The 23 Roles in a Restaurant: Who Does What, Org Chart Included (2026)

August 7, 2026 at 11:41 PMTabres Team

restaurant roles restaurant org chart restaurant staff front of house back of house restaurant management hospitality careers

Most restaurants that fail don't fail on food. They fail because three people thought someone else was ordering the fish.

A restaurant runs on 23 roles, split into four groups: leadership (owner, general manager, branch manager), the kitchen or back of house (head chef, sous chef, pastry chef, line cook, prep cook, kitchen assistant, dishwasher), the floor or front of house (head waiter, waiter, runner, cashier, barista, bartender, sommelier, room service staff, delivery driver), and the support side that keeps money and stock straight (accountant, inventory manager, purchasing manager, warehouse staff). One person can hold five of these titles in a small café. In a 200-seat restaurant, each one is a job.

Here's the thing nobody tells you when you open: you don't need 23 people. You need all 23 jobs done, and you need every single one to have a name next to it. That's what an org chart is for. Not the wall. The name.

The Restaurant Org Chart (Copy This One)

Here's the full structure, top to bottom. Every role in the list below sits somewhere on this tree.

OWNER
└── GENERAL MANAGER
    ├── BRANCH MANAGER  (one per location)
    │   ├── KITCHEN (BOH) — Head Chef
    │   │   ├── Sous Chef
    │   │   │   ├── Line Cook
    │   │   │   ├── Prep Cook
    │   │   │   └── Kitchen Assistant
    │   │   ├── Pastry Chef
    │   │   └── Dishwasher
    │   ├── FLOOR (FOH) — Head Waiter
    │   │   ├── Waiter
    │   │   ├── Runner
    │   │   ├── Cashier
    │   │   ├── Bartender
    │   │   ├── Barista
    │   │   ├── Sommelier
    │   │   └── Room Service Staff
    │   └── Delivery Driver
    └── SUPPORT (business-wide)
        ├── Accountant
        ├── Inventory Manager
        └── Purchasing Manager
            └── Warehouse Staff

Two things about this chart are worth more than the boxes.

One: everyone has exactly one boss. A line cook doesn't take orders from the head waiter. A runner doesn't take orders from the sous chef. When two people can give the same person instructions, that person will follow whoever shouted last — and they'll be right to.

Two: support sits outside the branch. Your accountant and your purchasing manager work across the whole business, not for one location. Bury them under a branch manager and you'll get a buyer who only knows one kitchen's needs.

All 23 Restaurant Roles at a Glance

#	Role	Group	Reports to	Typical US pay (2026)
1	Owner	Leadership	Nobody	Profit draw
2	General Manager	Leadership	Owner	$62k–$98k/yr
3	Branch Manager	Leadership	GM	$48k–$72k/yr
4	Head Chef	Kitchen	Branch Manager	$58k–$95k/yr
5	Sous Chef	Kitchen	Head Chef	$46k–$64k/yr
6	Pastry Chef	Kitchen	Head Chef	$44k–$62k/yr
7	Line Cook	Kitchen	Sous Chef	$17–$23/hr
8	Prep Cook	Kitchen	Sous Chef	$15–$19/hr
9	Kitchen Assistant	Kitchen	Sous Chef	$14–$18/hr
10	Dishwasher	Kitchen	Head Chef	$14–$18/hr
11	Head Waiter	Floor	Branch Manager	$19–$27/hr + tips
12	Waiter / Waitress	Floor	Head Waiter	Base + tips
13	Runner	Floor	Head Waiter	$13–$17/hr + tip share
14	Cashier	Floor	Head Waiter	$14–$18/hr
15	Bartender	Floor	Head Waiter	Base + tips
16	Barista	Floor	Head Waiter	$15–$19/hr + tips
17	Sommelier	Floor	Branch Manager	$52k–$88k/yr
18	Room Service Staff	Floor	Head Waiter	$15–$19/hr + tips
19	Delivery Driver	Floor	Branch Manager	$14–$19/hr + tips
20	Accountant	Support	Owner / GM	$58k–$85k/yr
21	Inventory Manager	Support	GM	$46k–$68k/yr
22	Purchasing Manager	Support	GM	$56k–$82k/yr
23	Warehouse Staff	Support	Purchasing Manager	$16–$21/hr

Pay ranges are rough US figures for 2026 and swing hard by city. A line cook in rural Ohio and a line cook in San Francisco are not in the same conversation. Check your local market before you post a job ad.

