Takeaway staff rota: cover the kitchen, counter and drivers without the Friday panic

A takeaway's whole week is decided in about fifteen hours: Friday and Saturday from 5 till close, plus Sunday evening. Get those nights right and the week works. Put one person too few on the fryer at 7pm on a Saturday and orders back up, drivers wait, the delivery apps' timings slide and the reviews follow.

Then there's the other side. Three people on a wet Monday when the phone rings twice an hour is money straight off the bottom line.

What makes a takeaway rota tricky

• Sharp peaks. Most of the trade lands in a two or three hour window. The rota has to stack people into it, not spread them across the day.
• Different jobs, different people. Cooks, fryer, prep, counter, phones and your own drivers. You need the right mix, not just a headcount.
• Split days. Lunch 11.30 to 2, back for 5 to close. Common in takeaways and painful on paper.
• Big nights you can see coming. Derby day, a boxing pay-per-view, the first cold Friday of the autumn, Christmas party season.
• Late finishes. If staff regularly work at least 3 hours between 11pm and 6am, GOV.UK treats them as night workers, with limits on average hours and a right to a free health assessment. Under-18s can't work between midnight and 4am.
• Drop-outs. A driver's car fails its MOT, a cook calls in sick at 4pm. You need to see instantly who's free.

How ShiftComplete builds a takeaway rota

Know who's free before you start

Staff set their availability on their phones weeks ahead: available, partial or off, with a note ("weekends only", "can't drive Sundays"). When someone drops out at 4pm, you can see who said they were free instead of ringing round.

Areas for every station

Create your own areas: Kitchen, Fryer, Prep, Counter, Phones, Delivery. Each block on the rota carries one, so a Saturday reads like your actual line-up: two on Kitchen, one on Fryer, one on Counter, three on Delivery.

Split shifts in one line

Up to four time blocks per person per day. "11.30 to 2 Kitchen, 5 to close Kitchen" or "5 to 8 Counter, 8 to close Delivery". Clear for you, clear for them.

Events for the big nights

Add an event to any day: "Boxing PPV, +1 Fryer, +2 Delivery from 8pm", "School holidays, +1 lunch". ShiftComplete adds the cover when it builds the draft.

A fair rota in seconds

Weight your fastest cooks onto Saturday, then let ShiftComplete build a draft rota in seconds, fair across the team so the same people don't get every Sunday off. Drag shifts around, publish, and it's on everyone's phone under My rota. You can email it too.

Clocking in for kitchen, counter and drivers

Switch on time tracking and everyone clocks in and out on their phone or the counter tablet, drivers included. You see hours worked against the rota, so the Saturday that ran an hour past close is on record, and you can download hours as a spreadsheet with a total per person for your payroll. It records clock-in and clock-out times only: there's no GPS tracking of drivers.

Labour cost on screen

Labour cost shows while you build. That's where you catch the third person on Monday before it costs you, and where you can see whether the extra driver on Friday is worth it.

Allergens: the question every takeaway gets asked

Takeaways take orders by phone, at the counter and online, often from customers they never see. FSA technical guidance for England, Wales and Northern Ireland says that when you sell non-prepacked food by distance selling, allergen information must be available before the purchase is concluded and at the moment of delivery, free of charge. Food Standards Scotland has its own guidance for Scotland.

ShiftComplete helps the people answering that question:

• Every dish mapped to the 14 UK allergens, grouped by menu section (starters, mains, sides, sauces, desserts).
• Searchable on any phone or the counter tablet, so whoever's on the phones can answer "does the satay have peanuts?" without shouting to the kitchen.
• Manager-only edit, so the list doesn't get changed by accident mid-service.

How you then label orders at delivery (stickers on containers, a menu in the bag) is up to you; our allergen app guide covers the options.

The rest of the shift

• Hot-hold and fridge temperatures. Set up each fridge, freezer and hot-hold point with its own range. Staff log readings in seconds; out-of-range ones are flagged on the dashboard. See our guide to hot holding, cooling and reheating.
• Opening and closing checks that change by weekday, including the deep clean after the weekend. Every tick named and timestamped, and a 2am close still counts as "today".
• Incidents and maintenance. A fryer thermostat playing up, a driver's minor accident, a cut hand. Log it with a photo, severity and notes.
• Announcements for menu changes and price rises, so the counter and the phones say the same thing.

What it costs

£1.49 per staff member per month, with every feature included. No per-site fee, no contract, remove staff any time.

Free for 60 days with no card. Set-up takes about five minutes, and there's a free 15-minute set-up call if you'd like one.

What an operator says

"The rota stopped being a Sunday-night argument the week we switched over. The chef stopped being the only person who knows what's in the kitchen. And the EHO turn up to a screen, not a box file."

Graeme Kirkham, Owner, The Lounge Oswestry & Knock & Snitch

Read the Kirkham story.

Who it's for

• Pizza, curry, Chinese, chip shop and kebab takeaways with a weekend-heavy week.
• Restaurants doing delivery that need one rota for dine-in and delivery staff.
• Dark kitchens and delivery-led sites where every station needs covering at peak.
• Owners with two or three branches who want to switch between them in one app.

If no-shows are your biggest headache, read our guide to reducing staff no-shows. Then start your free trial and get Friday sorted.