Restaurant Schedule Maker
Start with a real-looking weekly restaurant rota, then make every opening, lunch, dinner and closing assignment your own. Drag shifts between services, edit exact hours, review station coverage and print a roster your team can read.
Same-person conflicts
Simultaneous work by different team members is normal; only overlapping assignments for the same person are collisions.
Hours & split shifts
See total planned hours and separated work periods, without treating either as payroll or a legal determination.
Opening, lunch, dinner and close stay separate.
Drag, edit, duplicate, resize or replace any block.
Check user-entered targets without inventing demand.
Build the restaurant rota around the hours guests actually arrive.
The same restaurant can need different staff roles before opening, during a lunch rush, through afternoon prep and at dinner close. A shift calendar becomes useful when it can show those operational differences without hiding which person is assigned to which station.
Front-of-house handoffs
Organize hosts, servers, bartenders, runners and expo support by service window. Confirm table sections and opening duties outside the roster.
Kitchen station continuity
Place prep, line cook, kitchen lead and dish shifts where production and cleanup need attention. Station names are labels—not proof of skill.
Split-shift visibility
Show separate lunch and dinner assignments for the same person, including the gap between them, before managers approve the schedule.
Service-window targets
Enter your own minimum headcount for a station or FOH/BOH group and inspect uncovered segments instead of assuming fixed ratios are universally correct.
How to use every control and turn the example into your working roster.
The default example demonstrates a casual-dining weekly pattern. It is deliberately adjustable. A real schedule should reflect your restaurant’s service hours, actual reservations or sales, available staff, responsibilities and workplace rules.
Choose a restaurant service strategy
Pick Casual Dining for midday and evening assignments, Café for breakfast and lunchtime emphasis, or Evening Bistro for dinner-heavy service. Select Start Empty if you want no suggested assignments. Changing strategies replaces the current draft only after confirmation. Existing edits should be backed up as JSON first.
Each preset provides fictional staff and realistic-looking roles, not an optimal labor forecast. Replace sample names, locations and times before sharing the roster.
Read the seven-day service grid
Days run from Monday to Sunday across the board. Each day contains Opening, Lunch, Dinner and Closing cells. Assignment cards show the team member, operating station and scheduled time. Cyan cards represent front-of-house, violet represents kitchen or back-of-house, and amber identifies manager positions.
Scroll inside the board on narrow devices rather than shrinking labels until they are unreadable. Use the previous and next arrows to change the week.
Add and edit a shift
Click a service cell or select Add Shift. Choose the service, date, person, station, start and end times. Enter an optional area, unpaid break and work note. Save to create a card. Click a saved card to reopen its editor; use the editor to duplicate or remove it.
A shift ending earlier than its start is interpreted as ending the next calendar day. For precise overnight adjustments, always use the date and time fields instead of relying only on drag placement.
Drag assignments and change duration
On a desktop, drag a shift card into another service/day cell to move the assignment. The editor keeps the original duration and aligns the start time to that service’s default start, which you can change afterward. The small resize grip changes duration in fifteen-minute increments. On touch screens or for keyboard access, edit the exact start/end fields instead.
If someone is scheduled for lunch and dinner with a long break, enter two separate shifts; the tool will flag these as a potential split-shift day rather than an automatic error.
Configure staffing minimums carefully
Use Coverage Targets to specify a service, station or broader FOH/BOH group, minimum headcount and start/end of the period. The checker compares those rules against unique named staff who are scheduled during each time slice. The report identifies gaps to inspect, not a guaranteed appropriate staffing level.
Decide targets using real operational evidence: reservations, historical covers, kitchen production, delivery orders, events, opening and closing workload, and competent staff availability.
Review shift clashes and short rest
The overlap report compares actual intervals for the same normalized employee name, including cross-midnight work. A team of four working dinner together does not create four conflicts. Consecutive shifts may also trigger an optional short-rest review when the interval is below the selected threshold.
Check duties, station changes and intended service handovers manually. Time arithmetic cannot establish contract compliance, fitness for duty or whether a person is qualified for a role.
Understand hours, breaks and split shifts
Gross roster hours come from the start/end interval. Net planned hours subtract the entered unpaid-break minutes. Because the tool does not record when an employee takes a break, it does not subtract break intervals from the staffing coverage calculation. Do not use these totals as payroll or actual time worked.
