676 operators told Toast what’s hard in 2026. Three of their answers are really about the menu.
Hiring is the #2 challenge and climbing. Operators have stopped arguing about whether to use AI. And the plan is to serve more, not cut. Every one of those runs through a question the survey never asks: does your staff actually know the menu?
Quick answer
In Toast’s 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry survey of 676 operators, hiring rose to the number two challenge (22%, up 6 points). 87% of operators say they are comfortable using AI and 85% expect to use more. The fastest rising growth goal was adding ways to bring in revenue (up 6 points), because operators want to serve more, not cut. All three of those answers point at one thing the survey never measures: whether frontline staff actually know the menu. About 70% of restaurant turnover happens in the first 90 days (NRA), and replacing one frontline employee runs roughly $1,500 to $5,800 (Cornell), most of it the training ramp. A new hire who knows the menu on day one feels competent, sells more, and stays. ShiftTrained turns a restaurant’s own menu into AI-built quizzes that staff take on their phones, with no app to download, so the menu confidence operators are chasing actually shows up on the floor.
What 676 operators said
Hiring is the challenge climbing fastest after inflation.
Toast’s 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry survey polled 676 U.S. operators. Confidence held steady, with 91% rating their business health good or excellent. But two challenges rose faster than anything else measured: inflation and hiring. Hiring jumped 6 points to become the number two concern, the second biggest year over year increase in the whole survey.
Share of operators ranking each challenge top three. Source: Toast, 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry (676 operators, ±4%).
The turn nobody should miss
Operators aren’t skeptical about AI anymore. They’re shopping.
One finding matters more than the rest. In the same survey, 87% of operators say they are comfortable using AI, 85% expect to use more of it, and close to nine in ten are already trying it, 42% of them through a technology vendor. Only 2% aren’t considering it at all. Operators have stopped asking whether to use AI. Now they just want to know where to point it.
are comfortable using AI in their business.
expect to use more AI going forward.
are already trying it today.
Source: Toast, 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry.
The hiring fight is a confidence fight
People don’t leave because the job is hard. They leave because they feel lost.
Operators told Toast how they plan to fight the hiring problem, and it wasn’t with cuts. 51% said they will work on staff efficiency and 49% on retention. Shrinking the menu (23%) and closing tables (20%) came dead last. That is the right instinct. Here is the part the survey doesn’t say out loud. About 70% of restaurant turnover happens in the first 90 days. In 30 years running restaurants I watched it play out the same way every time. A new hire gets put on the floor before they know the food, they freeze when a guest asks a simple question, and they feel it. Nobody stays at a job that makes them feel stupid every shift.
A server who knows the menu cold on their first shift carries themselves differently. They are comfortable, and comfortable people don’t quit in week two.
Getting it wrong costs real money. Cornell hospitality research puts the price of replacing one frontline employee at roughly $1,500 to $5,800, and at the NRA industry average turnover rate of 75%, that is a bill you pay again and again. Most of that cost is not the recruiting. It is the ramp: the wage you pay a new hire while they learn, and the sales they miss before they are up to speed.
Where the cost of one replacement goes
Roughly two-thirds of every replacement is the ramp: training the new hire and the productivity you lose while they get up to speed. Menu confidence is the fastest part of that to fix. Source: Cornell (Tracey & Hinkin), NRA, SHRM.
Want your own number? Run it in the turnover cost calculator. It takes about 30 seconds and doesn’t ask for your email to show the result.
The lever hiding in the data
Three of their answers, one thing they never measured.
Line the findings up and they point the same direction. Operators want to win the hiring fight through efficiency and retention. They want to serve more, not offer less, since the fastest rising goal was bringing in more revenue and the last thing they will do is shrink the menu. And on cost, more of them plan to run leaner before they raise a price. Every one of those depends on the same thing: whether the person carrying the menu to the table actually knows it.
- Efficiency and retention. A hire who knows the menu ramps faster and quits less, so you pay that ramp cost once instead of three times.
