NYC Restaurant Hiring Index · November 2026

Dishwasher jobs are a bigger slice of NYC restaurant hiring in November 2026

Every month we read every open restaurant, bar and café job in New York City on Restowork and tell you what changed. Real job posts, real pay.

The big news

• Pastry jobs: typical pay $21.50 an hour, up 1% from October 2026.
• Dishwasher jobs are a bigger slice of all jobs: 7%, up from 4%.
• Busiest neighborhoods for restaurant jobs: Midtown, Flatiron, Midtown East.
• About 2% of open jobs are holiday or seasonal.

Pay by job

Typical base pay an hour in NYC restaurant job posts, and how it moved since October 2026. Tips not included.

Where restaurants are hiring most

1. 1. MidtownManhattan
2. 2. FlatironManhattan
3. 3. Midtown EastManhattan
4. 4. SoHoManhattan
5. 5. West VillageManhattan
6. 6. Financial DistrictManhattan
7. 7. Hell’s KitchenManhattan
8. 8. Upper East SideManhattan

Jobs restaurants want more of

These jobs are a bigger slice of all NYC restaurant jobs than in October 2026.

Holiday and part-time hiring

• About 2% of open jobs are holiday or seasonal, most of them server, catering & events, bartender jobs.
• About 24% of open jobs are part-time.

Restaurants hiring the most

The NYC restaurants and groups with the most open jobs this month.

1. 1. Applebee's
2. 2. Restaurant Associates
3. 3. Eataly North America
4. 4. Shake Shack
5. 5. 7th Street Burger
6. 6. Dig Inn
7. 7. Van Leeuwen
8. 8. Panera Bread
9. 9. Red Rabbit
10. 10. Tao group

How we count

• Which jobs: every open restaurant, bar, café and club job in the five boroughs on Restowork in November 2026. Jobs from staffing agencies are left out of the restaurant list. The same job posted twice counts once.
• Pay: the base pay written in the job post. When a post gives a range, we use the middle. Yearly pay is divided by 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks). Tips are not included. Pay under $7 or over $150 an hour is treated as a typo and left out.
• Typical pay: the median: half the jobs pay more, half pay less. A job is shown only when enough posts list pay to make the number solid.
• Changes: compared with October 2026, from last month’s Restowork report. Shares are each job’s slice of all open jobs that list pay. A move under 1% is called “about the same.”
• Neighborhoods: from each job’s address on the map. Addresses that are only a borough’s center point are left out.
• Frozen: each month is saved the day it comes out, so the numbers you cite never change. More on how Restowork counts.

Cite as: Restowork NYC Restaurant Hiring Index, November 2026. Download the data (CSV), free to use with credit.