Leadership: The Three Roles That Set the Tone

1. Owner

The owner carries the risk. They sign the lease, they fund the fit-out, and they're the last person paid every month.

What the owner actually does varies more than any other role on this list. Some owners work the pass six nights a week. Some visit twice a year and read a report. Both can work. What doesn't work is the middle — an owner who's around enough to override decisions but not around enough to understand them.

If you're planning to step back, be honest about it early and hire for it. That's a specific kind of general manager, not a promotion for your best waiter: hiring a general manager to go absentee.

2. General Manager

The GM runs the business. Budgets, hiring, suppliers, standards, and the numbers that say whether last month worked.

In a single-site restaurant, the GM is usually the most important person in the building. They're the one who notices that food cost crept from 29% to 34% and does something before it becomes a crisis. They're also the only person who sees both sides — the kitchen's world and the floor's world — and can call it fairly when those two collide.

A good GM spends Monday morning in the numbers and the rest of the week on the floor. Not the other way round.

3. Branch Manager

One per location, once you have more than one location.

The branch manager owns their four walls: the rota, the daily takings, the local team, the small fires. They don't set menu prices or negotiate with suppliers — that's the GM's job. They make sure this building runs tonight.

The mistake here is giving branch managers responsibility without authority. If a branch manager can't send a shaky delivery back, or can't send someone home when the room is dead, they're not managing. They're supervising. Say which one you want.

If you're heading toward a second site, the roles change shape before the buildings do: restaurant expansion to multiple locations.

Back of House: The Seven Kitchen Roles

The kitchen is the one part of a restaurant with a genuine, centuries-old hierarchy. It's called the brigade de cuisine, invented by Escoffier, and the classic version had about 20 stations. Almost nobody runs the full brigade in 2026 — labor costs killed it. What survived is a seven-role kitchen, and it works from a food truck to a hotel.

4. Head Chef (Executive Chef)

The head chef owns the food. Recipes, portions, plating, food cost, food safety, and the kitchen team.

Two numbers live on this desk. Food cost percentage — usually 28% to 35% for a full-service restaurant — and waste. A head chef who can cook beautifully but can't hold a food cost will bankrupt you slowly, and everyone will say the food was great.

Big difference worth knowing: an executive chef usually oversees several kitchens or a whole hotel. A head chef runs one. In a single restaurant they're the same person with two business cards.

5. Sous Chef

Second in command, and honestly the hardest job in the building.

The sous chef runs the line during service. They call the tickets, they check every plate before it leaves, they fix the timing when three tables order at once. The head chef designs the dish; the sous chef makes sure the 400th one tonight looks like the first.

They also cover the head chef's days off. That's the real test — if the kitchen only works when the head chef is standing in it, you don't have a sous chef, you have a senior cook.

6. Pastry Chef

Desserts, bread, viennoiserie, anything that needs scales and patience.

Pastry is a separate role because it's a separate skill and a separate clock. Bread proves overnight. Line cooking is reaction; pastry is planning. Put a great line cook on desserts and you'll get inconsistent plates and a frustrated cook.

Most restaurants under 60 seats don't have one. They buy desserts in or keep three simple ones the sous chef can make. That's a completely legitimate choice, and it's usually the right one.

7. Line Cook

The engine room. Line cooks work a station — grill, sauté, fry, garde manger, pass — and produce the food during service.

This is the role most restaurants are short of, everywhere, all the time. It's also the role where a small pay bump buys the most loyalty, because good line cooks know exactly what they're worth and can walk down the street.

