Restaurant servers carry an establishment’s dining experience on their backs – without your food service skills, eating out at a restaurant would feel incomplete.
Employers and diners alike appreciate the personal touch you bring to the table, and there’s no reward quite like seeing customers leave with happy, full bellies at the end of a service shift.
Let our restaurant server resume and cover letter writing guide take care of you while you do the same for your customers. You’ll be ready to take on your next role in no time!
Why this resume works
- Your restaurant server resume could use a detailed record of wins in a similar position; otherwise, recruiters might skip over you, not realizing you’ve got the seasoning of experience they need.
- Take a cue from Sarah’s resume—it’s a full-course meal. She’s been mastering the art of service for a little over a decade, and while slinging plate at Champps Kitchen + Bar, she manages to boost reservations by an eye-popping 64%. It’s the kind of success story that makes recruiters want to book a table for an interview with you.
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What Matters: Your Skills & Work Experience
As a restaurant server, your job is to get food and drinks from the kitchen to the table. That’s not all, though – in between, you’ll be juggling taking orders, seating diners, and presenting the bill to customers who are done with their meals.
In the skills section of your resume, show the recruiter how your multitasking and memorization abilities will help you do well in your next role.
Here are some of the best restaurant server skills to include in your resume.
9 best restaurant server skills
- Beverage sales
- Table bussing
- Customer service
- Food safety
- Restaurant experience
- Sanitation standards
- Stamina
- Teamwork
- Wine knowledge
Sample restaurant server work experience bullet points
Depending on the employer, you might not need formal work experience to land a restaurant server position. However, adjacent industry experience like hospitality or retail and informal work experience like volunteer work and extracurricular activities can help you get ahead of other job applicants.
In your work experience section, show the reader how you put into practice the skills listed in your resume. Add some quantifiable metrics to help with visualizing your efforts and contributions.
Here are a few samples:
- Managed the close-out process according to restaurant SOP two nights a week, and distributed tips on a daily basis to front- and back-of-house service staff
- Provided food and drink suggestions based on diner interests to increase the up-sell rate and improve average check by 16%
- Checked in on guests without being overbearing, leading to a customer satisfaction rate of 28% over the target
- Quickly developed relationships with customers, and maintained positivity while servicing up to 7 tables during prime-time hours
- Learned up-to-date knowledge of the menu and specials of the day to proactively recommend appetizers and main courses to diners, leading to a reduction in inventory waste of 9%
Top 5 Tips for Your restaurant server resume
- Depending on your experience level, consider a functional resume format to highlight your skills
- Experienced restaurant servers will prefer a reverse chronological format, but a functional resume format will emphasize relevant food service skills if you’re a newbie. Format it in this order: contact information, your career objective if you have one, your skills, your work experience, then your education. If you have any informal work experience like volunteer experience, put this last.
- Adding a career objective can help focus your resume if you’re just starting out
- There are only so many ways you can rephrase “I served customers food at my workplace” – if you’re having trouble populating your restaurant server resume, try adding a career objective to show the reader what you’d like them to focus on.
- Try our career objective guide, or structure your career objective like so: “As a driven and adaptable recent graduate with a passion for all things culinary, I would love to apply my hospitality skills to facilitating distinctive gastronomic experiences. Ready to leverage my background in food service to leave a lasting impression on La Grenouille’s clientele.”
- Keep your resume to one page unless you have more than 10 years of experience
- Food service is notoriously go go go – it’s best to keep your resume short by highlighting only the important and relevant details to show the reader how you are familiar with such a fast-paced industry. Your resume can go up to two pages if you have more than 10 years of experience.
- Take hints from the job description on what to include in your skills section
- Job postings are full of clues on what the potential employer wants most – just like how you would attend to a table that’s hailing you down first, list the most important and relevant skills at the top of your skills section so that recruiters know what to focus on.
- Complete the job application by following up
- You wouldn’t leave a table without their bill after they’re done eating – don’t leave your job application hanging, either. Check in with the recruiter by email or call after you’ve sent in your resume so the association stays fresh and you have the chance to address any possible issues with your application.
Yes, you should – even though you don’t need any formal education to become a restaurant server, some employers prefer that you disclose your high school diploma or GED. If you have a relevant degree in hospitality or culinary arts, that’s a plus!
Yes! It’s implied that you’ll be on location as you have to work in person as a restaurant server. The recruiter might also want to know about your commute as this will affect shift scheduling and calling in for any emergency work shifts.
It’s most likely that your job application will go to a recruiter or a hiring manager, but you can also address it to the serving manager or the restaurant manager if you know who they are.
