant industry at large.

A Milestone Achievement

As the #1 tip distribution platform, Kickfin is trusted by thousands of restaurant teams to automate tip pooling and payouts. Since 2017, our technology has given managers hours back in their week while improving accuracy, visibility, and reporting for operators. 

Only 951 companies made the cut across all regions, and in the Southwest alone, the businesses on this list contributed 13,809 jobs to the U.S. economy while achieving a median growth rate of approximately 106 percent from 2021 to 2023. 

Powering the Future of Tip Management

In the past year, Kickfin has taken automated tip management to a whole new level. In addition to exciting new features that make our platform more robust than ever, we continue to add to the list of our direct integrations with the leading POS brands—which currently includes Toast, SkyTab, Square, Heartland, RPOWER, PAR POS, Oracle MICROS, NCR Aloha, and more.

→ See how the Kickfin-Toast integration “changed everything” for HOBNOB restaurants

Kickfin’s POS integrations give our customers the ability to auto-calculate even the most complex tip pools in just a few clicks, which eliminates unwieldy tip spreadsheets, saves managers even more time, and gives operators unprecedented visibility into payout calculations and history.

A Heartfelt Thank You

This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the trust of our customers and the dedication of our team.

As Justin Roberts, co-CEO of Kickfin, puts it: “We’re incredibly grateful to our customers who have made this growth possible by trusting Kickfin with their tip management needs. This recognition is a testament to the value that automated tip management brings to restaurant teams—helping them save time, reduce risk, and take care of their people.”

We’re honored to be included in the 2025 Inc. Regionals list, and we’re excited to see what the rest of 2025 has in store!

You heard that right — Kickfin has added yet another partner to our ever-growing list of POS integrations!

RPOWER POS has joined the list of leading POS systems that now integrate with Kickfin so users can fully automate tip calculations and payouts. 

RPOWER is a trusted name in the restaurant industry known for its handheld devices, online ordering capabilities, and robust reporting. RPOWER’s dedication to staying on the cutting edge of restaurant tech makes the integration with Kickfin a perfect match! 

With the RPOWER-Kickfin integration, restaurant operators can: 

  • Easily build out highly complex tip policies 
  • Calculate tip outs based on roles, shifts and hours worked
  • Distribute tips directly to employee bank accounts 
  • Establish an electronic “paper trail” for every tip out

( …and more. Dive into the latest Kickfin updates for the full scoop.)

Like all of our integration customers, when RPOWER users activate the Kickfin integration, they’ll have access to our robust Customer Success team (at no extra cost!). We’re here 24/7 to review and build out your tip policy within the platform, so you’ll be up and running in a flash.

Collaboration with Riot Hospitality Group

This integration was especially exciting because we worked hand-in-hand with one of our longstanding customers, Riot Hospitality Group, to ensure the integration checked every box — and that it could handle their complex tip pooling policies. 

“Kickfin has been an outstanding partner to Riot Hospitality Group for years,” said J Goldin, the systems director for RHG. 

“They had already helped us go fully cashless, which eliminated a lot of risk for our teams. When we decided to completely automate tip payouts, they were a natural choice to help with that as well. We worked hand in hand with Kickfin and RPOWER to ensure the system could handle the intense complexity of our rules, while still being incredibly easy to use for our operators.”

Untitled design - 2021-04-29T114014.973
“Kickfin is easy to implement and easy to use. If you’re thinking about trying it, you’ll be glad you did.”

As our co-CEO Justin Roberts puts it, this integration is a “no brainer for RPOWER users who understand how valuable their managers’ time is.”

RPOWER users, we’re ready for you! Schedule a demo to learn how you can activate your integration. 

(Not an RPOWER user but want to take advantage of these time-saving features? See if Kickfin is integrated with your POS!) 

We kicked off 2025 with some major (!) updates to our Tip Calculator features.

It was a big release, and we’ll break it all down for you here — but the big headlines are:

  • More integrations
  • More speed
  • More flexibility

If you’re not already using Kickfin — or if you haven’t integrated Kickfin with your POS to automate tip calcs just yet — this is for you! Read on to see how you can use Kickfin’s newest tip calc features to un-clunk your tip pooling process. 