Stations aren't just about people. Sorting out which food goes to which station is half of a smooth service: kitchen stations explained.

If you're weighing up a cooking career, the money split between these roles surprises people: line cook vs chef positions.

8. Prep Cook

Prep cooks do everything before service. Stocks, sauces, butchery, chopping, portioning, labelling.

Nobody sees prep and everybody feels it. A kitchen that preps well has a calm service. A kitchen that skips prep has line cooks dicing onions at 7:30 p.m. while tickets pile up.

Rough guide: a full-service kitchen needs about one prep hour for every three service hours. If you're squeezing prep to save labor, you're not saving labor. You're moving it to the worst possible moment.

9. Kitchen Assistant

The flexible pair of hands. Kitchen assistants (sometimes "commis" or "kitchen porter" in the UK sense) help prep, stock the line, receive deliveries, and keep the kitchen clean.

It's the classic entry point into a kitchen career, and smart restaurants treat it that way. Give a kitchen assistant one station skill every month and in a year you've grown your own line cook — which is far cheaper than hiring one.

10. Dishwasher

The single most underrated role in hospitality. Full stop.

When the dish pit goes down, service goes down 15 minutes later. No clean pans, no plates, no glasses. Every experienced chef has a story about a Saturday night saved by a dishwasher who just refused to drown.

Two practical points. Pay them properly — the gap between a good dishwasher and a bad one is enormous, and it costs you maybe $2 an hour. And feed them the same staff meal as everyone else. Kitchens notice that stuff.

Front of House: The Nine Floor Roles

11. Head Waiter

The head waiter (or floor manager, or maître d') runs the room during service. Sections, seating, pacing, complaints, and the standard of everything a guest sees.

They're the person who spots that table 12 hasn't been checked in 15 minutes, and the person who handles the guest whose steak came out wrong before it turns into a review. Good ones seem to be everywhere at once and never look rushed.

In smaller places, this role also handles the host stand — greeting, waitlist, and seating. Which brings up a question people always ask.

Where's the host or hostess? Hosting is a job, not always a separate role. In a 40-seat bistro, the head waiter hosts. In a 200-seat restaurant with a two-hour wait, hosting is a full-time position and you should hire for it. If you're staffing one, the interview is more specific than people expect: hostess interview questions.

12. Waiter / Waitress

The role guests actually judge you on.

Waiters take orders, know the menu, read the table, sell without pushing, and carry the whole guest experience on their shoulders for two hours. It's a skilled job that a lot of people wrongly treat as unskilled.

On pay, be careful here. The federal tipped cash wage in the US is still $2.13 an hour, with tips expected to bring it to at least the $7.25 federal minimum. But a majority of states now require more, and several require full state minimum wage before tips. Your state's rule is the one that matters, not the federal floor. Here's the background: why waiters make $2.13 an hour.

Two tip rules that have not changed and catch owners out:

Managers and supervisors can never keep tips. Not a share, not "for the pool", not ever. This is federal law and the penalties are real.
Back-of-house staff can only be in a tip pool if you pay the full minimum wage and take no tip credit. Take the tip credit, and the pool stays front of house.

State rules on top of that vary a lot. Run your tip policy past an employment attorney once — it's a few hundred dollars against a claim that can run into six figures.

Hiring waiters? These questions separate the people who've done it from the people who've read about it: waiter and waitress interview questions.

13. Runner

Food runners take plates from the pass to the table. That's the description. The value is different.

A runner means your waiters never leave the floor. No walking to the kitchen, no waiting at the pass, no cold plates. One runner can keep four or five waiters working their sections instead of doing laps.

The rule of thumb: add a runner once a single waiter is covering more than about five tables at full turn, or once your walk from pass to furthest table is over 15 seconds. Below that, they'll be standing around.

Runners also need to know the food. A runner who has to ask "who had the salmon?" at the table just undid the whole point.

