How To Become A Bartender, Cook, And Waitress: What It Is and Career Path

What is a bartender, cook, and waitress and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

As a bartender, cook, and waitress, your duties cut across working in the kitchen and bar and serving customers. As a bartender, you'll be responsible for mixing drinks and serving them to clients based on their orders. Whereas, as the cook, you prepare meals in line with the establishment recipes. Lastly, as a waitress, you'll welcome customers and serve them. You will take customers' orders, process their food, and process payments. This kind of role is most common in small businesses. Also, you will maintain inventory and restock when needed.

For this role, employers seek candidates with a minimum of a high school diploma and relevant work experience. You must possess customer service, attention to detail, communication, multitasking, computer, maths, and listening skills. You must be able to lift over fifty pounds. A bartender, cook, and waitress earn an average salary of $32,431 per annum. It ranges between $20,000 and $53,000.

ScoreBartender, Cook, And WaitressUS Average

Salary

2.2

Avg. Salary $27,827

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.2

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.68%

Asian 7.81%

Black or African American 10.39%

Hispanic or Latino 13.81%

Unknown 5.16%

White 62.14%

Gender

female 94.57%

male 5.43%

Age - 25

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 25

Stress level

6.2

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.1

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

10.0

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a bartender, cook, and waitress

Explore bartender, cook, and waitress education requirements

Most common bartender, cook, and waitress degrees

High School Diploma

42.0 %

Associate

22.0 %

Bachelor's

18.8 %

Start to develop specific bartender, cook, and waitress skills

Skills	Percentages
Food Orders	16.07%
Customer Orders	12.68%
Bartending	7.75%
Food Preparation	6.66%
Customer Service	5.67%

Complete relevant bartender, cook, and waitress training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New bartender, cook, and waitresses learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a bartender, cook, and waitress based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real bartender, cook, and waitress resumes.

Research bartender, cook, and waitress duties and responsibilities

General cleaning, and knowledge of POS systems.
Start off here as a cook, learned to bartend.
Operate a POS system to itemize and complete a customer purchases.
Develop relationships with regular patrons; develop an understanding of their personal needs and expectations, including preferences and food allergies.

Prepare your bartender, cook, and waitress resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your bartender, cook, and waitress resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a bartender, cook, and waitress resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable bartender, cook, and waitress resume templates

Build a professional bartender, cook, and waitress resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your bartender, cook, and waitress resume.

Apply for bartender, cook, and waitress jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a bartender, cook, and waitress job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do bartender, cook, and waitresses rate their job?

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Bartender, cook, and waitress reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Mar 2022

Pros

Connecting with customers/regulars, building a foundation and not only making money for myself, but my bar. Making sure everyone has an amazing time while I’m on the clock!

A zippia user wrote a review on Feb 2022

Pros

Meeting new people. Each day is a new experience.

A zippia user wrote a review on Jun 2020

Cons

Sometimes things got out of hand when working at a bar and you needed hope