How to write a pub rota (without it eating your Sunday night)

The short version: build the rota around the trade, not around the people. Decide what each session needs first, then fill it. Most bad pub rotas start the other way round, with last week's names copied across and a few changes, and end up overstaffed on a dead Tuesday and short on a Saturday when the football's on.

Here's the process a good GM follows, step by step, with a worked example from a 40-cover gastropub.

Step 1: Read your trading pattern

Pull the last four weeks of sales from your till, broken down by hour or at least by session (lunch, afternoon, evening, late). You're looking for:

• Your peaks. Which hours do most of the week's takings? In a lot of pubs it's Friday and Saturday from 7pm, and Sunday lunch.
• Your dead zones. Monday and Tuesday afternoons often need one person, not two.
• Food versus wet. If 60% of Sunday's takings are food, Sunday is a kitchen day.
• Anything unusual. A one-off busy Wednesday might have been a funeral or a match. Don't build a pattern on it.

Four weeks evens out the noise. If you can, compare with the same weeks last year, because a pub garden in June and a pub in February are different businesses.

Step 2: Turn trade into cover

For each session, write how many people you need in each area. A simple way to work out bar cover is:

busiest hour's bar takings ÷ what one bartender can comfortably take in an hour at your pub = bartenders needed

If your Friday 8pm to 9pm bar takings average £900 and one experienced bartender can comfortably handle around £300 an hour at your pub (your figure will differ with prices, layout and drinks mix), you need three behind the bar at the peak. Then add a glass collector or floor person, the kitchen if food is still going, and a duty manager.

Write it in a cover planner (there's one in our staff rota template): Fri 19:00-23:00: 3 Bar, 1 Floor, 2 Kitchen until 21:00, 1 Manager.

Step 3: Add the week's events

Go through the diary and add anything that changes the cover:

• Live sport: international rugby, big football matches, the darts.
• Quiz night, live music, open mic.
• Booked parties, wakes, christenings, birthday buffets.
• Bank holidays, school holidays, local events (the village show, a festival, the races).
• Deliveries and contractors who need someone on site (brewery drop, line cleaning, a gas engineer).

Each one either adds or removes cover, or needs a note on the rota so the right person is there.

Step 4: Collect availability by a deadline

Set one day each week as the availability deadline, for example Wednesday for the week after next. Ask everyone the same way, and get it in writing: available, partial (with times), or off, plus any notes. Then you're working from facts, not from what someone said at the end of a shift.

Holidays should already be booked and recorded so you're not finding out at this stage.

Step 5: Place managers and key holders first

Every open and every close needs someone who holds keys, knows the alarm, can cash up and is responsible for the premises. Put them on first. Spread the late closes across your managers so one person isn't doing every Friday and Saturday finish.

Step 6: Place the kitchen

Kitchen shifts are less flexible and harder to cover if someone drops out. Place your head chef and cooks next, including split shifts if you run lunch and dinner. A typical split might be 10:00 to 15:00 and 17:00 to 21:30, which is 9.5 hours of work.

Step 7: Fill the bar and floor fairly

Now fill bar and floor shifts to match the cover planner. Some rules of thumb that keep a team happy:

• Rotate the good and the bad. Track Saturday nights and late closes over a month, not just this week.
• Pair new starters with experienced staff on busy shifts.
• Avoid "clopens". Closing at 12:30am and opening at 10am is 9.5 hours' rest, which is under the 11 hours adults are entitled to between working days.
• Give people consistent patterns where you can. Someone who always does Tuesday and Thursday evenings will turn up more reliably than someone whose shifts move every week.

Step 8: Check the rules

Before publishing, run through the legal basics. These are the GOV.UK figures for adult workers in Great Britain:

For under-18s the rules are tighter: no more than 8 hours a day or 40 a week, a 30-minute break if they work more than 4.5 hours, 12 hours' rest between working days and 48 hours off a week. They usually can't work between 10pm and 6am (or 11pm and 7am if the contract allows work after 10pm). Pubs and hotels fall into an exception that allows work until midnight or from 4am in some circumstances, but never between midnight and 4am. If you employ 16 and 17-year-olds on the bar or in the kitchen, check our full guide to working time rules in hospitality.

