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Restaurant Leaders’ Biggest Hurdle Isn’t Finding Staff or Pleasing Diners. It’s Time.

Our Most Compelling Data:

3/4

Roughly three in four restaurant leaders indicated they spend more time on every aspect of business operations we asked about than they did a year ago.

60%

of operators said hiring has become easier in the past year.

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More than one-third of restaurant owners plan to launch programs to retain staff.

As hiring smooths out, restaurant leaders spend more time on operations

What stands in the way of restaurant leaders in reaching their goals this year? It always comes down to time.

Take hiring, for example. Finding talent and retaining staff have been huge challenges for operators for years. Thankfully, the majority (60%) said it’s gotten easier this year. That should feel like a huge relief after years of rising wages and additional labor market abnormalities.

But 73% still say they spend more time on hiring than they did last year, while three in four said they spend more time on business operations and management activities.

Key takeaway:

Those burritos won’t make themselves, and those tables won’t get bussed without a little hustle. Still, there are several areas where restaurant leaders can save time by adding technology, which the majority (72%) told us they’re already looking into. With the pressure of the pandemic mostly in the past and the recent economic downturn now looking like a temporary problem, restaurant leaders have the rare opportunity in 2025 to think about the big-picture future of their businesses. This includes how intuitive ordering technology (like kiosks), all-in-one back-end systems, and AI-powered staff scheduling could save their operations time and smooth out a chaotic kitchen environment on even the best days.

Pro tip:

Looking for a place to start testing? Try looking at your staff experience. Tools like Square Payroll help retail leaders track hours and accurately pay employees, reducing a significant friction point so everyone can focus more on productivity and customer service.

Vernon Lindholm and Andy Dispun quickly became fans of unique, high-quality coffee roasts when the third-wave coffee movement caught traction. They sent each other bean shipments between Los Angeles and San Francisco, where they both worked corporate jobs. In 2018, the pen pals turned their hobby into a business, launching Offset Coffee, which has since become a pillar in the South Bay region of Los Angeles.

Each month, they churn out tens of thousands of items, such as vanilla lattes and their very popular Dirty Horchata, an espresso beverage inspired by their coffee operations manager’s family recipe. Offset Coffee also roasts wholesale, provides catering, and participates in pop-ups around Los Angeles. Having tools that speak to each other helps them avoid mistakes and get staff what they need across all areas of the business.

With Square Payroll, the team can make timecard adjustments if they forgot to clock in or clock out. All payroll is run seamlessly through that. And on the back end, we don’t have any issues with our team getting paid … The majority of our team, I’d say, are under 25 years of age. For some, it’s their first job, they’re 18, and some of them don’t have bank accounts, but they have Cash App. So they could get paid through Cash App and not have any issues there.”

– Vernon Lindholm, co-founder of Offset Coffee, Los Angeles, California, USA