A restaurant expeditor runs the pass between the kitchen and the dining room, calling tickets to the cooks and checking every plate before it leaves. In full-service dining, the expo also times each table's courses so everyone's food reaches the table together and hot.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, full-service restaurants · BLS, May 2025
We're hiring an Expeditor to run the pass at one of our restaurants. You'll organize tickets as they come in, call orders to the line, check every plate against the ticket before it leaves, and hand finished tables to the Food Runners. You set the pace that keeps each table's courses together and ticket times on target.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Read every ticket as it prints or appears on the [kitchen display], and call it to the line by course and station.
Fire courses on time: hold mains until the table is cleared, then call them so each table's food finishes together.
Check each plate against the ticket and plating photo: right dish, modifiers, portion, temperature and a clean rim.
Keep allergy orders separate from start to finish, and confirm the allergy with the cook and the runner before the plate leaves.
Garnish and wipe plates, add sauces and sides, and send each table out complete with a runner.
Tell the Sous Chef and the Floor Manager right away when a station falls behind or an item is about to run out.
Note every send-back and remake on the shift log, with the reason.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Set up the pass before service: ticket rail or display, wipes, garnishes, ramekins, sauces and plate warmers.
Learn the day's specials, 86'd items and large-party times at pre-shift.
Run the pass through the rush and keep the window clear so food doesn't sit under the lamps.
Warn servers and the host stand about long ticket times so they can tell guests.
Break down and clean the pass at close and restock it for the next service.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Time plates wait in the window: [your target].
Wrong or incomplete plates caught at the pass: [your target].
Allergy tickets handled by the procedure: [your target].
Tables whose courses went out together: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[1+] year in a full-service restaurant as a cook, food runner or server.
Learns the menu, plating and modifiers well enough to spot a wrong plate at a glance.
Food handler card before your first shift at the pass, where your state or county requires one.
Calls tickets clearly and calmly to cooks and servers when the board is full.
Understands allergen cross-contact and why allergy plates stay separate.
6. Preferred Experience
Line cook experience on two or more stations.
Experience with [your kitchen display system].
Food runner or server experience in a busy dining room.
7. Physical Requirements
Stand at the pass for a full service under heat lamps.
Reach across the pass and lift plates and trays up to [25] pounds.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Evening service, Friday and Saturday nights, and holidays.
Hot, loud spot between the kitchen and the dining room, with tickets coming in nonstop at peak.
Shifts start before service to set up the pass.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new expeditor gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
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What's different about expediting in a full-service restaurant
In a quick-service kitchen, expo bags orders and calls out numbers. In full-service dining, the expo decides when each table's next course starts and stops any plate that isn't right, so the job sits closer to running the line than to running food.
Holding the mains until the table is ready
The expo watches the dining room as closely as the screen. When a table's appetizer plates come back, the expo fires the mains and tells each station what to start, so the steak and the fish finish together. A guest who steps outside or a slow first course means holding the fire and letting the server know why.
A flagged ticket gets a second check
An allergy flag changes how the expo works the whole ticket. The expo names the allergy to the cook, keeps that plate apart at the pass, checks it against the ticket a second time, and hands it to a runner with the allergy spoken out loud. Use one marker the whole team knows, such as a colored pick. If anything looks off, the plate goes back and starts over.
Plating standards come from the group
In a restaurant group, the culinary director sets recipes and plating, usually with a photo of each dish. The expo holds every plate to that photo: portion, garnish, sauce placement and a clean rim. Small drifts at one location, night after night, are how a group's restaurants start serving different food under the same menu.
The kitchen's voice to the floor
When a station falls behind or an item is about to run out, the expo tells the sous chef and the floor manager at once, so servers stop selling it and the host can slow the door. Getting an 86 into the POS fast saves a server from taking an order the kitchen can't make.
Bump times are on the record
Kitchen display systems log when each ticket arrives and when the expo bumps it as sent, which gives managers ticket times by station and by night. An expo who bumps a ticket before the whole table has left the window makes the report look good and the service worse.
