Quick Answer: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, restaurant managers earn a median annual salary of $65,310 as of May 2024. Compensation varies significantly by location and restaurant type. Management labor costs should not exceed 10% of total sales.
What Determines Restaurant Manager Salaries and How Do They Compare?
If you're hiring a manager or wondering whether your current compensation is competitive, location and experience matter more than you might think.
Geographic location creates the biggest compensation swings. According to BLS metro data, Seattle-area restaurant managers earn $92,320 on average, while Memphis managers earn $57,760—a $35,000 difference for the same role. Check your specific market before setting compensation targets.
Experience level significantly impacts pay. Entry-level managers start around $42,994 (10th percentile), while experienced managers reach $79,643–$101,234 (75th–90th percentile)—a $58,250 range. Plan for total compensation between $50,378 (25th percentile) and $79,643 (75th percentile), depending on your market and restaurant concept.
Restaurant type matters too. Fast food managers typically earn $45,000–$55,000, casual dining managers $50,000–$65,000, and fine dining managers $70,000–$90,000. Your manager coordinating 15 servers, 8 line cooks, and 5 hosts during weekend dinner service needs compensation that reflects that responsibility.
What Does Manager Compensation Actually Cost Your Business?
That base salary number in the offer letter? It's not what you'll actually pay. Here's how to budget for the full picture.
Total costs typically run 137–146% of base salary when you include bonuses and benefits. Performance bonuses add 12–16% for casual dining, health insurance costs 7.1% of total compensation, and PTO adds another 7.5% based on BLS data. A $55,000 base actually represents $75,350–$80,300 in total costs. A restaurant with $1M in annual revenue should allocate roughly $100,000 for all management positions combined.
If you can't match chain restaurant salaries—which typically offer $5,000 to $15,000 premiums over independent restaurants—compete on quality-of-life factors. Experienced managers often prioritize flexible scheduling, meaningful autonomy, and sustainable work expectations over a slightly higher paycheck.
How Do Restaurant Manager Salaries Compare to Your Hourly Teams?
When you're promoting a shift lead or explaining the pay gap to your team, it helps to know where the numbers actually land.
Restaurant managers earn significantly more than hourly teams: between 1.7 and 2.2 times as much. According to BLS wage data, the median manager salary of $63,066 compares to $37,050 for shift supervisors and $31,949 for servers. The smallest gap exists between managers and shift supervisors (about 70%), which helps structure meaningful raises when promoting from within.
Compared to similar management roles in other industries, restaurant managers earn 35% more than retail store managers ($46,730 median) but about 3.5% less than hotel lodging managers ($65,360 median). This positions restaurant management as a competitive career path with strong earning potential relative to retail alternatives.
How Does Homebase Help with Restaurant Labor Costs?
Managing labor costs means tracking every hour your team works, including your managers. Homebase gives you real-time visibility into labor spending with tools like scheduling that forecast costs before you post shifts and a time clock that captures accurate hours automatically.
Understanding manager compensation is just one piece of controlling your restaurant's labor budget. The right tools make the rest automatic.
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Sources and Methodology
At Homebase, we rely on up-to-date, authoritative sources to ensure every Question Center article provides accurate guidance for small business owners. We start with primary federal materials from the IRS and Department of Labor, verify details using official agency publications, and use reputable industry resources only to supplement—never replace—official law.
For this piece, we referenced Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2023 and May 2024) data for Food Service Managers (SOC code 11-9051), including national salary distributions and detailed percentile breakdowns. We also consulted BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook data for current wage information, state-level wage data for high-cost and low-cost markets, and BLS metropolitan area wage statistics for geographic comparisons across regions, including Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, New York-Newark-Jersey City, San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, Kansas City, Birmingham-Hoover, and Memphis.