A split-shift review appears when one person has separate non-overlapping work periods in the same day; applicable restrictions and premiums vary and must be reviewed separately.
Duplicate a week and control your drafts
Use Copy to Next Week to create the same assignments seven days later without erasing existing shifts; duplicates for the destination dates are skipped. Undo reverses your most recent local edit. Moving between displayed weeks does not erase previously saved dates.
Browser autosave retains the draft on the current device, but it is not a substitute for an external backup, especially before changing browsers or clearing site data.
Export, print and save the roster
Export Roster CSV for spreadsheet review, Coverage CSV for staffing-gap segments, or an ICS calendar file for calendar applications. The complete JSON backup includes shift details, coverage targets and settings and supports full restore. Print/PDF opens your browser print workflow with editing controls excluded.
Cloud Save creates a user-owned schedule snapshot using the existing ScheduleFlowLab account system. Check the account’s My Schedules page after saving; live account permissions require verification on your site.
Conduct a real pre-service review
Before circulating a roster, confirm who is available, who is trained on each station, supervisor coverage, opening/closing duties, approved time off, upcoming bookings, breaks and applicable labor requirements. Review the specific gaps flagged by the tool; do not assume a green indicator replaces an operational check.
When the roster changes after publication, notify affected employees through the restaurant’s established communication channel and preserve the latest approved version.
What a well-structured restaurant schedule can look like.
This illustrative service map distinguishes staffing preparation from customer-facing periods. Replace its times with your operation’s actual opening hours and demand.
Prep cooks, setup tasks, deliveries, station checks and early service readiness.
Hosts, floor servers, bar or counter team, line cooks, expo and dish coverage.
Demand-adjusted dining-room, kitchen and manager coverage through peak reservations.
Cleanup, cash-out, equipment shutdown, dish completion and handover activities.
Specific answers before you rely on a draft roster.
These answers are limited to functions implemented by this page. A manager remains responsible for demand assumptions, workplace policies and schedule approval.
Is this different from a general employee schedule maker?
Yes. This page groups assignments by restaurant service windows and FOH/BOH stations and includes service-target coverage analysis and split-shift review. A general employee schedule maker is for broader roles and business departments.
Does the sample schedule automatically predict how many people I need?
No. Ready-made shifts are fictional editable examples. Coverage rules and the staffing counts they require come from your own input; there is no reservation, POS or sales forecasting connection.
Can I edit a lunch shift into a dinner or overnight shift?
Yes. Open a shift card, change its service label, date, start and end times, then save. An end time earlier than the start is interpreted as crossing midnight.
Can two different employees work overlapping shifts?
Yes. Concurrent teamwork is expected. The overlap report only flags assignments that overlap for the same named employee.
How does the FOH/BOH coverage checker work?
It examines the exact time segments in each user-defined requirement, counts unique scheduled people whose stations match the selected station group, and shows segments with fewer people than the entered minimum.
Do break minutes reduce the service coverage number?
No. Break minutes reduce net-hours totals only. Because break start and end times are not collected, the coverage engine cannot subtract actual break intervals; check operational break coverage yourself.
Does the page calculate wages, tips, overtime or labor-law compliance?
No. It provides planned shift hours and warning signals, not timeclock records, wage calculation, tip pooling, labor forecasts or legal determinations.
What happens if I refresh or close the page?
Your edits are saved locally in this browser when storage is available. Export a JSON backup before clearing browser data; use Save to My Schedules for a cloud snapshot if you are signed in.
Can I print the weekly service board?
Yes. Select Print/PDF, then print or choose Save as PDF in the browser. The roster hides its editing buttons in print output.
Does this verify availability, qualifications or rest-period regulations?
No. Staff availability, training, permits, approvals and employment-law requirements must be confirmed through your restaurant’s trusted records and local policies.
Make each station assignment clear before the rush begins.
Start from a tailored restaurant sample, adjust the staff and service windows, then review the actual roster—not a generic planning template.
Shift details
Targets are examples or user-defined rules, not automatically calculated staffing requirements. Enter only the minimums your operation has determined.