67% of Restaurant Workers Satisfied With Pay, Up 12 Points: Toast Survey

Two-thirds of U.S. restaurant employees — 67% — reported satisfaction with their pay in Toast's 2026 survey, a 12-percentage-point jump from 2025. Benefits satisfaction rose even faster, up 16 points to 62% among the 702 employees surveyed.

The data points to a straightforward explanation: restaurants, squeezed by a shrinking U.S. workforce, are paying more to keep the people they already employ. National Restaurant Association analysis shows the labor pool has contracted in recent years, especially among younger workers who fill most restaurant roles. For HR teams in food service, the survey signals that retention investments in wages and benefits are producing measurable movement in employee sentiment.

How did pay and tipping shift?

Toast, the restaurant technology platform, fielded a blind survey from Feb. 13 to March 11, 2026, covering 702 U.S.-based restaurant employees aged 18 and older, both Toast and non-Toast customers, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points at a 95% confidence interval. The year-over-year comparison draws on a 2025 survey of 624 respondents conducted Jan. 31 to Feb. 19, 2025.

The pay breakdown:

• 67% satisfied overall, up 12 points year over year
• 42% satisfied (not extremely), up 6 points
• 25% extremely satisfied, up 6 points
• 14% dissatisfied to any extent, down 8 points

Tips, a core compensation channel for front-of-house staff, also improved. Among the 434 respondents who receive tips, 42% saw tips increase over the past 12 months, 37% saw no change and 15% saw a decrease. Toast's separate tipping index put the average full-service restaurant tip at 19.1% in Q2 2026.

What do workers want from benefits?

Benefits satisfaction hit 62%, composed of 23% extremely satisfied and 38% satisfied, while dissatisfaction fell 9 points to 14%. Extreme satisfaction alone rose 7 points.

When workers ranked their top three desired benefits:

• Medical benefits: 24%
• Free meals: 23% (41% already receive them)
• Paid time off: 23%
• Daily tips: 21%
• 401(k) retirement savings: 21%
• Early wage access: 19% desired, received by 18%

The near-tie between medical coverage and free meals suggests operators can compete on benefits with low-cost offerings, but the gap between demand for retirement savings and daily-tip payouts points to areas where formal packages still lag worker priorities.

What keeps employees — and what drives them out?

The same two factors top both lists. "Provides good hourly pay" and "provides a flexible schedule" each drew 32% as a top-three favorite job aspect. Connecting with guests followed at 27%, tied with good coworkers, while 20% named making someone's day special. Trying new food and drinks rose 5 points to 16%.

On the exit side, 31% cited poor hourly pay as a reason they would consider a new role, down 2 points from 2025 — meaning pay drives both loyalty and attrition simultaneously. Difficult managers ranked second at 26%, down 4 points, and difficult coworkers at 24%.

Among workers planning to leave the industry within two years, the demands sharpen: 55% want better pay, 32% want benefits and 31% want stability.

Are restaurant workers ready for AI at work?

Mostly yes. Roughly 20% of respondents described themselves as extremely open to using AI for work tasks such as shift scheduling, while about 10% fully rejected AI at work. Specific applications drew slightly stronger enthusiasm:

• 23% extremely open to AI-generated end-of-shift summaries
• 23% extremely open to AI upsell suggestions
• 12% not at all open to AI training or coaching

A majority expressed some willingness to use AI for each task surveyed — a notable adoption signal for operators weighing scheduling and coaching automation, though the 12% hard resistance to AI coaching suggests a human-led training layer remains necessary.

The overall picture for 2026: pay and benefits gains are landing, but with 55% of would-be industry leavers still naming pay as their exit trigger, Toast's tracker gives operators a benchmark to watch as the labor market keeps tightening.

By Olivia Hart