Pay must meet the minimum wage. From April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20-year-olds, and £8.00 for under-18s and apprentices.

Step 9: Cost the week

Add up hours per person and per day, multiply by pay rates, and compare with what you expect to take. If Tuesday's wage cost is half of Tuesday's expected sales, something's wrong. Our guide to labour cost percentage explains how to set a target and what to include (employer National Insurance, pension and holiday pay all add to the headline wage bill).

Step 10: Publish, then manage changes

Publish on the same day every week, at least a week ahead. Send it to everyone at once and keep one "live" version. After that:

• Swaps go through a manager and get written on the rota.
• Sickness and absence are reported by phone to the duty manager, by a set time before the shift.
• Any change after publishing is re-sent with the date it was updated.

Keep old rotas. Acas says you need records showing you've kept within the 48-hour and night work limits for two years.

Worked example: a Saturday at a 40-cover gastropub

A village gastropub, open 11am to 11pm, 18 staff. This Saturday there's an international rugby match at 4:45pm.

• Trade: Saturdays usually do £4,500, with peaks at lunch and from 7pm. A big match adds a mid-afternoon peak.
• Cover: Lunch: 2 Bar, 2 Floor, 3 Kitchen. Match (15:30-19:00): 4 Bar, 1 Floor, 2 Kitchen. Evening: 3 Bar, 2 Floor, 3 Kitchen, 1 Manager.
• Event note: "Rugby 16:45. Extra glasses out of storage. Garden screen on."
• Managers: GM 11:00-19:00, assistant manager 15:00-23:30 (close).
• Kitchen: head chef 10:00-15:00 / 17:00-22:00; cook 11:00-19:00; second cook 16:00-22:30; kitchen porter 12:00-16:00 / 18:00-23:00.
• Bar and floor: six part-timers placed in blocks to match each session, with the two newest staff paired with the strongest bartenders for the match.
• Checks: The assistant manager closed Friday at 12:30am, so their 3pm Saturday start gives over 14 hours' rest. The 17-year-old glass collector is on 12:00-18:00, with a 30-minute break at 15:00.

Common mistakes to avoid

1. Copying last week without reading the diary. The match, the party and the bank holiday all get missed.
2. Rota-ing on favours. It feels kind, and it builds resentment in everyone else.
3. Publishing late. A rota sent on Sunday night for Monday morning is an invitation to no-shows. See our guide to reducing staff no-shows.
4. Ignoring split-shift rest. A long split day followed by an early open breaks the 11-hour rule more often than people think.
5. Two versions in circulation. One photo in the WhatsApp group, a different printout on the wall.
6. No manager on the close. It only takes one night.

Pub rota checklist

• Last four weeks' sales reviewed by session
• Cover planned per session and area
• Events, deliveries and contractors added
• Availability collected by the deadline; holidays recorded
• Key holder on every open and close
• Kitchen placed, including split shifts
• Bar and floor filled fairly; closes rotated
• Breaks, 11 hours' rest, weekly rest and 48-hour average checked
• Under-18s' hours, breaks and night limits checked
• Week costed against expected sales
• Published at least a week ahead, one version only

Doing this in ShiftComplete

Most of the steps above are what ShiftComplete does for you. Staff set availability on their phones (available, partial or off, with a note). You add events like "Saturday rugby, +2 on the bar" and weight the people you want on. It builds a draft rota in seconds, fair across the team, and you drag shifts to fine-tune it. Split shifts get up to four blocks per person per day, each tagged with an area like Bar or Kitchen, and day notes sit on the rota. Labour cost is shown while you build, holidays are recorded, and when you publish, the rota appears on everyone's phone under My rota.

It costs £1.49 per staff member per month and the first 60 days are free, no card needed. See our rota app for pubs page for the full picture.