Part III · Stop doing every job yourself
Chapter 10: Stop explaining the same things to every new hire.
Time2 hours, over a week
You needYour phone’s voice recorder, your recipes
You leave withA job post, station checklists, recipe cards and a menu quiz
The leak
Hiring was the second-biggest challenge operators named for 2026, behind only inflation (Toast). And every new hire costs twice: once to find, and again in the hours you or your chef spend explaining how the bar closes, how the burrata is plated, what to say about the allergens. Then they leave, and you explain it all again.
If the training manual is you, you can never step away.
What it costs you
Yearly training cost = hires per year × hours of your time per hire × value of your hour
Worked example · Mirela is fictional
Mirela hires 12 people a year. Each takes about 10 hours of her or her chef’s time in the first two weeks. She values that time at $50 an hour.
12 hires × 10 hours × $50 = $6,000 a year
| Row | A year |
|---|---|
| 10 hours per hire, today | $6,000 |
| 6 hours, with checklists | $3,600 |
| 4 hours, with recipe cards too | $2,400 |
That’s before the mistakes made while people are still guessing. The aim isn’t zero training; it’s spending your hours on what only you can teach.
The fix, part A: hire better
- Write a job post that filters for you. Prompt 1 turns a few honest sentences into a post with the real schedule, the real pace and who thrives on your team. Specific posts attract fewer, better applicants.
- Include the pay range. Several states and cities, including New York City, require one in job posts, and it saves everyone a wasted interview.
- Ask three screening questions before anyone comes in: availability, one experience question, and one about how they’d handle a real moment (“A table says their food is cold during a full rush. What do you do?”).
- Pay for a trial shift instead of a long interview. You’ll learn more in two hours on the floor than in an hour of questions.
The fix, part B: train without you
- Talk, don’t write. Walk through each station with your phone recording: opening the bar, closing the kitchen, setting a table, the steps of service. Talk the way you’d train someone. 5–10 minutes each.
- Turn each recording into a checklist with Prompt 2. Most AI tools can read a transcript, and many phones transcribe voice notes automatically.
- Standardize your recipe cards with Prompt 3: portion, method, plating, a photo of the finished plate. The dish tastes the same on your night off.
- Build a first-week plan: what a new server or cook learns on day 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and who teaches each piece.
- Make a menu quiz (Prompt 4) so new staff can learn dishes and ingredients on their own time.
- Translate what your team needs. AI translates checklists well. Have a bilingual team member check anything important before it’s posted.
- Keep it all in one shared folder everyone can open on their phone.
- Last call announced 15 minutes before close
- Garnishes wrapped, labeled, dated; citrus discarded
- Speed rail bottles capped, pour spouts in soda water
- Ice wells emptied and wiped
- Glass washer drained and cleaned
- Draft lines flushed (Mondays)
- Low stock written on the order sheet
- Cash and card report printed and left for the manager
The prompts
Prompt 1 · The job post
Write a job post for a [role] at my restaurant. The truth about the job: [schedule, pace, what a shift is like, who does well here, who doesn’t]. Pay: [range]. Benefits: [list]. Make it specific and honest, under 200 words. Then write three screening questions, including one about a real situation on the floor.
Prompt 2 · Voice note to checklist
Here’s a transcript of me explaining [task] at my restaurant: [paste]. Turn it into a numbered checklist a new hire can follow on their first day. Keep my wording where it matters. Put anything about safety or food handling in bold. Flag any step I mentioned vaguely so I can add detail. Then give me a one-line version for a laminated card.
Prompt 3 · The recipe card
Turn this recipe into a standard recipe card: [paste]. Sections: dish name, yield, portion size by weight, ingredients with exact amounts, method in numbered steps, plating notes, holding time, and a blank line for allergens that my chef will fill in. Don’t add or change ingredients. Flag anything unclear.
Prompt 4 · The menu quiz
Using our menu [paste], write a 15-question quiz for new front-of-house staff: what’s in each dish, how it’s cooked, what to recommend with it, and one wine or drink pairing for three dishes. Multiple choice, answers at the end. Don’t include allergen questions; those come from our chef’s chart.
Three decisions this week
i.Record three voice notes: the tasks you explain most often.
ii.Your top five recipe cards, done and photographed.
iii.Your job post template, saved and ready for the next opening.
What you leave with
Everything from this chapter you can keep. No email needed.
- This chapter’s 4 promptsReady to paste into your AI assistant. Fill in the [brackets] first.
- The prompt libraryEvery prompt in the guide, by chapter, as one PDF.