Food Runner archive

	The Shake Shack shake-up
	How to raise menu prices (without bringing regulars down)
	Equal restaurant pay?

BY THE NUMBERS

42% Of operators reported unprofitable businesses in 2025.

60% Of operators reported traffic declines in 2025.

9% Of full-service restaurants are at risk of closure this year, while 85%-90% of the industry remains resilient.

30,000 Restaurant jobs were lost this February, the first monthly decline after eight straight months of growth.

REALLY BIG INSIGHT

A lot of that momentum traces back to Rob Lynch, who became CEO in May 2024. And he didn’t come in talking like a brand guy. He came in talking like an operator. The bet was pretty simple: make the restaurants run better, and the margin story will follow.

Here are some key takeaways from the Shake Shack shake-up, based on NRN and QSR Magazine’s reporting:

🎯 Smarter labor deployment (the big one)
Shake Shack rolled out a new labor model designed to put the right people in the right roles at the right times. The goal wasn’t to cut hours, but to make staffing more intentional and help managers plan shifts instead of reacting to them.Lynch has been clear about the philosophy behind it:

“It’s not about cutting labor. It’s about the optimized deployment of our talent so that we can maximize the effectiveness of it… We want to make sure that our team members are well prepared to take care of our guests during our busiest times and they are able to do that in a well-orchestrated, results-oriented manner.”

“Cost reduction is an outcome, not the overarching goal. Our priority is to help our managers become more strategic and less [reactive] to their ever-evolving scheduling needs. It’s like any other thing that we do in life: When you align on a plan, measure results, and continue to optimize in a disciplined and consistent manner, it reduces stress that results from unforeseen circumstances and ultimately improves performance.”

To support that shift, the company rolled out performance scorecards across company-operated restaurants, tracking metrics tied to people, performance, and profit. The results showed:

• Over 90% of restaurants hit targets in 2025 (compared to 50% in mid-2024)
• Wait times dropped under 6 minutes (compared to 7 minutes in 2023)
• Employee retention went up by almost 40% (compared to 2023)

Plus some other moves behind the scenes:

📦 Inflation hit beef supply… so they fixed the supply chain

When beef prices jumped into the mid-teens in late 2025, Shake Shack didn’t shrink burgers or slap big price hikes on the menu. Instead, they diversified suppliers and tightened up distribution so ingredients traveled shorter distances.

🍔 Menu ideas have to survive three tests

New items don’t just show up on the menu without thought. At Shake Shack, every launch has to pass three checks: great product, real guest demand, and something the kitchen can actually execute during a rush. They also built a 12–18 month innovation calendar so restaurants have enough time to prep and train.

📱 Value lives in the app, not on the menu

Instead of discounting everything, Shake Shack pushed value through its $1, $3, $5 app deals, which boosted app downloads by about 50%. Guests get deals, the brand protects menu prices, and operators avoid turning the whole menu into a coupon book.

⚙️ Better food starts with better equipment

Kitchens got an upgrade too. New fry hot-holding equipment rolled out, and the difference showed up fast: complaints about cold fries dropped from 30% of guest complaints to under 10%. Sometimes the fix isn’t a new recipe… it’s better gear behind the line.

STORIES FROM THE FLOOR

Maybe you do come to the conclusion that you need to raise menu prices. Fair enough—but what about your regulars who expect the same bill every time?

Well, user prattman333 had the same question and took it to Reddit, so you don’t have to:

HEARD!

On the flip side of raising menu prices… what would happen if you paid each and every employee the same rate? Anthony Valleta, President of bartaco, went on the The Pre-Shift Podcast to talk about tearing down the traditional pay model––and the results that came with it.

Here’s how it works: “  Everyone in the restaurant, no matter your position––if you’re a dishwasher, a host, a busser, a food runner, a line cook––you all make the exact same base wage… The idea behind that one is that now there’s no argument of people being paid differently for any type of reason, whether that’s because of experience, ethnicity, age, or beliefs. It’s all gone… And then the tips that we collect are evenly distributed to every single employee as well.”

He says the pay lands anywhere between $20 to even $40 per hour during peak season.

“We all know for the longest time that the back of house employees have been underpaid for decades in the restaurant business… The dishwasher’s always been the lowest paid person, and they are the hardest working, most impactful job in the entire restaurant––and arguably sometimes the most under-compensated. So now that employee is making the exact same amount as the tenured line cook.”

And the results? Well, there’s the ability to actually provide a livable wage: “One of our employees was actually able to quit his second job that he was working because he was making so much with us. And that allowed him time to spend with his family. And to me, that’s what it’s all about, right? That was just literally the magic formula.”

Plus, Anthony noticed two benefits for team culture:

1. “The unintended benefit is that the teamwork in the restaurant is now remarkable. There’s no more like ‘one job is higher or lower than another’… There’s no more hierarchy of people believing that that’s the aspirational job. Every job is equal across the board.“
2. “Our labor model started self-managing. The stores realized that if we have fewer hours in the pool, I make more per hour. So if I’m working next to [a teammate], and he’s not holding his weight, I don’t have a problem calling him out because he’s taking money directly out of my pocket. And when we started to hear these conversations, we were actually enamored.”

But of course, some resistance is expected, and Anthony shares two downsides:

• Tenured cooks struggled with the idea of dishwashers earning the same wage
• Back of house staff were used to flat hourly pay (and skeptical of ambiguous tip-sharing)

His rebuttal to point one:  ”Someone has that mentality that they’re above another employee? That’s probably not the right person for our team anyway.”

As for skepticism in tip earrings, the key was showing proof: “ After the first month, they saw the consistency. And the best part of it was we were actually able to go to new employees or existing ones and say, ‘Hey, look, here’s the pay last week for the employee in your job,’ and it really has dissipated now.“

QUIET ON SET

Sam Fung took to YouTube to discuss the top scheduling mistakes restaurant operators make (and how to fix the rhythm).

🛑 Still using paper or Excel for schedule creation: If you forget to delete an old line in your spreadsheet, you might accidentally schedule a dishwasher who quit last week. Dishes pile up, and your whole service slows down.

🛑 Missing employee availability and PTO requests: When your team’s availability lives in random DMs and sticky notes, you’re going to eventually book a server during a class or approved vacation. Do it enough times, and you lose your team’s trust.

🛑 Publishing the schedule too late: Dropping your schedule on a Sunday night makes it hard for your team to plan their lives. Plus, in certain cities, this also puts you at major risk for legal violations and expensive fines.

Watch the video to catch the other top scheduling mistakes!

À LA CARTE