Start planning your Christmas cover early
October is here, and Christmas is getting closer. For restaurants, pubs, gastro pubs and even care homes, now is a good time to check whether your kitchen team has the support it needs for the festive period.
From Christmas parties and work lunches to Boxing Day bookings and New Year’s Eve, the weeks ahead can put extra pressure on your chefs. Planning cover now gives you time to work out where you need help before December arrives.
Recent recruitment figures show an increase in job adverts across the UK. According to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), there were just under 1.7 million active job postings across the UK in August 2026, up 10.4% year-on-year and 1.8% compared with July. These figures cover all sectors, rather than hospitality alone.
REC’s earlier summer analysis also showed double digit growth in hospitality and tourism job adverts compared with the equivalent period last year. With the summer season behind us, October is the opportunity to turn your attention to Christmas and get your kitchen staffing plan in place.
Christmas is a busy time for kitchens
For many restaurants and gastro pubs, December is one of the busiest periods of the year. Christmas parties, work lunches, festive menus, family meals, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve can all put extra pressure on a kitchen.
Your usual team might comfortably handle a normal Saturday night, but Christmas can mean weeks of increased bookings and longer, busier services.
Then there’s the unexpected: someone calling in sick. One chef off when you have a full restaurant, a Christmas menu and a kitchen already running at capacity can leave your team stretched.
That’s why it’s worth having a backup plan before December arrives.
Care home kitchens need Christmas planning too
Christmas planning matters in care homes as well, where festive meals can bring residents enjoyment, familiar traditions and opportunities to spend time together. Seasonal menus still need to reflect individual dietary requirements, nutritional needs and preferences. For managers planning kitchen cover, that means looking beyond Christmas lunch to the wider festive rota, including staff holidays and possible sickness absence. Arranging suitable chef cover early, with a clear handover on residents’ needs and kitchen routines, can help the team deliver celebrations alongside its everyday meal service.
Don’t automatically hire permanent staff to cover peak periods
One of the things we’re seeing more of at Bookachef is businesses looking at their staffing differently. Rather than employing an additional chef all year round to cover a handful of particularly busy periods, they’re using temporary chefs when they need extra support.
And it can make a big difference to the numbers.
We worked with a Welsh gastro pub that had exactly this challenge this year. The pub needed an experienced additional chef during its busiest periods, but employing that chef permanently didn’t make financial sense when trade dropped outside peak season.
Instead, we helped them build a flexible staffing plan around their actual busy periods.
A flexible staffing strategy offered an estimated annual saving of more than £30,000
Rather than employing an additional full-time chef for the whole year, the gastro pub used a Bookachef chef during its busiest periods.
The cover was planned around:
- May to September: 22 weeks of peak tourism
- Easter: 2 weeks
- December and Christmas: 4 weeks
The total cost of the Bookachef cover came to around £19,488 for those peak periods. Compared with the estimated annual cost of employing a full-time chef, this represented an estimated annual saving of more than £30,000.
And it wasn’t just about the cost. The additional chef gave the permanent kitchen team extra support during busy periods, helping the pub maintain its standards when demand increased.
Could this work for Christmas?
You might not need another chef for the whole year. You might need one for a few busy weeks or specific dates.
That could include:
- Christmas party season
- Busy December weekends
- Christmas Day
- Boxing Day
- New Year’s Eve
- Staff holidays
- Sickness cover
- Extra bookings or festive events
Instead of adding another permanent salary to your payroll, you can bring in a chef when you need the extra pair of hands through Bookachef’s flexible chef hiring.
Start planning before you need the chef
The hardest time to arrange chef cover is when you’re already short.
Use October to review your bookings, planned events and staff availability. Work out how many chefs you’ll need, where your permanent team has gaps and which dates could be particularly difficult if someone is unavailable.
For care homes, include the experience and handover a covering chef will need to work with your menus and residents’ dietary requirements.
You don’t have to book every shift today. But having a plan gives you more time to arrange suitable support and reduces the chance of scrambling at the last minute.
Christmas staffing doesn’t have to mean another permanent hire
The right staffing decision depends on your kitchen and how demand changes throughout the year.
If you need an additional chef consistently, a permanent appointment may make sense. If the need is concentrated around Christmas and other peak periods, temporary cover could be a better fit.
The Welsh gastro pub we worked with is a good example. By using temporary chefs during the periods when they needed them, the business supported its kitchen team while keeping costs below the estimated cost of an additional permanent hire.
So, before you start recruiting another permanent chef for Christmas, look at what your staffing needs actually are across the year.
You might only need extra support for a few weeks. And that’s exactly where Bookachef can help.
Need extra chefs this Christmas?
Bookachef connects restaurants, pubs, gastro pubs and other hospitality businesses with chefs available for temporary work.
Whether you need cover for a busy Christmas weekend, extra chefs throughout December or a replacement when someone is off sick, we can help.
Get in touch with Bookachef this October to discuss your Christmas chef cover.