Interviewing Restaurant Staff: Questions That Actually Predict Performance
Hey Team!
I've hired somewhere north of a thousand people in thirty years. Probably closer to two thousand if I'm being honest about the turnover math in this industry. And for the first decade or so, I ran every interview the same way everyone else does. You shake hands, you ask where they worked before, you ask why they left, you ask if they're a team player, they say yes, you offer them a shift. Maybe twenty minutes total if you're thorough. Ten if you're slammed.
The problem is that process tells you almost nothing useful. You're selecting for people who interview well. That's not the same as selecting for people who'll actually learn your menu, absorb your standards, and stick around long enough to be worth training.
Here's what I've learned. The interview isn't about finding someone who seems nice. It's about predicting how that person will learn. That one shift in framing changes every question you ask.
Most menus aren't simple anymore. At Black Barrel Tavern, we've got a whiskey program with over a hundred bottles, rotating drafts, and a kitchen that changes specials regularly. At Fat Tommy's, we've got sauces, proteins, and allergen callouts that matter. If someone can't absorb and retain that information, none of their other qualities compensate for it. So I want to know, before I put them on the floor, how they learn.
The first question I ask every candidate is some version of this: "Tell me about the last job where you had to learn a lot of new information fast. What did that process look like for you?" Not "are you a quick learner." Everybody says yes to that. I want them to narrate a real experience. I want specifics. Did they make notes? Did they ask someone to quiz them? Did they study a menu at home the night before their first shift? The people who have a *process*, even a rough one, are the people who'll actually get up to speed. The people who give you vague answers about "just picking things up naturally" are usually the ones who are still foggy on the specials three weeks in.
This question also tells you something about self-awareness. Do they know how they learn, or have they never thought about it? That self-awareness is a proxy for coachability, and coachability is the whole ballgame in a restaurant.
The second question trips people up, but it's important: "How do you typically use your phone for work stuff, if at all?" I'm not asking if they're glued to TikTok during service. I'm trying to understand their comfort level with using a phone as a tool. Because the way we train now, staff are taking quizzes and reviewing menu content on their phones. If someone has never used their phone for anything more than texting, there's sometimes a small adaptation curve. Not a dealbreaker, but something I want to know going in. More importantly, I've found that people who already use their phones to manage tasks, look things up quickly, or stay organized tend to engage faster with mobile-based training. They're already wired for it.
The third question is the one that actually separates good hires from great ones: "Tell me about a time a manager or coworker corrected you on something. How did you handle it?" Again, I'm not asking "do you take feedback well." I'm asking them to tell me a real story. The best candidates give you something specific and tell you what they did differently after. The ones I'm cautious about either can't think of a single example, or the story they tell makes the other person sound unreasonable. That's a tell. In a restaurant kitchen or on a busy floor, feedback is constant. If someone bristles at correction, their ceiling is low, and the friction they create is expensive.
I had a guy come in for a bar position at Black Barrel a while back. Confident, great presence, answered every standard question perfectly. When I asked him the feedback question, he told me about a time his old bar manager said his pours were inconsistent. He said he told the manager he'd been doing it the same way for years and it wasn't a problem at his last place. And then he just moved on like that was a satisfying answer. I passed. That guy would've been a nightmare to train because he'd already decided he was done learning.
Here's the part nobody talks about. These three questions work because they're past-behavior questions, not hypothetical ones. "What would you do if a table had an allergen concern?" gives you whatever the candidate thinks you want to hear. "Tell me about a time you handled an allergen situation at a past job" gives you what actually happened. Real behavior predicts future behavior better than good intentions do every time.
One more thing. The interview is also the first signal you're sending to a candidate about what kind of operation you run. If you're asking thoughtful questions about how they learn and how they handle feedback, you're already telling them that training is taken seriously here. That filters, too. The candidates who light up at that, who lean forward, who start asking you questions about your menu and your training program, those are the ones you want. The ones who look confused that you're asking anything beyond "can you work Saturdays" might be telling you something about their expectations.
Hiring is the top of the funnel. Everything downstream, training, retention, guest experience, is easier or harder depending on who you let in. Spend thirty extra minutes per candidate asking better questions and you'll spend a lot fewer hours regretting the decision later.
Have a great day! — Terry
Your AI Restaurant Guy
