How to decide how many people you need in each role
A practical way to staff a café
If you want to staff properly, stop thinking in full days. Start with one hour. What has to happen in our busiest hour for service to cope?
If you staff for that hour, the rest of the day usually works.
Step one: define your real peak hour
Pick a specific hour where things tend to fall apart. Weekday morning rush. Weekend brunch. Any hour where queues form and mistakes start.
If you don’t have data, stand there and count. Orders. Drinks. Food items. Do it twice. That’s enough.
Step two: set realistic capacity per role
Now decide what one person can realistically handle in that hour without service slipping or standards being compromised.
Your mileage may vary but this a good place to start.
For drinks:
One barista focused only on drinks can usually handle around 25 to 35 drinks an hour on a typical espresso menu.
If that barista is also talking to customers, running food, or fixing problems, capacity drops immediately.
For orders and payments:
One person dedicated to orders and payments can usually handle around 35 to 55 orders an hour.
This depends heavily on menu clarity, modifiers, payment speed, and whether customers ask questions at the counter.
If the same person is helping on bar or managing the queue, capacity falls fast.
For food and prep:
One person can usually handle around 20 to 35 food items an hour if food is simple and well prepared in advance.
If items are cooked, assembled to order, or plated carefully, assume less.
Food work almost always takes longer than expected.
For keeping the place running:
One person can usually support two to four others by clearing, restocking, resetting stations, and preventing interruptions.
Once that person is pulled into another role, everyone else slows down.
Read this carefully:
These numbers are limits, not targets.
They describe what a person can handle briefly without the system breaking. They are not what people should be expected to sustain.
Step three: divide demand by capacity
Now do the math.
If your busiest hour is around 90 drinks, one person on drinks is not enough. At least 2 people must be assigned to drink making during that hour.
If you are taking around 70 orders in an hour, one person must be assigned to orders and payments for that entire period.
If food volume is significant, food cannot be treated as a secondary task. One person must own food during peak service.
If no one is responsible for the floor, everyone will be interrupted. Clearing, restocking, and problem solving will pull people away from their main roles and slow down service.
Step four: protect roles during peak
During your busiest hour, roles mustn’t blur.
Baristas must stay on the machine. They mustn’t leave to run food or clear tables. The person on the till must stay on the till. They mustn’t jump on bar. No one should be deciding in the moment what they’re supposed to be doing.
Outside peak hours, roles can be combined. During peak hours, they can’t.
Answer this clearly before hiring anyone
Most owners staff based on how a bad day felt. Or they hire one more person without deciding what that person is responsible for.
Before hiring anyone, answer this clearly. During our busiest hour, what jobs must be covered, and who is responsible for each one? If you can’t answer that in plain terms, hiring won’t fix the problem. It’ll only spread confusion.
Staffing works when the work is designed first.

