How far in advance should a restaurant schedule be posted?

Two weeks is the standard the predictive scheduling laws impose where they apply (New York City fast food, Oregon, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia) and the habit that reduces call-outs everywhere else. Post on the same weekday every time, and log any change after posting with the employee's consent.

Do tipped employees get overtime?

Yes. Overtime for a tipped employee is one and a half times the full minimum wage, less the tip credit, not one and a half times the cash wage. At the federal minimum that is $10.88 less the $5.12 tip credit, so $5.76 in cash per overtime hour. States with a higher minimum wage or no tip credit change the numbers, not the rule.

Can a 16-year-old work the fryer or the slicer?

A 16 or 17 year old may cook, including on fryers and grills, but may not operate power-driven meat slicers or bakery mixers under federal hazardous occupation rules. A 14 or 15 year old is limited to warming and light cooking, no baking, and a fryer only if it raises and lowers the basket automatically, with strict hour limits on school days.

Is a split shift legal in a restaurant?

Yes under federal law. California adds a split shift premium of one hour at the minimum wage, and New York owes an extra hour at the minimum wage when the day's spread exceeds 10 hours, which a lunch-and-dinner split usually does. Check your state and your city ordinances.

Does the schedule need to show breaks?

It should, whatever the state. Where breaks are required (California, New York, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois and others) the schedule is where the timing rule is met. Where they are not, a deducted 30-minute meal must still have been taken; writing it into the shift is the only way to prove it.

Employee scheduling software for Restaurants

Scheduling for restaurants: back of house and front of house on the same page.

What makes scheduling hard here

Back of house and front of house have to be staffed for the same rush.
Split shifts between lunch and dinner, and breaks that have to be real ones.
A large party books for Saturday and you need one more server on the floor.

How Squadra solves them

Squadra builds the schedule, sends it to your team, and counts the hours if you want it to. Here is what actually changes:

Drag and drop scheduling

Drag shifts on the weekly grid, duplicate last week, adjust in 2 clicks. No spreadsheet to update.

The schedule in your team's pocket

One button and you send it on WhatsApp or by text. Everyone opens the link, picks their first name once, and sees their hours: no account, no app, even without an email address, and even with no signal.

Time tracking, if you want it

It switches on or off in one click. Switched on, everyone clocks in from their phone or on a tablet at the counter, and hours add themselves up. Switched off, it disappears from the menu.

Hours that add themselves up

The counter adds up the clocked hours, week by week and person by person. You read them in Time tracking, with nothing to recompute by hand.

Front of house and back of house are two schedules that have to agree

A restaurant schedule is really two: the kitchen line, which has to be in place before the first ticket, and the floor, which has to be at strength when the room fills. They peak at different minutes and they are staffed by people who rarely swap roles. The most common failure is building the floor schedule from server availability and then discovering on Friday that the kitchen has one cook for a full dining room.

Start from covers, not from people. Take the last eight weeks of tickets by hour, build the coverage you need for each service (how many on the line, how many on the floor, who runs food), and only then place names. A tool that shows both teams on the same weekly grid, with a count of people per hour, makes the gap visible before the shift, not during it.

Tipped employees, overtime and the mistake that costs the most

Under the FLSA an employer may pay tipped employees a cash wage of $2.13 an hour and take a tip credit of up to $5.12 to reach the $7.25 federal minimum; many states set a higher cash wage or no tip credit at all. Overtime is where restaurants get it wrong: the overtime rate is one and a half times the full minimum wage, not the cash wage. At the federal level that is $7.25 × 1.5 = $10.88, minus the $5.12 tip credit, so $5.76 in cash for every hour beyond 40, not $3.20.

Two more rules from the FLSA follow the schedule into payroll. Managers and supervisors may not keep any part of a tip pool, whatever their schedule looks like (FLSA section 3(m)(2)(B)). And the 40-hour week is counted per employee across all roles: a server who also hosts two shifts a week is one person with one total.

Split shifts and clopenings: legal, but not free everywhere

The lunch-and-dinner split is the restaurant shift. Federal law says nothing about it. California pays a split shift premium of one hour at the minimum wage; New York adds an extra hour at the minimum wage when the spread of the day exceeds 10 hours, and in hospitality that applies to everyone. A server on 11am to 2pm and 5pm to 11pm in New York has a 12-hour spread, and the extra hour is owed.

