How To Become A Dining Room Captain: What It Is and Career Path

What is a dining room captain and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a dining room captain. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.29 an hour? That's $33,889 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 9% and produce 372,900 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreDining Room CaptainUS Average

Salary

2.6

Avg. Salary $33,889

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.2

Growth rate 9%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.09%

Asian 9.47%

Black or African American 11.18%

Hispanic or Latino 14.39%

Unknown 5.38%

White 58.50%

Gender

female 35.83%

male 64.17%

Age - 39

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 - 39

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 dining room captain

Explore dining room captain education requirements

Most common dining room captain degrees

Bachelor's

52.0 %

Associate

21.3 %

High School Diploma

17.3 %

Start to develop specific dining room captain skills

Skills	Percentages
Wine	26.04%
In-Room	11.49%
Fine Dining	10.28%
Cleanliness	9.75%
Room Service	7.06%

Complete relevant dining room captain training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New dining room captains 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 dining room captain based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real dining room captain resumes.

Research dining room captain duties and responsibilities

Manage inventory and payroll accounting.
Interact with patrons; present menu, advise on food preparation and recommendations, and consult on wine selections and pairing.
Fill in as acting wine steward when need, to help guest with knowledge and navigation of the wine list.
Maintain effective communication and leadership with production and service staff in quality food production environment.

Prepare your dining room captain resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your dining room captain 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 dining room captain resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable dining room captain resume templates

Build a professional dining room captain 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 dining room captain resume.

Apply for dining room captain jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a dining room captain 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 dining room captains rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Dining room captain reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Jul 2019

Pros

I love to meet and greet with the cast the conversation that entertaining seeing offering wine watching the guests have a wonderful experience and do everything to while the guests so they returned