Skip to content
‹ Back to IndustriesFood & Beverage

Optimizing Restaurant Staffing to Stay Agile in an Evolving Industry

Food is serious business. Now, on The Main Course, host Barbara Castiglia will invite insiders on the front lines of food to share their expertise, strategies, and forecasts for navigating the ever-changing restaurant industry.   The Main Course seeks to bring listeners insights from every corner of the industry. The topic of this conversation is restaurant staffing. Host…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Food & Beverage teams put it to work with Customer Stories & Case Studies.

Promoted content from The Main Course on MarketScale.

Share

Free workspace

Turn your Food & Beverage expertise into content.

Record interviews, organize footage, and write with AI on a free trial of the MarketScale platform for qualifying companies. No demo required, no credit card.

Try it Free

Food is serious business. Now, on The Main Course, host Barbara Castiglia will invite insiders on the front lines of food to share their expertise, strategies, and forecasts for navigating the ever-changing restaurant industry.

The Main Course seeks to bring listeners insights from every corner of the industry. The topic of this conversation is restaurant staffing. Host Barbara Castiglia spoke with an expert in the field, Mary Hamill, VP, Pre-Sales, at HotSchedules, a Fourth company. The organization offers end-to-end technology solutions for restaurants and hospitality.

Hamill has a long career in the restaurant world, working in them, running HR and training for groups, and now being on the supplier side in her current role.

The conversation began with how well some businesses pivoted during COVID. “The new norm is eating at home. Those that shifted quickly and smartly figured out how to do takeout really well,” Hamill said.

With changing business models, there was an impact on staffing. “When sales dip, labor gets cut. A big mistake we saw some restaurants make is cutting back too much. You still need the right staffing levels to drive revenue,” Hamill shared.

Hamill also noted that many restaurants reevaluated how they staff and looked to her company to help them with labor optimization. That requires actionable data and technology. The technology that enables restaurant owners to make better decisions doesn’t replace people; it should make everyone’s lives easier.

Hamill’s mantra is the clearer the data, the more enlightened the vision. She said, “Without clarity, you’re not sure what to focus on, so the reporting and analytics need to be actionable.”

Actionable data is looking inside the numbers and diagnosing the labor problem, then optimizing it by determining where there’s over- or under-staffing.

Hamill also offered some advice. “Take care of your staff, understand their needs, give them a safe place to work. There are still ways to drive revenue, and you’ll need people to do it.”

A New Episode is Served Up Every Tuesday and Thursday!

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale

Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

The Main Course

Part of this channel

The Main Course

Where restaurant and food industry insiders talk real business.

Visit the channel

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Food & Beverage starts with a company putting its plant managers, quality leads, and R&D teams on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Processors and grocery buyers vet suppliers hard, and your operations people are the ones who can satisfy them.

Book DemoSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.
B2B Weekly

The week in Food & Beverage, and sixteen other industries, every Monday.

Ten stories, one-line takes, five minutes. Free.

Food & Beverage: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Food & Beverage buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free Trial

You just read one Food & Beverage expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your plant managers, quality leads, and R&D teams into the articles, video, and social content Food & Beverage buyers are searching for. Start a free trial and see it with your own people. For qualifying companies, no credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What your free trial includes

Hands-on access to the MarketScale platform
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
No demo required. No credit card.
For qualifying companies. Company confirmation required.

More Food & Beverage Insights

McDonald's pilots ads on drive-thru order boards in 450 company-owned US restaurants

McDonald's pilots ads on drive-thru order boards in 450 company-owned US restaurants

McDonald's is targeting a media business worth $1 billion over time. The program has not yet rolled out to the franchisees who operate the rest of its roughly 14,000 U.S. locations.

  • 01The 450-restaurant pilot has not yet rolled out to the franchisees who operate the rest of McDonald's roughly 14,000 U.S. locations, so reaching a $1 billion media business could depend on them joining.
  • 02McDonald’s is targeting a media network business that could grow to $1 billion over time, CNBC reported, with the current pilot running ads on digital drive‑thru order boards.
  • 03invidis says ads are widely expected to spread beyond drive-thru screens to digital menu boards, self-order kiosks and the mobile app.

Sep 27, 2026

Trend-driven supplement formulas often don’t earn repeat orders, Licata says

Trend-driven supplement formulas often don’t earn repeat orders, Licata says

Contract manufacturer Paul Licata says some quick-trend supplement formulas have brought few repeat orders at his shop. SIRIO Europe’s Alexej Dens points to longevity as a structural trend and is offering Aeion, ready-to-launch concepts built around daily habits across areas like cellular energy, mobility and heart health. The article argues reorder history is a key question to ask a manufacturer.

  • 01Licata's shop has seen few trend-driven formulas earn a repeat order, so the reorder rate is the number worth asking a contract manufacturer about.

Sep 27, 2026

MetaNovas says Orphic can generate a CPG project proposal package in about an hour

MetaNovas says Orphic can generate a CPG project proposal package in about an hour

MetaNovas says Orphic can turn a product brief into a complete proposal package quickly; in an internal test it produced one in about an hour versus roughly two weeks of cross-team work (Business Insider).

  • 01Orphic’s most concrete claim is cycle time: MetaNovas says a multi-function proposal package went from roughly two weeks to about an hour on a real ingestible beauty brief (Business Insider).
  • 02A Veeva QualityOne-sponsored report published via PR Newswire said 82% of respondents are consolidating older systems or moving from best-of-breed solutions into unified platforms to standardize data and processes for AI readiness (PR Newswire).

Sep 22, 2026

Explore More Food & Beverage Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Food & Beverage.

Browse Food & Beverage Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Food & Beverage and beyond.

Book a Demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512