14. Cashier

Takes payment, handles the till, manages refunds and the cash drawer.

In a full-service restaurant, waiters often handle their own payments and there's no cashier at all. In quick service, cafés, bakeries, and canteens, the cashier is the whole front line — order taking, upselling, payment, and the last face the guest sees.

One role rule matters more than any other here: whoever handles cash should not be the person who reconciles it. The cashier counts the drawer, the manager checks it. That's not distrust; it's the basic control that protects honest staff from suspicion.

15. Bartender

Drinks, speed, and the bar's own P&L.

Bartenders carry a rare mix — they're making a product, running a station, and serving guests face to face at the same time. A line cook doesn't get interrupted by a guest asking about the wine. A bartender does, mid-pour, constantly.

They also handle alcohol compliance: checking IDs, refusing service, and knowing your state's rules on hours and serving. That's a legal responsibility sitting on an hourly employee, so train it properly and write it down.

Bar margins are usually far better than food margins — often 75% to 80% gross on spirits against 65% to 70% on food. A good bartender is one of the highest-return hires in the building.

16. Barista

Coffee, and everything around it. Grind, extraction, milk, consistency, and speed under a morning rush.

Baristas are a separate role from bartenders because the skill genuinely is different. Dialling in a grinder as the beans change through the day is a real craft, and the gap between an average flat white and a great one is the reason someone walks past two other cafés to get to yours.

In a café, the barista is often also the cashier, the host, and the person wiping tables. Which is fine — just count it as three jobs when you're building the rota.

17. Sommelier

Wine buying, wine list, wine service, and staff wine training.

A full-time sommelier only makes sense when wine is a real part of your revenue — usually 25% or more of sales, or a list of 100-plus bins. Below that, the head waiter or the GM takes it on, often with a WSET Level 2 or 3 behind them.

Even without a sommelier, someone must own the wine list. Otherwise it drifts: bottles nobody sells, gaps at the price points people actually order, and $4,000 of dead stock in a cellar.

18. Room Service Staff

In-room dining for hotels, plus anything delivered inside the building — conference floors, spa, poolside.

It's a genuinely different job from restaurant service. You're assembling a whole meal on a tray or trolley, protecting the temperature through corridors and a lift, and setting up a table in someone's bedroom without making it weird. Timing accuracy matters more than anywhere else, because a guest in a room has nothing to watch but the clock.

19. Delivery Driver

Your own drivers, not a marketplace's.

In-house delivery gives you three things platforms don't: the guest's data, no 25% to 30% commission, and control over what shows up at the door. It costs you vehicles, insurance, and the awkward hours between rushes.

The math flips at volume. Below roughly 15 to 20 deliveries a day, platforms usually win on cost. Above it, your own driver often wins — as long as you actually schedule them around the peaks and not across a flat eight-hour shift.

Whoever delivers, one rule holds: the driver is the only staff member the delivery guest ever sees. Hire like it.

Support: The Four Roles Behind the Scenes

These four rarely wear an apron, and they're the reason profitable restaurants stay profitable.

20. Accountant

Books, payroll, sales tax, and the monthly picture.

Most independent restaurants don't employ an accountant — they use an outside firm for $400 to $1,200 a month depending on volume and how many locations you run. That's usually the right call. What isn't right is only speaking to them once a year at tax time. Monthly numbers you look at beat perfect numbers you see in April.

What you want from them, in plain terms: a P&L by the 10th of the following month, food and labor cost as percentages, and a straight answer on whether last month made money.

21. Inventory Manager

Counts stock, sets par levels, tracks waste, and knows what's in the walk-in without opening it.

This role usually starts as "the sous chef does it on Sunday" and becomes a real job around the point where you're running two or more locations, or when stock value passes roughly $25,000.

The single number they own is inventory variance — the gap between what your sales say you should have used and what you actually used. Under 2% is tight. Over 5% and something is walking out, spoiling, or being over-portioned, and you need to know which.