- Serve more, not less. A server who knows the menu can steer a table to the right dish and read what they actually want. That is more revenue per guest without adding a single new revenue stream.
- Margin without a price hike. Fewer comps, fewer sent-back plates, fewer allergen mistakes. That is money you keep, and the guest never sees it on the check.
What it looks like on the floor
The menu is already the curriculum. Most restaurants just never test it.
When ShiftTrained’s AI reads the average restaurant menu, it finds more than 180 facts worth knowing, across about 70 items and 14 sections: every ingredient, prep, allergen, and pairing a server is supposed to have in their head. That is a binder nobody reads. So we turn it into quizzes staff take on their phones in a few minutes, with no app to download and no login. A new hire studies on the bus and walks in ready.
That is the AI operators told Toast they are ready for, pointed straight at the fight they said they are in. That is what ShiftTrained does: you upload your menu, and the training builds itself.
Teach your staff, keep them longer, cut your turnover cost, and raise your average check. That is the whole job, and it starts with the menu you already have.
Sources
The industry figures come from Toast’s 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry survey, a blind poll of 676 U.S. decision-makers running 16 or fewer locations, fielded in April 2026, with a ±4% margin of error at 95% confidence. ShiftTrained is not affiliated with the survey. We cite it as published.
Turnover and replacement-cost figures come from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research (Tracey & Hinkin), the National Restaurant Association, and SHRM. The 180 facts per menu figure comes from the ShiftTrained menu corpus. Restaurant replacement costs vary a lot by market, wage, and concept, so use the turnover cost calculator to estimate your own.
Published September 2026 · ShiftTrained
Frequently Asked Questions
What are restaurants' biggest challenges in 2026?
According to Toast's 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry survey of 676 operators, inflation is the number one challenge (27% rank it top three, up 7 points year over year) and hiring is number two (22%, up 6 points). Those were the two fastest rising pain points measured. Guest foot traffic and managing finances each held flat at 15%.
How comfortable are restaurants with AI in 2026?
Very. In Toast's 2026 survey, 87% of operators say they are comfortable using AI and 85% expect to use more of it. Close to nine in ten are already trying it, 42% of them through a technology vendor. The question is no longer whether to adopt AI. It is where to point it.
Why do restaurant employees quit in the first 90 days?
About 70% of restaurant turnover happens in the first 90 days (National Restaurant Association). A new hire who gets dropped on the floor without knowing the menu feels exposed in front of guests, and people leave jobs where they feel out of their depth. First-week training that makes staff confident on the menu is one of the most direct ways to hold onto them.
How much does restaurant staff turnover cost?
Cornell hospitality research puts the cost of replacing one frontline restaurant employee at roughly $1,500 to $5,800, and about two-thirds of that is the ramp: training the new hire and the productivity you lose while they get up to speed. At the NRA industry average turnover rate of 75%, those replacements add up fast. You can estimate your own number with the ShiftTrained turnover calculator.
What is the best way to train restaurant staff on the menu in 2026?
Make the menu the curriculum and test it instead of lecturing it. ShiftTrained reads a restaurant's own menu with AI and turns it into quizzes staff take on their phones, with no app to download and no binder. A new hire shows up menu confident on day one, which is exactly the efficiency and retention operators told Toast they want.
Where does the data on this page come from?
The industry figures come from Toast's 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry survey, a blind poll of 676 U.S. operators running 16 or fewer locations, fielded in April 2026 (±4% margin of error). Turnover figures come from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research (Tracey & Hinkin), the National Restaurant Association, and SHRM. The 180 facts per menu figure comes from the ShiftTrained menu corpus.
About the Author
Terry Psaltakis is a 30-year restaurant operator who has opened more than 20 concepts across multiple markets, in every role from dishwasher to Owner. He founded ShiftTrained in Chicago to solve a problem he lived for three decades: pre-shift meetings don't actually train staff. Terry writes about the operational side of restaurant training, AI in hospitality, and what works on the floor.
LinkedIn · terry@shifttrained.com
Last reviewed June 2026
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