Food runners are in charge of serving and delivering food to the right table at the appropriate time. You will welcome the customers, providing and explaining the items on the menus to them. You will help the customers relate their issues to the kitchen staff in which you prioritize and process their orders.
If the customer is not happy with the order, you have to help relate the issues to the appropriate quarters to help resolve them if it is something you cannot do yourself. Likewise, you will make sure the table is neat enough to be used by new customers. After being used, you will clean the tables and pack the dirty dishes back to the kitchen for the dishwashers.
Since the food runner will be standing and walking most of the day while simultaneously carrying food orders and dishes, you must have good physical stamina. Not just that, but you must be effective and efficient in finishing tasks by moving and acting fast while moving from the kitchen to the dining table and clearing tables. You will be paid an average of $20,549 yearly.
What is a Food Runner?
What Does a Food Runner Do
There are certain skills that many food runners have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, customer-service skills and physical stamina.
How To Become a Food Runner
If you're interested in becoming a food runner, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 34.6% of food runners have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.4% of food runners have master's degrees. Even though some food runners have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Food Runner Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a food runner can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as waitress, progress to a title such as teacher and then eventually end up with the title general manager.
Average Salary for a Food Runner
What Am I Worth?
Roles and Types of Food Runner
The role of a food runner includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general food runner responsibilities:
- Utilize transfer sheets to deliver product. Expedite orders asked for by servers,
- Maximum of ten responsibilities, in order of percentage of time spent on functions from longest to shortest; do not list anything that doesnot represent at least 10% of the job's time. Please include supervisory responsibilities. Transport food orders from the kitchen to the appropriate guest table. Review order before delivery to ensure accuracy. Perform side duties as required. Maintain thorough knowledge of the menu, current promotions
- Responsible for fostering a fun environment responsible for being a gracious host to all guests
There are several types of food runner, including:
Server
Role:
Once you've been serving for awhile, you may be able to impress your guests with taking their food order without writing the orders down. As long as you get the entire order correct, this may score you a nice tip.
Not everyone is going to enjoy their dining experience though, and whether it's your fault or the chef's fault, it is your responsibility to correct any problems. Don't worry, you can go yell at the chef later.
- Average Salary: $29,901
- Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Waitress
Role:
Some waitresses depend on a notepad to make sure the orders come out right, fewer waitresses are able to memorize everyone's order. Even if the waitresses jotted down or memorized the order perfectly if there is a mistake with the food, they're the first to blame.
As a waitress, you'll probably have to deal with a lot of "hangry" people but, hopefully, once they've eaten, they'll be in a much better mood and leave a nice tip. There will undoubtedly be times that you have to deal with difficult customers, it's those days that make this job stressful.
- Average Salary: $24,770
- Degree: High School Diploma
Hostess
Role:
Well, actually being a hostess can be enjoyable. It's kind of like playing Tetris. You have to be able to figure out where to seat customers. Sometimes you may also have to answer phone calls regarding questions about the menu or to take reservations (because who has time for a 2-hour wait?).
Hostesses work odd hours, some work early mornings and others work late evenings. Uou definitely shouldn't be surprised about working a weekend shift. I mean people still eat on the weekends; probably moreso than they do during the week.
- Average Salary: $26,298
- Degree: High School Diploma
States With The Most Food Runner Jobs
Mouse over a state to see the number of active food runner jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where food runners earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Number Of Food Runner Jobs By State
Top Skills For a Food Runner
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 20.2% of food runners listed cleanliness on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and customer-service skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Food Runner Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Food Runner templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Food Runner resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Food Runner Demographics
Food Runner Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among food runners, 41.0% of them are women, while 59.0% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among food runners is White, which makes up 57.5% of all food runners.
- The most common foreign language among food runners is Spanish at 66.2%.
Online Courses For Food Runner That You May Like
1. Rebuilding Our Relationship with Food
Have you ever made a conscious effort to change the way you eat (for health or other reasons) and then felt frustrated when your plans were derailed? You’re not alone. The best laid plans are often sabotaged by a food environment that makes it increasingly hard to make healthier food choices. This can leave many people feeling mistrustful of food or feeling that our relationship with food is somehow broken. In this course, we’ll explore the history of our changing food environment, the science...
See More on Coursera2. Introduction to Food and Our Environment
This course is designed to help learners around the world become more sustainable eaters. Course videos can be watched in any order. Feel free to explore special areas of interest by skipping ahead and coming back to less familiar topics at a later stage. Together, we’ll explore key topics, like how food production impacts the environment and why meat production and protein consumption are often at the center of the debate around sustainability. We’ll introduce the pros and cons of different...
See More on Coursera3. Fun food safety and sanitation course
The food safety course will help prepare you for safely working in a kitchen and food handler tests like Servesafe...
See More on UdemyBest States For a Food Runner
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a food runner. The best states for people in this position are Vermont, Washington, California, and Massachusetts. Food runners make the most in Vermont with an average salary of $28,023. Whereas in Washington and California, they would average $27,472 and $27,036, respectively. While food runners would only make an average of $26,695 in Massachusetts, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Indiana
$24,414
Avg. Salary
2. North Carolina
$24,240
Avg. Salary
3. Tennessee
$23,320
Avg. Salary
How Do Food Runner Rate Their Jobs?
Top Food Runner Employers
Most Common Employers For Food Runner
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Cheesecake Factory | $30,497 | $14.66 | 189 |
| 2 | Ruth's Chris Steak House | $28,738 | $13.82 | 96 |
| 3 | Marriott International | $28,409 | $13.66 | 103 |
| 4 | Aramark | $27,400 | $13.17 | 187 |
| 5 | Texas Roadhouse | $27,301 | $13.13 | 270 |
| 6 | Levy | $27,144 | $13.05 | 136 |
| 7 | Panera Bread | $26,480 | $12.73 | 372 |
| 8 | Buffalo Wild Wings | $25,727 | $12.37 | 298 |
| 9 | Studio Movie Grill | $25,407 | $12.21 | 136 |
| 10 | Ruby Tuesday | $25,278 | $12.15 | 192 |
Food Runner Videos
Becoming a Food Runner FAQs
How Long Does It Take To Become A Food Runner?
It takes one year or less to become a food runner. That is the time it takes to learn specific food runner skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education.