How much restaurant expeditors make
The closest BLS group for restaurant expeditors is food preparation and serving related workers. Food preparation and serving related workers who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $16.95 an hour ($35,250 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $35,840 median for food preparation and serving related workers in all industries. About 41,330 of the 84,630 food preparation and serving related workers in that survey work for full-service restaurants.
Usually hourly. BLS has no separate code for expeditors, so these figures cover a catch-all group of food service jobs, and a cook who works expo may keep their line cook rate. Before giving the expo a share of server tips, check the federal rules: a pool that includes kitchen staff is allowed only when no one in it is paid with a tip credit.
Full-service restaurants
$35,250$35,250 median Middle half $29,740–$38,160 10th–90th $24,960–$47,320
All industries
$35,840$35,840 median Middle half $31,200–$39,880 10th–90th $25,470–$47,550
$10k$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Full-service restaurants
$24,960
$29,740
$35,250
$38,160
$47,320
All industries
$25,470
$31,200
$35,840
$39,880
$47,550
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Spots a missing modifier or the wrong garnish in a second
Calls tickets loudly and calmly when the screen is full
Treats each allergy ticket as its own job, start to finish
Reads the dining room to know which tables are ready for mains
Sends a plate back without starting an argument with the cook
Teach these on the job
Your kitchen display system or ticket rail setup
The group's plating photos and specs for each dish
Your allergy procedure and plate markers
Table and seat numbering and how runners are assigned
Your send-back and remake log
Expos work from a kitchen display system such as Toast KDS or Square KDS, or from a printed ticket rail, with plating photos posted at the pass. Garnish trays, ramekins, plate wipes, side towels and heat lamps fill out the station, and some expos wear a headset to reach runners in a large dining room.
Restaurant expeditor interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
The template names what to measure and leaves the targets to you. Base them on a month of KDS reports and shift logs from your own kitchen.
Time plates wait in the window
Compare when the first plate for a table reaches the pass with when the last one leaves, from your KDS if it tracks both, or from spot checks. Look at Fridays and Saturdays on their own.
Wrong or incomplete plates caught at the pass
Count plates the expo stopped and sent back to a station, from the remake log. Set it beside guest send-backs: more caught at the pass should mean fewer returned from tables.
Allergy tickets handled by the procedure
A manager audits allergy tickets each shift: called out, kept apart, checked twice, handed off with the allergy named. A skipped step counts as a miss even if the guest was fine.
Tables whose courses went out together
For a sample of tables each night, note whether every main reached the table at once. Servers can flag split courses on the shift log for the sous chef to review.
Career path
Food runnerLearns the menu, seat numbers and the pass from the dining room side.
ExpeditorRuns the pass and times each table's courses.
Line cookFor expos who want to cook: a station on the line, often after prep shifts.
Sous chefRuns the kitchen day to day after years on the line.
Should the chef expo or should you hire an expeditor?
Many chefs and sous chefs expo on busy nights because they know every plate. The cost is that nobody is free to jump on a station that's sinking or handle a problem in the walk-in. A dedicated expo frees the sous chef to run the line. Track remakes and comps for a month before and after you add one; that tells you whether the role is paying off.
How much does a restaurant expeditor make?
Food preparation and serving related workers who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $16.95 an hour ($35,250 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $29,740 and $38,160 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
What's the difference between an expeditor and a food runner?
The expeditor stays at the pass, calls tickets to the line and checks every plate. The runner takes the finished plates to the table and sets them down by seat number. On a slow night one person may do both, but during the rush the expo stays in the window and the runners keep moving.
Does an expeditor need cooking experience?
Not always. The template asks for a year in a full-service restaurant as a cook, runner or server. A former line cook knows how long each dish takes and spots a mistake fast. A strong runner or server knows the dining room and the seat map. Either way, test them on the menu and plating before their first shift at the pass.
What do "fire," "all day" and "86" mean at the pass?
Fire means start cooking a table's next course. All day is the total count of one item on open tickets, as in "four salmon all day." 86 means an item is gone for the night. "Hands" means plates are ready and need a runner. Teach new expos your kitchen's calls before their first rush, since every kitchen has a few of its own.
