Toast annually polls restaurant employees about their jobs, and the TL;DR in 2026: While restaurants are feeling the pinch of a shrinking workforce — perhaps for that very reason — there’s been an uptick in restaurant industry employees’ pay and satisfaction.
Our survey shows a significant jump in restaurant employees’ pay satisfaction compared to 2025 and, similarly, a corresponding increase in satisfaction with benefits. If restaurant operators are finding it more difficult to fill their staff, it seems they’ve responded by rewarding the folks they do employ.
Key takeaways from Toast’s 2026 restaurant employee perspectives tracker
Among the 702 restaurant employees surveyed:
Pay satisfaction is up: 67% were extremely satisfied or satisfied with their pay, up 12 points year-over-year
42% of tipped employees reported tips increased in the past 12 months
Benefits: 62% were extremely satisfied or satisfied, up 16 points year-over-year
Flexible schedule & good pay: Most common favorite aspects of job (32% ranked in top three)
Poor hourly pay: Most common pain point (31% ranked in top three)
How do restaurant employees feel about their pay?
Among the 702 restaurant employees surveyed:
67% of restaurant employees were satisfied with their pay, up 12 points year-over-year
42% were satisfied, up 6 points year-over-year
25% were extremely satisfied, up 6 points year-over-year
14% were unsatisfied to any extent, down 8 points year-over-year
In short: Restaurant employees are, by and large, happier with their pay than previous years. Toast survey data showed a significant uptick across the board in satisfaction — in total, a 12 percentage point year-over-year rise in satisfaction. Naturally, dissatisfaction experienced a corresponding drop, with just 14% expressing they were unsatisfied to some extent, an 8 percentage point drop from 2025.
Analysis from the National Restaurant Association has shown the U.S. workforce has shrunk in recent years — especially among younger folks who often work in the industry — complicating operators’ task of filling out a staff. It appears those operators have responded by rewarding the employees they do have.
How has tipping changed for restaurant employees in 2026?
Among the 434 restaurant employees that receive tips surveyed:
42% of restaurant employees saw tips increase in the last 12 months
37% saw no change in tips
15% saw tips decrease
6% didn’t know
Tips are, of course, a major part of restaurant employee compensation in the U.S. for front of house workers. By and large, industry workers reported an uptick in tips in 2026. (Toast’s tipping index found the average full-service restaurant tip was 19.1% in Q2 2026.)
Among respondents who receive tips, 42% saw an increase while just 15% saw a decrease.
How do restaurant employees feel about their benefits?
Among the 702 restaurant employees surveyed:
62% of restaurant employees were extremely satisfied or satisfied with their benefits, up 16 points year-over-year
23% extremely satisfied, up 7 points year-over-year
Top priority: medical benefits at 24% ranked in their top three
23% of employees listed PTO as a top three priority
41% receive free meals as a benefit
Similar to pay, restaurant employees were, by and large, satisfied with their benefits — though that’s not to say they didn’t feel there was room for improvement. Overall, 62% described being satisfied with their benefits to any extent — 23% extremely satisfied, 38% satisfied — while 14% were unsatisfied. That’s a 16 percentage point rise in satisfaction from 2025 and a 9 percentage point drop in dissatisfaction.
Drilling down further, perhaps unsurprisingly, when asked to list their top three desired benefits, medical benefits were the top choice at 24%. Not far behind were free meals (23%), paid time off (23%), daily tips (21%), and 401(k) retirement savings (21%). Interestingly, early wage access, or same-day pay, was in 19% of top three selections, while it was received by 18% of respondents.
What do restaurant employees like about their jobs?
Among the 702 restaurant employees surveyed:
Money talks: 32% of restaurant employees chose “provides good hourly pay” as a top-three favorite aspect of their job
32% cited a flexible schedule
Hospitality matters: 27% said connecting with guests and 20% said making someone’s day special was a top-three favorite aspect of their job
27% cited good co-workers
Trying new food & drinks: up 5 points year-over-year to 16%
It’s not exactly a shocker that folks who like their job are, typically speaking, satisfied with their pay. That holds true for restaurant workers. When asked to list their favorite aspects about their current job, 32% selected “provides good hourly pay” in their top three. “Provides a flexible schedule” also stood at 32%.
Fittingly, restaurants seemed to be staffed increasingly with gourmands, with 16% listing “trying new food and drinks” as a favorite aspect of their role — a 5 percentage point increase from 2025.
What are the pain points for restaurant employees?
Among the 702 restaurant employees surveyed:
31% of restaurant employees cited poor hourly pay as a reason to leave their job
26% said a difficult manager, down 4 points year-over-year
55% of restaurant workers who plan to leave the industry want better pay
32% of leaving workers cited benefits; 31% cited stability
15% said bad tips
While Toast’s survey shows restaurant workers are increasingly satisfied with their pay, not all employees fall in that bucket. When asked which factors from their current job would make them consider looking for a new role, the top response (31%) was “poor hourly pay.” That was a 2 percentage point drop from 2025. It probably shouldn’t be surprising that hourly pay could serve as an engine for both employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Pay, after all, is a major motivator in any field.
Tensions among employees and managers remain a motivator for moving jobs, with 26% citing a difficult manager and, similarly, 24% of respondents citing difficult coworkers as a factor for leaving their job.
Similarly, among those respondents who plan to leave the industry within two years, pay was the top motivator (55%), followed by benefits (32%), and stability (31%).
Do restaurant workers want to use AI?
Among the 702 restaurant employees surveyed:
Just ~10% of restaurant workers seem to fully reject the idea of using AI at work
In general, ~20% are extremely open to using AI for work tasks
23% are extremely open to AI-generated end-of-shift summaries
23% extremely open to AI-generated upsell suggestions
12% not at all open to AI training or coaching
It’s an AI-driven world in 2026, even in restaurants and most industry workers expressed a willingness to use AI on the job.
Toast asked respondents whether they’d be open to incorporating AI for work tasks — things like shift scheduling, upselling suggestions, or summarizing shifts — and roughly 20% were extremely open while about 10% rejected using AI outright. Overall, a majority of workers expressed some willingness to use AI for each task.
AI making its way into the lives of bartenders and servers surely indicates times are changing but, as Toast’s data shows, familiar issues — hourly pay, tips, and benefits — remain as important as ever. Even as the world changes around it, the heart of hospitality endures, as do the people who power it.
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