Restaurant Staff Shortage: How a Staff Ordering App Helps a Smaller Team Cover the Floor

Friday, 21:30. Fourteen tables, two waiters, and a third who quit in August and was never replaced. If that is your floor, a restaurant staff shortage is not a headline, it is your shift. The fastest fix within your control is cutting the walking: a staff ordering app lets each waiter send the order to the kitchen and bar from the table, see which tables are waiting, and stop running paper tickets. It will not hire anyone for you. It does help a smaller team cover the floor without cutting corners on service. In Scanby that is Scanby Waitor, €18.99/mo, with no guest QR and no hardware to buy.

The numbers explain why this matters this season. At a press conference on 14 October 2026, the Panhellenic Federation of Food and Tourism Workers (POEET) put vacancies in Greek tourism and food service at more than 83,000.

Be honest about cause and effect. The people are leaving over pay, hours and how they are treated. Software does not fix that. What software can do is stop your remaining team from burning their shift on steps that add nothing for the guest.

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Where a short-staffed floor actually loses time

1. The walk to the pass

   Every paper ticket is a round trip to the kitchen and another to the bar. With a staff ordering app the order lands at both from the table.

2. The "did table 6 order?" question

   When nobody can see the floor, people ask each other. A shared order board answers it without a conversation.

3. Rewriting orders that changed

   The guest swaps a side, the waiter crosses it out, the kitchen misreads it. Edits on a device reach the kitchen as edits.

4. Training the new hire

   With 30,000 open food-service jobs, your next waiter may be on day one in July. A phone app they already know how to hold beats learning a POS terminal and your ticket shorthand.

How a staff ordering app works with Scanby Waitor

Scanby Waitor is staff-only ordering. Waiters take orders on a phone, tablet or PDA at the table or the counter, and the guest never scans anything. Orders appear on a live order board with an Orders view and a Tables view, with a new-order sound and Android push so nobody stares at a screen waiting.

Three details matter most when you are short of people:

1. Offline mode

   If the Wi-Fi drops on the terrace, staff keep creating, editing and cancelling orders. Each one gets a temporary number and a Queued badge, then syncs automatically. Payments, receipts and menu editing still need a connection.

2. Kitchen printing

   Run Scanby Print on a kitchen computer, or connect a network printer from the Android app, so cooks keep the paper tickets they are used to.

3. One shared tablet, several people

   Invite staff by email with Owner, Admin or User roles. On a shared tablet a waiter switches account by typing a password, with no sign-out.

Which setup fits a short-staffed venue?

Choose Scanby Waitor (€18.99/mo) if you serve at the table, your cash register works, and you just need orders to reach the kitchen faster.

Choose Menu + Waitor (€22.98/mo) if you also want a QR menu. That is the exact price of Scanby Order, so guest QR ordering comes free on this combination. On a night with one waiter too few, letting guests at the bar or the beach send their own order is often the biggest relief.

Choose Waitor + Pay (€31.98/mo) if you want the same waiter to charge the card and issue the myDATA receipt at the table, so nobody queues at the till.

Skip it if you run a small counter where the barista hears every order. A paper pad is fine there, and Scanby will not pretend otherwise.

You cannot app your way out of a hiring problem. You can stop asking two people to walk like four.

Do I need new hardware?

No. Scanby needs no required hardware, only an optional order or receipt printer. Waiters use phones or tablets: the app is on Google Play, installs on a desktop, and adds to an iPhone home screen. Setup takes under 10 minutes.