The clopening, closing at 11pm and opening at 8am, is legal under federal law and restricted by predictive scheduling ordinances: New York City's fast food rules, Oregon's statewide law for hospitality employers with 500 or more employees, Seattle, Chicago and Philadelphia all give employees a right to decline shifts that start less than 9 to 11 hours after the previous one ended, depending on the city, with extra pay if they accept. The general rules are in the fair workweek guide linked below.

Minors on the schedule

Restaurants employ more 14 to 17 year olds than any other sector, and the federal child labor rules are specific. Fourteen and fifteen year olds may not work during school hours, more than 3 hours on a school day or 18 hours in a school week, or after 7pm during the school year (9pm in summer); their kitchen tasks are limited to warming and light cooking, no baking, and no fryer unless it lowers and raises the basket automatically. Sixteen and seventeen year olds may cook, including on fryers and grills, but may not operate power-driven meat slicers or bakery mixers. Several states add their own hour limits and break rules, Florida among them.

In practice: flag minors in the schedule, and let the tool refuse a school-night shift past 7pm for a fifteen year old rather than relying on the assistant manager to remember.

Breaks depend on the state, and the evening shift is the catch

Federal law requires no breaks; about twenty states do. California requires a 30-minute meal period before the end of the fifth hour and a paid 10-minute rest per four hours, with an hour of premium pay per missed break. New York requires 30 minutes across noon and, on any shift of more than 6 hours that starts after 1pm, 45 minutes: the dinner shift. Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Illinois each have their own thresholds. In the states without a rule, your handbook is the rule, and the deducted meal must be a real one.

Write the break into the shift with a start time. On a restaurant floor a break that is not on the schedule does not happen, and a deducted break that did not happen is unpaid wages.

What a week looks like when the tool does the checking

Monday: copy last week, adjust for the reservations book and the event on Saturday. The grid shows kitchen and floor per hour and flags a cook at 42 hours and a host with nine hours between Friday close and Saturday open. Tuesday: publish. Everyone gets the link by text, opens it on their phone without an account, and the two people who want to swap Thursday do it in the app, with the manager approving in one tap. Saturday: the large party is on the schedule with one more server, and the time clock on the host stand records who actually worked what. Sunday night: hours, overtime and tip-credit wages export to payroll without a spreadsheet.

Frequently asked questions

How far in advance should a restaurant schedule be posted?: Two weeks is the standard the predictive scheduling laws impose where they apply (New York City fast food, Oregon, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia) and the habit that reduces call-outs everywhere else. Post on the same weekday every time, and log any change after posting with the employee's consent.
Do tipped employees get overtime?: Yes. Overtime for a tipped employee is one and a half times the full minimum wage, less the tip credit, not one and a half times the cash wage. At the federal minimum that is $10.88 less the $5.12 tip credit, so $5.76 in cash per overtime hour. States with a higher minimum wage or no tip credit change the numbers, not the rule.
Can a 16-year-old work the fryer or the slicer?: A 16 or 17 year old may cook, including on fryers and grills, but may not operate power-driven meat slicers or bakery mixers under federal hazardous occupation rules. A 14 or 15 year old is limited to warming and light cooking, no baking, and a fryer only if it raises and lowers the basket automatically, with strict hour limits on school days.
Is a split shift legal in a restaurant?: Yes under federal law. California adds a split shift premium of one hour at the minimum wage, and New York owes an extra hour at the minimum wage when the day's spread exceeds 10 hours, which a lunch-and-dinner split usually does. Check your state and your city ordinances.
Does the schedule need to show breaks?: It should, whatever the state. Where breaks are required (California, New York, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois and others) the schedule is where the timing rule is met. Where they are not, a deducted 30-minute meal must still have been taken; writing it into the shift is the only way to prove it.

What a typical week looks like

Lunch 11am to 2pm, dinner 5pm to 10pm, closed Monday, team of 5 to 15.

How much does it cost

Free up to 10 employees. Above that, $29 a month for the whole company, with no per employee and no per location fee. No credit card required to start.

See a demo See pricing

Resources

New to this? Our practical guides are on the blog.