Here’s How We’re Solving It
By Todd Snopkowski, CEO
It’s the same story in hotel kitchens, event venues, and everywhere in between:
Call-offs.
No-shows.
Last-minute scrambles.
In a recent survey of our hospitality clients, 70% told us that call-offs or retention are their number one operational challenge. Not cost, not training, not even turnover—just the daily stress of not knowing who’s going to walk in the door. Or who won’t.
As someone who’s spent more than 25 years in commercial kitchens, I’ve felt that pressure myself. When a cook calls out last-minute, it throws everything off: coverage, morale, even service quality. And when it happens regularly? It’s exhausting. It makes planning feel impossible. And it’s no way to run a kitchen.
At Snapchef, we’ve spent years designing a staffing and training model that helps reduce this pain. And while we can’t stop life from happening, we can make it easier for operators to stay fully staffed, even on hard days.
Our Hospitality Staffing Model Is Built for Reliability
Whether you’re overseeing a hospital cafeteria, a large university banquet team, or a high-volume stadium operation, you need dependable staff who are:
- Properly trained and uniformed
- Ready for the pace and expectations of hospitality service
- Committed to showing up and performing
That’s why we’ve built a staffing model designed specifically around consistency and accountability.
How We Help Reduce Call-Offs and Coverage Gaps
Over the years, we’ve learned that reliability doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from structure, screening, and support. Here are a few ways we tackle it:
Rigorous screening and onboarding
Every Snapchef culinary professional is reference-checked, prepared for real hospitality environments and trained in applicable and required certifications – such as ServSafe.
Proactive shift confirmations
We maintain a 98% show rate thanks to structured pre-shift confirmations and check-ins. When someone can’t make it, we often know early enough to respond.
A deep bench of trained staff
We provide hospitality-ready workers across roles: line cooks, prep cooks, dish, banquet support, and even executive chefs.
Better Training = Better Commitment
We also invest in our people, because better-trained professionals are more likely to:
- Feel confident stepping into new kitchens
- Take pride in their work
- Stay consistent and committed to shifts
That starts with our Fast Track Culinary Training Program »
We don’t just place bodies. We develop kitchen professionals who can walk into real service environments and contribute immediately.
What We Hear From Hospitality Operators
Across hospitality kitchens, we hear the same theme again and again: call-offs don’t just create staffing problems, they create operational chaos.
Operators tell us that when reliability improves, everything else gets easier: scheduling becomes more predictable, service becomes more consistent, and managers regain time to lead instead of constantly reacting. Even team morale improves, because the same core staff aren’t stuck covering gaps every week.
A Smarter Way to Staff in Hospitality
We understand hospitality kitchens. The long hours. The demand for precision. The pressure of being event-ready no matter what.
That’s why Snapchef isn’t just a staffing agency. We’re a culinary staffing and operations partner helping kitchens staff smarter, train better, and stay covered when it matters most.
If call-offs and reliability are holding your team back, we’d love to help.
