Pizzeria Staffing Guide: Hire the Right Team

Key Points:

• Building a strong pizzeria team starts with clearly defining the positions you need, recruiting with intention, and using a structured hiring and interview process to select for reliability and fit.
• Retaining great staff long-term depends on thoughtful onboarding, competitive compensation, smart manager hiring, and a workplace culture that makes people want to stay.

One of your most important moves as a new pizzeria operator is hiring and training staff before you open. Get this right, and you build a team that runs smoothly from day one. Get it wrong, and you’ll spend your opening weeks putting out fires instead of running your restaurant!

We’ve created a quick reference guide to some of best articles in Pizza Today Magazine on hiring your team. We encourage you to click through and read thorough articles written by thought leaders in the pizzeria industry.

Start by Assessing Your Staffing Needs

Before you post a single job ad, you need a clear picture of who you actually need on your roster.

Nick Bogacz, owner of Caliente Pizza & Draft House in Pittsburgh, PA, Pizza Expo speaker and Pizza Today contributor, breaks down where to begin. He says, “the first key to building a successful team is knowing what positions you need. Just like a football team isn’t built with 11 quarterbacks on the starting offense, the same goes with making your own pizzeria lineup. Consider how many positions you’ll need to fill and what those positions are. You can get literal and make an actual list. For example:

• 3 full-time pizza makers
• 3 full-time sandwich makers
• 2 full-time greeters
• 5 part-time counter workers
• 4 full-time managers
• 2 part-time utility/do-all team members”

That list gives you a real target to hire against, so you’re not scrambling to fill gaps once the doors open.

Read more: The First Steps in Building Your Pizzeria’s Team

Recruiting and Hiring

Once you’ve mapped out your lineup, it’s time to recruit! Employee management is the No. 1 issue many pizzeria operators face, so it pays to approach hiring with a real plan rather than gut instinct.

Start by understanding what today’s workers actually want. Pay matters, but so do schedule flexibility, respect and room to grow. Knowing this helps you write better job postings and attract stronger candidates.

Read more: Do Employers Really Know What Workers Want?

Ready to build a repeatable process? These practical guides walk you through the steps.

• Five Hiring Action Steps
• Hiring For Long-Term Success
• Finding Greatness
• The Few and the Proud Employees

Struggling to fill every shift? You’re not alone, and there are proven ways to get to a full roster.

Read more: Achieving a Fully Staffed Restaurant

Interviewing

The interview is where you separate a good resume from the right hire. A structured, consistent interview helps you spot the qualities that actually matter behind your counter: reliability, attitude and a willingness to learn.

A bad hire costs you time, money and team morale, so it’s worth slowing down to get it right.

• Read more: How to Conduct an Interview
• Read more: Bad Hire?

Onboarding and Training

Your job isn’t done once someone signs on! How you welcome and train new team members sets the tone for how long they’ll stay and how well they’ll perform.

A warm welcome makes people feel like they belong from day one. From there, a solid training program turns eager new hires into confident, consistent contributors. Mike Bausch dives into onboarding and training in the following articles. He owns 12 restaurants in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area, including Andolini’s Pizzeria and a newer fine dining spot, Prossimo Ristorante. He’s an Oklahoma’s Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year, No. 1 Amazon best-selling author, Tulsa’s Restauranteur of the Year and Pizza Today columnist.

• Read more: Welcoming New Employees
• Read more: Effective Orientation and Training
• Read more: Fundamentals and Next-level Steps for a Solid Restaurant Employee Training Program

Hiring Your Managers

Your managers keep the operation running when you can’t be there, so choosing the right leaders is one of your highest-stakes decisions. Take the time to find, hire and train people who can lead by example and make smart calls under pressure.

And once you’ve hired a strong general manager, the relationship you build with them matters just as much as the hire itself. A trusting owner/GM bond keeps your business steady and your team aligned. Veteran Pizzeria Operators Michael Androw and Nick Bogacz share their insights on hiring managers.

• Read more: Finding, Hiring and Training Managers
• Read more: The Crucial Owner/General Manager Bond

Compensation That Attracts and Keeps Talent

Competitive pay and a clear compensation structure are essential to attracting good people and keeping them. That means building a fair pay scale, a smart tipping system and, for your leadership roles, a compensation package that reflects the responsibility you’re handing over.

• Read more: Build a Pizzeria Pay Scale and Tipping System
• Read more: Today’s Restaurant Manager Compensation Packages

Build a Workplace People Don’t Want to Leave

Pay gets people in the door, but culture keeps them. The best pizzerias hold onto their teams because they’ve created a place where people genuinely want to work. Learn what the top operators do differently and steal a few ideas for your own shop.

Read more: Secrets of the Best Workplaces

Your Next Step

Hiring leadership and key staff isn’t a one-time task, it’s an ongoing part of running a successful pizzeria. Start with Nick Bogacz’s advice: know exactly which positions you need, then work through recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, manager hiring, compensation and culture with intention.

Explore the full Employee Management topic on Pizza Today for more expert guidance and build the team your pizzeria deserves!