Build an Applicant Tracking System for Restaurants
Hire servers, cooks, and hosts with every application and shift availability in one place. Build a restaurant hiring tracker with Kleap. Free to start.
16,172+ sites created with Kleap in the last 30 days
A working app, not a template
What it is
An ATS for restaurants is a web app built for high-volume hourly hiring — it stores each applicant as a record, moves them from application to trial shift to hired, and keeps front-of-house and back-of-house pipelines separate.
What your restaurants applicant tracking tracks
Every field below is one you can add, rename, or remove by chatting with Kleap — a starting point tuned for restaurants.
Applicant name
The record for one hourly applicant, kept simple for fast, high-volume hiring.
Position
Server, line cook, host, dishwasher, or bartender — so front-of-house and back-of-house pipelines stay distinct.
Location
Which restaurant or branch, essential for multi-unit operators hiring across several venues at once.
Availability
The shifts a person can cover — weekends and nights especially — since coverage, not resume polish, decides hourly hires.
Stage
Applied → Phone screen → Trial shift → Reference check → Hired, mirroring how kitchens and floors actually vet people.
Prior experience
Years and type of experience as a quick qualifier for whether someone can step onto a busy station.
Work-eligibility flag
A stored yes/no on the record so managers confirm eligibility before onboarding — the app records the answer, it doesn't run verification.
Trial shift feedback
Notes from the manager who ran the working interview, the single most predictive signal in restaurant hiring.
Start date
When they can begin, so managers can plan the schedule around confirmed hires.
What good looks like for restaurants
One app, a view for everyone
General manager
Speed to fill open shifts, availability match, trial-shift outcomes, and reducing interview no-shows.
Kitchen / shift manager
Skill for a specific station, whether availability covers the gaps, and how the trial shift went.
Multi-unit / area manager
Fill rate across all locations, time-to-hire, and 90-day retention as a churn signal.
Buy a tool, or own one built for you
Off-the-shelf software makes you fit its mold. With Kleap you describe the applicant tracking you actually want and own it outright.
A typical applicant tracking
- Monthly per-seat fees that grow with your team
- Your data lives on their servers, in their format
- Fixed features — you adapt to the tool, not the reverse
- Generic, not shaped around restaurants
Built with Kleap
- Free to start — no per-seat pricing
- You own the app and its database, data stays yours
- Change anything by chatting — fields, views, workflow
- Shaped around how restaurants actually works
Build it in 3 steps
Describe it
Tell Kleap what your restaurants needs, in plain words.
AI builds it
Get a real working app with records, forms, and a dashboard.
Publish
Refine it in chat, then publish. It is a live app you own.
Frequently asked questions
Can it keep front-of-house and back-of-house hiring separate?+
Yes. Position and location are fields on each record, so you can filter to just line cooks at one venue or all FOH applicants across venues. Each role effectively gets its own pipeline view without separate tools.
Does it help with the trial-shift step hourly hiring depends on?+
Yes. Trial shift is a stage in the pipeline, and managers log structured feedback on the record after the working interview. That makes the most predictive signal in restaurant hiring part of the decision instead of a hallway conversation.
Can applicants apply from their phone?+
The web application form is mobile-friendly and works in any phone browser, so applicants can apply on the go. There's no separate native app to download — it's a responsive web form feeding your candidate database.
Can I use one system across several restaurant locations?+
Yes. Location is a field on every applicant, so a multi-unit operator runs all venues in one database and each GM filters to their own store while area managers see fill rates across the group.
More Applicant Tracking System use cases
Ready to build it?
Describe your restaurants applicant tracking and watch it come to life. Free to start, no code.