Interview Questions to Ask a Restaurant Owner
Twenty questions to ask the owner when you are interviewing for a job at their restaurant. In a small operation the owner sets the rota, the tip arrangement, and the standard on the floor, so this is the one conversation where you can get straight answers about hours, pay, staffing levels, and what service is actually like.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What made you open this place?
Why ask it
An easy opener that owners enjoy, and the answer sets the frame for everything else. Someone who talks about the food and the room runs a different restaurant from someone who talks about the site and the margins.
How long have you been open here, and how has the area changed since?
Why ask it
Longevity in one location tells you the business survived at least one bad year. Their read on the neighbourhood also tells you whether trade is growing or being defended.
What does a normal Friday night look like in here?
Why ask it
You want the texture: the time it fills, when the pressure peaks, how late the last table sits. Owners who cannot describe their own busiest service in detail are usually not on the floor for it.
How many covers do you do on a busy night, and how many staff are on?
Why ask it
These two numbers together are the single best measure of what a shift will feel like. A high cover count carried by a thin team is the definition of a job that burns people out.
What would my shifts look like across a normal week?
Why ask it
Ask for days, start times, and finish times rather than a total. Hospitality hours are often described as flexible when what is meant is unpredictable, and the difference decides whether you can plan anything else.
How is the rota set, and how far ahead do people see it?
Why ask it
A rota published a week or more in advance is a sign of an organised operation. Two days' notice, or a rota that changes after publication, is the complaint most likely to make you leave the job later.
How does the tip arrangement work here, and who shares in it?
Why ask it
Get this in specifics: card tips against cash, the split between kitchen and floor, whether any is retained by the business, and when it is paid. Rules on this differ by country and state, and vague answers are worth checking against the law where you are.
How is overtime paid, and how often do shifts actually run over?
Why ask it
Late finishes are normal in restaurants, and unpaid ones are not. Ask what happened last week rather than what the policy says, because the two frequently differ in small operations.
Who runs the floor when you are not here?
Why ask it
In an owner-operated restaurant this is the person you will really work for. If the answer is that the owner is always in, ask what happens on their days off, because a business with no second-in-charge leans hard on whoever is present.
How long have your longest-serving staff been with you?
Why ask it
Retention is the number owners are proudest of when it is good and quickest to change the subject about when it is not. Several years on the same team is a stronger recommendation than anything they say about culture.
Why is this position open?
Why ask it
Growth, a departure, or a chronic vacancy are three very different answers. If someone left, asking where they went is fair, and an answer that criticises the last person in the role is a signal about how you will be discussed.
When something goes wrong mid-service, how do the kitchen and the floor sort it out?
Why ask it
Every restaurant has friction across the pass. What differs is whether there is a route for it, a word with the head chef after service, or whether it is settled by shouting during it.
What happens on a night when you are short-staffed?
Why ask it
This is the real test of how the place is run. Answers involving cutting the covers taken or the owner working the section are healthier than an expectation that the remaining team absorbs it every time.
How often does the menu change, and who decides?
Why ask it
Frequent changes mean more learning for front of house and more pressure in the kitchen. It also tells you whether the chef has real authority, which shapes daily life more than the organisation chart does.
What do you do when a customer is rude to your staff?
Why ask it
Ask for a recent example rather than a principle. Owners who can describe the time they asked a table to leave are telling you something you cannot learn any other way about working there.
What does closing involve, and how long after last orders do people usually get out?
Why ask it
Close-down is unpaid in some places and badly organised in many. The gap between last orders and leaving is the number that decides your transport home and how much of your evening the job really takes.
When was your last health inspection, and what came out of it?
Why ask it
The grade is often public anyway, so the question is really about how they respond to being told to fix something. Defensiveness here tends to travel with defensiveness about kitchen standards generally.
How quiet do the slow months get, and do hours drop then?
Why ask it
Seasonality decides whether this is a year-round income. Ask directly whether shifts are cut in the quiet weeks, because that is the point at which many hospitality jobs stop covering rent.
What would you want me to have picked up by the end of my first month?
Why ask it
This gets you a concrete standard: the menu, the till, the sections, opening a bar alone. Vagueness here means training will happen by accident, in the middle of a busy service.
What do new staff here most often find hard?
Why ask it
The honest answers are specific, the pace, a particular regular, the layout of the room, and they help you decide. An owner who says nobody struggles has either forgotten their own first week or is selling.
Working out what the job is really like
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
See a service before you commit
Ask for a trial shift, or at least eat there on a busy night
Twenty minutes at a quiet table tells you very little. A paid trial on a Friday shows you the staffing level, the tone across the pass, and how the room is turned over, which are the three things that decide whether you last. If a trial is offered, confirm in advance that it is paid and how long it runs.
Watch the handovers, not the food
During any visit, look at how orders are called, whether staff have to hunt for a manager, and what happens when a table complains. Those moments show the operation under load in a way that no answer in an interview will.
Talk to someone who already works there
Ask the owner whether you can have five minutes with a member of the team you would work alongside. Willingness to arrange it is informative in itself, and the answers you get about the rota and the tips will be the practical ones.
Pin down the money and the hours in writing
- Get the hourly rate, the expected weekly hours, and the overtime arrangement written down before you accept, even for a casual role.
- Ask specifically how tips are distributed and when they are paid. Rules on service charge and tip pooling vary by country and by state, so check the local requirements rather than relying on what is described as normal here.
- Confirm whether close-down time, briefings, and staff meals are paid or unpaid.
- Ask how holiday and sickness are handled for your contract type. In small restaurants this is often unwritten until someone needs it.
- Check how you are paid, weekly or monthly, and when the first payment would land. A month-long gap is common and worth planning for.
Questions to hold back
Do not open with the finances of the business
Revenue, rent, and margins are reasonable topics for a supplier or an investor and awkward from a candidate. If you want to know whether the place is solid, ask about staff retention, opening hours, and how the quiet months go instead.
Leave promotion talk until they raise the role's shape
In a restaurant with eight staff there may be no next rung, and asking about a career path early can read as a lack of interest in the actual job. Ask instead what the person before you went on to do.
Save any criticism of the operation
Even accurate observations about the menu or the layout land badly from someone who has not worked a shift. Note them, and raise them once you are inside and know why things are the way they are.