22. Purchasing Manager

Suppliers, contracts, prices, and order volumes across the business.

The difference between an inventory manager and a purchasing manager confuses people. Simple version: inventory looks backward at what you have, purchasing looks forward at what you'll buy. One counts, the other negotiates.

At a single site, the head chef purchases. At three-plus sites, a dedicated buyer usually pays for themselves inside a year — one negotiated dairy contract across four kitchens can cover the salary. Just don't let purchasing get so far from the kitchen that you end up with cheaper chicken nobody wants to cook.

23. Warehouse Staff

For groups with a central store or commissary: receiving, storing, stock rotation, and distributing to branches.

Not a role for a single restaurant. Very much a role once you have a central kitchen feeding four cafés. They own goods-in checks and FIFO rotation, which is where most avoidable food waste is either prevented or created.

How Many Roles Do You Actually Need?

Twenty-three roles do not mean 23 people. Here's roughly how the jobs collapse at each size.

Small café, 3–6 staff. You need about 6 roles filled by 3 people. The owner is the GM, the purchaser, and the inventory manager. One barista is also the cashier and the host. One kitchen assistant preps, plates, and washes. Nothing is missing — it's just stacked.

40-seat bistro, 10–18 staff. Now you need roughly 12 roles. Head chef, sous chef, two or three line cooks, a prep cook, a dishwasher, a head waiter, three or four waiters, a bartender. The GM is usually still the owner. Accounting is outsourced. This is the size where the first real split happens: the owner stops cooking or stops serving, but can't keep doing both.

150-seat restaurant, 30–50 staff. Close to 18 roles, most of them with more than one person in them. You'll have a dedicated host, a pastry section, runners, maybe a sommelier. A GM who isn't the owner. Inventory becomes somebody's actual job rather than a Sunday chore.

Multi-branch group, 3+ locations. All 23. Branch managers per site, a GM above them, purchasing and inventory centralized, and warehouse staff if there's a central store.

The useful exercise isn't counting people. It's this: write all 23 roles down, then write a name beside each one. Where you write the same name six times, that's fine. Where you can't write any name at all, that's your next problem — and it's usually inventory, purchasing, or "who owns the wine list".

Roles Only Work If Permissions Match Them

Here's where a lot of org charts quietly fall apart in 2026.

You can draw a perfect chart and still hand every employee a login that shows them everything — payroll, margins, supplier prices, the lot. Then you wonder why the whole team knows what the new hire earns.

Match access to the role:

A waiter needs their tables, their orders, and payment. Not reports.
A line cook needs tickets and stations. Not the till.
A head waiter adds discounts, refunds, and the floor view. Not menu costs.
A branch manager adds their branch's reports and staff. Not other branches.
A GM gets everything except account-level deletion.
An accountant gets reports and payments. Not the ability to change a menu price.

The pattern is simple: a role is what someone does; a permission is what they can touch. Sort the second one out the same week you sort the first, or the chart is decoration.

And if someone's role changes at 6 p.m. — a waiter covering as shift lead — their access should change with it and change back. Permanent manager access for a temporary manager shift is how discount abuse starts.

Six Org Chart Mistakes That Cost Real Money

Two bosses for one person. The fastest way to make a good employee quit. Every role gets one line up.
A chart with titles but no owners for the boring jobs. Nobody owns deliveries. Nobody owns the wine list. Nobody owns closing the till. These are the ones that bite.
Promoting your best waiter to manager with no training. You lose your best waiter and gain a stressed manager. Both jobs get worse. If you're doing it, do it properly: how to hire restaurant shift managers.
Kitchen and floor with no shared boss below the owner. When BOH and FOH only meet at the owner's desk, every conflict escalates. Someone below you must be able to settle it.
No cover in the chart. Every role needs a named deputy. Write "if X is off, Y covers" next to all 23. Do it before flu season, not during it.
A chart that's never updated. If your chart still shows a person who left in March, nobody's using it. Review it quarterly, takes 20 minutes.

