Staffing
Why the Restaurant Labor Crisis Is a Retention Problem, Not a Recruitment Problem
The restaurant industry is facing a staffing problem. But in reality, it's facing a retention problem. From dangerous work environments to boring, repetitive work - people are not sticking around. Rodney Guerrero of Miso Robotics speaks to the issues facing the industry, and what modern operators can do to curb the decline.
January 22, 2026
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ClaudeI've spent over two decades selling to restaurants. First with Frito-Lay, Boar's Head, and Gallo. Then robotics at SoftBank, Bear Robotics, and now Miso. I've sat across from hundreds of operators who tell me the same thing: "We can’t find or keep people in our kitchen."
But that's not what's actually happening.
Restaurant turnover rates run near 80% annually on average, with segments like QSR seeing 144%. Every replacement costs operators roughly $6,000. The industry keeps throwing money at recruitment - signing bonuses, hiring events, wage competition. It's not working. You can't out-recruit a retention problem.
When I push operators on what's really going on, a different story emerges. Workers burn out from understaffing. They quit because they spend eight hours at a fryer instead of developing skills. They leave for Amazon warehouses and delivery apps that figured out how to make work less miserable.
The things I uncovered
I started asking operators a different question: What would make your current team stay? The answers weren't just about money. People want to use their judgment, not just their hands. They want work that feels meaningful. They need schedules that let them have lives outside the restaurant.
When you lose eight out of ten workers every year, you're not competing with other restaurants. You're competing with entire industries that have the means and margins to treat people better.
The operators who get this have stopped asking "How do we find more bodies?" They're asking "How do we redesign what those bodies do?" Instead of paying someone to stand at a fryer for forty hours - one of the most monotonous tasks in a kitchen - they're freeing that person to do work that requires actual human judgment.
Research shows 77% of operators cite retention as their top concern. But turnover for full-service restaurants dropped from an average of 125% during the pandemic to 96% now. Not because wages doubled. Because operators rethought how work gets done.
Eliminate the worst parts of a job and you're not just filling a position - you're offering a career. Workers spend time on food quality, customer interaction, and training. The work becomes engaging. People stay.
Applications increase too. Not from advertising harder, but because word spreads that your restaurant treats workers differently.
My background selling both products and automation gives me perspective. The labor crisis isn't about supply. It's about conditions. Fix retention and recruitment fixes itself. Keep treating symptoms and you'll keep losing $2,305 per employee wondering why nobody wants to work.
Sources:
Toast Tab, "Restaurant Management Statistics,"https://pos.toasttab.com/blog/on-the-line/restaurant-management-statistics
Black Box Intelligence, "State of the Restaurant Workforce 2024," October 8, 2024,https://blackboxintelligence.com/news/state-of-restaurant-workforce-2024/
Paytronix, "4 Statistics About Restaurant Staff Turnover [2025],"https://www.paytronix.com/blog/restaurant-staff-turnover-statistics
Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research, cited by OrbisPayMe 2024, "State of the Fast Food and Quick Service Restaurants (QSR): Hiring and Retention Trends"
National Restaurant Association, "The 2025 State of the Industry shows cautious optimism,"https://restaurant.org/education-and-resources/resource-library/the-2025-state-of-the-industry-shows-cautious-optimism/
Black Box Intelligence, "State of the Restaurant Workforce 2024," October 8, 2024, https://blackboxintelligence.com/news/state-of-restaurant-workforce-2024/
Included In This Story
Miso Robotics
Delivering AI-powered technology that elevates human potential in the kitchen.
Through the AI-powered 'Flippy' fry station, Miso deploys proven AI automation that solves the fry station staffing crisis for high-volume restaurant chains. Flippy automates your entire fried menu operations end-to-end, the industry's most dangerous and hardest-to-staff position.
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