More integrations, coming right up

We’re continuing to roll out integrations with the leading POS systems, giving restaurant teams the power to auto-calculate tip pools and shares in a matter of clicks. 

(Side note: Kickfin only builds direct POS integrations — not using a third-party solution! — which streamlines your tech stack and keeps your costs lower.)

We were thrilled to add RPOWER to our growing list of integrations, which already includes Toast, Square, SkyTab, SpotOn, PAR and more.

If you’re an RPOWER user and you’re not yet a Kickfin customer, request a demo and we’ll show you the integration in action!

Handle autograts with ease

For servers and bartenders handling large parties, autograts can be great — but for managers, they can turn into a logistical nightmare. Now, Kickfin can help with that…

With this latest release, you can break tips and autograts into separate categories with their own set of rules for distribution. You have the flexibility to manage autograt tip splits completely separate from regular tip outs, so you can fairly reward a hardworking server-bartender-busser trio for a job well done on a 30-top.

Tips & Autograts Broken Out on Tip Data Page

Tips & Autograts Broken Out on Review Screen

With this new set up, you’ll also get more transparency in reporting. You’ll be able to see the breakdown of tips and autograts collected by each user in your reporting dashboards (more on that later!).

Include cash tips in your distributions 

You heard that right — we can now distribute shares of cash tips digitally, directly to your employees’ bank accounts. Instead of doing the math on cash tips by hand, you can easily add cash to your tip pool, and we’ll calculate the share among employees for you. 

Important note: cash distributions aren’t available for all of our integration partners. Contact us for more info. 

Advanced Tip Rules (for even the unruliest policies)

Think your tip policy is extra tricky? Don’t worry — we’ve seen ‘em all. And there aren’t many Kickfin can’t handle, thanks to our Advanced Tip Rules feature.

If you have Advanced Tip Rules enabled, we’ve added a few new capabilities so you can further customize your tip share while we take care of the complicated math behind the scenes. Here are just a few examples of the new features we’re rolling out. 

Not using Advanced Tip Rules? Reach out to us if you’d like to enable these features. 

Per Segment Tip Sharing

We’ve been calculating tip shares on a check-by-check basis. For example, if you have servers sharing a percentage of tips with bussers, we would only calculate and deduct that percentage if a busser was working at the time that a check was processed. We call this Per Check Tip Sharing

Now, we’re introducing Per Segment Tip Sharing, which gives you the option to deduct a tip share from every check processed during a shift. Let’s go back to our example — servers sharing a percent of tips with bussers. With Per Segment Tip Sharing, we would deduct a percentage of the server’s tip for every check processed, even if the busser gets cut two hours before the server. 

Split Evenly 

Would you prefer that all of your support staff take home an even share of their tip pool? We can now make that happen.

Previously, our tip shares entered a pool and were divided among beneficiaries based on how many minutes they worked during a shift, which we call splitting by Time Worked. With our new product update, we’re introducing the Split Evenly option, which enables you to send an equal part of a tip share to every beneficiary that worked within a segment. 

More accuracy 

In the past, cash autograt payments were lumped in with credit card autograts and credit card tips, resulting in credit card fee deductions on cash transactions. But that is no more! 

Now we’re able to deduct credit card fees only where they apply, so you’ll no longer see credit card fee deductions attached to cash autograt transactions. 

Plus, we’ve gotten even better at math. With our new update, we can prevent rounding errors, so our tip disbursal should match the tips collected in your POS to the penny. 

Revamped and expanded reporting 

We added new reporting views to give you more insight into each pay period, individual pay sets, and tip calculations. Here’s a quick look at your new pay period report with expanded filters:

Main Pay Period Report - Filter Bar Expanded

You’ll notice that there are now separate columns for tips and autograts, but you can still view the gross amount earned (tips + autograts = gross).  

And it doesn’t stop at the main reporting page. You’ll see this more detailed reporting when you look at individual employee pay period reports, review a specific pay set, or export the information from any of your reporting dashboards. 

We know this is a lot of new information to take in — but we’ve got you covered with our full Product Release Recap. Simply log in to Kickfin, click on your name in the upper left corner and select “Support” to access that portal. 

Not using Kickfin? Dying to get rid of your old-fashioned gratuity management system? Drooling over these new features? We’d love to have you. Reach out to us today to see how our platform could save you time and money.

See Kickfin in action!