How many employees are needed for a restaurant?

How many seats? Square footage?

What sort of variety in the menu?

Hours? Open only at night or all day?

Too many variables to answer this question. Is it fast food? Is it sit down and be waited on? Are you prepared to deal with the government micromanaging your establishment?

I’ve never owned a restaurant but there must be some documents or articles that break it down. Maybe a cooking school would have info or a university that teaches hospitality management might, also.

The size and type of restaurant probably has something to do with it. A small cafe needs less supervisory staff than a large fancy restaurant.

Did you try googling it?

Are we talking Joe’s Roadside Diner or Morton’s Steakhouse? These are the kind of details you really need to think about.

Yes sorry guys I didn’t even consider this.

As an aside, during this pandemic, this would only be a pipe dream.

Will there be a bar? If so, bartenders may need to be considered.

One thing that might be manageable is having a very small operation that sells limited kinds of food, and it’s strictly take out. You could get away with just two employees.

@Dutchess_III Good idea. Chipotle is opening several pick up only locations but there is no dining room.

Here’s an article for the OP.
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/11/16/how-chipotle-s-culture-hunters-are-capturing-fans

Why do you need so many managers?

You need a cook/chef and a waiter, and someone to bus the tables and wash dishes. You (the owner) can do the seating and managing. That is enough for four tables. That will teach you the business, and then you can grow from there.

@zenvelo thats a wonderful idea thank you. @Dutchess_III you had a great idea too thank you.

My first waitress job was for a family style restaurant. We could seat 72 people. Most tables were for 2 or 4 seats. IF larger parties came in, we moved tables together to accommodate. We mostly served subs/sandwiches with a few hot dinners, pizza & he chose certain cuts of steak. The owner was our short order cook. He had a decent steam bar for the veggies of the day. He cooked any meats that went with the veggies as they were ordered. Pizzas were made fresh when ordered & people didn’t mind the wait because they were so damn good.

As I said, the owner was the cook, he had 1 assistant to help him coordinate the orders. The dishwasher started out her morning prepping the veggies needed for the day. We had 2 waitresses (1 for each shift) & 1 busboy. The waitresses prepped the individual salads & desserts so all we needed to do was uncover them & go!!! The owner’s wife came in during lunch & dinner to run food to the customers so the waitresses only had to take orders & refill drinks. We were open from 11am-11pm. The owner warned any new hires that he expected a lot from his employees & you had to be a team player. Everybody was ready to fill in where needed at any given point in time. We had a small bar & the owner was the bartender most of the time. When necessary, a waitress would make a drink IF the owner was busy on the grill. Now days, most of my waitress friends complain about how bust they are IF they have more than 10 tables. I normally worked lunch & I usually had 3 turnovers between 11 & 1:00 & I was taking ALL the orders, serving ½ the orders, & I had 1 busboy to clean the tables during the rush. After the rush, I bussed my own tables. I don’t know how we managed with just 2 waitresses, but the other girl & I always seemed to work out any scheduling problem between us.

IF you aren’t willing to work hard to get your business off the ground, your employees won’t be willing to work hard either. We ran that restaurant with 5 employees total & the owner & his wife doing their part. So, 7 people ran the place very efficiently!!! Most people don’t want to work that hard now days so that system might not work today. But I really don’t see why you’d need 3 managers unless maybe you plan to be open 24 hours a day. YOU are the manager until you become so overworked that you’re ready to drop & then you add others as needed. You don’t need to have 3 managers on day 1.

Might I suggest that you start out smaller & work your way up as you learn what you can control. Starting out large with NO real experience will close you down faster than you think!!!

@LadyMarissa that is very helpful and inspirational. Thank you very much. I only said the 3 managers because thats what my research told me but I definitely trust you since you worked it and experienced it.

One day the Bureau of Statistics rang and asked how many people work there to which I responded about half.

The minimum number of workers in a restaurant is one.

I hope you can cook because your managerial adroitness is inchoate.