Build Your Own Org Chart in 20 Minutes

List all 23 roles on paper. Don't judge them yet.
Cross out what your size genuinely doesn't need. A single café isn't hiring warehouse staff.
Write a name next to every role that's left. Repeat names freely.
Circle every role with no name. That's your gap list.
Draw one line up from each name. If you draw two lines to one person, fix it now.
Add a deputy for each role. "If off → covers".
Print it. Put it where staff eat, not in a drawer.
Re-check it every three months and after every hire or leaver.

Most teams find two or three unowned jobs in step 4. That's the whole payoff. The chart isn't the point; the gaps are.

FAQ

What are the 23 roles in a restaurant? Owner, general manager, branch manager, head chef, sous chef, pastry chef, line cook, prep cook, kitchen assistant, dishwasher, head waiter, waiter, runner, cashier, barista, bartender, sommelier, room service staff, delivery driver, accountant, inventory manager, purchasing manager, and warehouse staff. They split into leadership, back of house, front of house, and support.

What is the difference between front of house and back of house? Front of house is everyone guests see — waiters, bartenders, baristas, runners, cashiers, hosts. Back of house is everyone they don't — chefs, cooks, prep, dishwashers. The split matters for tips, uniforms, scheduling, and often for two very different cultures under one roof.

What is the hierarchy in a restaurant kitchen? Head chef at the top, then sous chef, then pastry chef alongside them, then line cooks, prep cooks, and kitchen assistants, with the dishwasher reporting to the head chef. It's a simplified version of the classic French brigade de cuisine, which had around 20 stations and is rarely run in full today.

Who reports to the restaurant manager? In a single-site restaurant, the head chef and the head waiter report to the manager, and everyone else reports through them. Keeping that two-branch structure — one kitchen lead, one floor lead — stops the manager from having 20 direct reports and being useless to all of them.

Do I need a runner in my restaurant? Add one when a waiter is covering more than about five tables at full turn, or when the walk from the pass to your furthest table is over 15 seconds. Below that a runner will be idle, and the money is better spent on another waiter or a prep hour.

What is the difference between a chef and a cook? A chef designs and owns the food — recipes, costs, standards, and the team. A cook executes it. Head chef and sous chef are chef roles; line cook and prep cook are cook roles. The title isn't about skill level so much as responsibility.

Is a hostess a separate role? Only above a certain size. Hosting — greeting, waitlist, seating — is always a job, but in a small restaurant the head waiter does it. Once you're regularly holding a waitlist or running over about 100 covers a service, hire a dedicated host.

What's the difference between an inventory manager and a purchasing manager? Inventory looks backward at what you have and what you used. Purchasing looks forward at what you'll buy and what you'll pay. One counts and tracks variance, the other negotiates with suppliers. Small restaurants combine both into the head chef's job.

Can managers take a share of tips in the US? No. Under federal law, managers and supervisors can never keep tips, including a share of a tip pool. Back-of-house staff can only be in a tip pool if you pay full minimum wage and take no tip credit. State rules add more on top, so have a lawyer check your policy once.

How many staff do I need for a 50-seat restaurant? Usually 12 to 18 people covering about 12 roles: a head chef, a sous chef, two or three line cooks, a prep cook, a dishwasher, a head waiter, three or four waiters, and a bartender, with the owner acting as GM. Exact numbers depend on your hours, menu complexity, and how many turns you do.

What is a restaurant org chart used for? It shows who reports to whom and who owns each job, so nothing falls between people. Its real value is the gap list — the roles you can't put a name against. Most restaurants find two or three unowned jobs the first time they draw one.

An org chart isn't paperwork. It's the answer to "who's dealing with this?" written down before anyone has to ask it at 8 p.m. on a Saturday.

Try one thing this week. Take the 23 roles above, write a name next to each, and see which ones stay blank. Then take the top blank and give it to someone by Friday — even if the job takes them ten minutes a week. Ten minutes with an owner beats ten hours of everyone assuming.