More people, more pressure, more product. That combination reveals every crack in your process. Let’s seal the cracks.
Download the Holiday Preparedness Checklist for Food Service
A practical AP/LP + HR guide for the season when lines bend, patience thins, and safety matters most.
The holidays don’t change who you are; they stress-test it. Peak blocks stack up, drive-thru lines curl around the lot, delivery drivers multiply like gremlins after midnight, and one order error can turn into amateur theater at the counter. Your north star is simple (but not easy): protect people first, brand second, assets third—without breaking throughput. What follows is the version your GMs and shift leads will actually read: what’s happening, what to decide, and how to act fast without adding fuel to the fryers.
The seasonal shift: what really changes
The pressure is about compression. Orders surge into a few tight windows. Dining rooms mix families, celebrations, and alcohol. Staff skew seasonal and young. The back of house hums at redline, front of house is juggling short supplies, and the drive-thru can feel like a racetrack with horn accompaniment. The fix isn’t bravado; it’s clarity and repetition—clear rules, short scripts, visible managers, and simple drills until the moves are muscle memory.
TPOP offers valuable and effective 30-minute core training that teaches Behavioral Indicators of Violence, Situational Awareness, De-Escalation Techniques, and Active Shooter Preparedness. For part-time and seasonal workers, it’s an investment that pays off quickly in performance. Learn more here.
Guests and Crew Stress (where sparks fly)
Flashpoints are predictable: a wrong item, a long wait, a seat shortage, being out of a fan favorite, or an ID refusal. Choose your posture in advance—non-engagement with observe/document/report, or light engagement with a quick “one-step fix” and an easy exit. Put a manager where the heat lives (counter, floor, drive-thru window), not in the office. Teach a simple rhythm: notice what’s happening, name the issue without blame, offer one clean solution, and move. Space matters too; a step back and a calm tone de-pressurize most moments.
Line to post in the BOH: “We don’t win arguments. We win exits and good outcomes.”
A line worth posting in the breakroom: “We don’t win arguments. We win exits, good outcomes, happy customers.”
Theft and ORC in restaurants (not just dine-and-dash)
Holiday attention brings opportunists. It’s tip-jar grabs, device snatches, register rifling at shift change, and back-door theft of proteins or cases of beverages. Your defense is boring on purpose: minimal cash in drawers, timed safe drops, clear sight lines to the counter, BOH access logs, cycle counts on high-value inputs, and camera coverage on the back door and the hall that leads to it. Presence deters; process prevents.
If your team needs training on de-escalation, TPOP has excellent scenario-based training that addresses the most common conflicts in food service. Get more details here.
Internal fraud and comp abuse (when tools become losses)
Discounts, voids, and remakes keep guests happy—and can quietly drain the till. Decide comp limits per role and per shift, require manager approvals that actually mean something, and tune POS exception reports to catch the signal (excessive remakes/voids on a single login, late-night pattern spikes). Review anomalies nightly with coaching, not shaming. Most frontline folks want to do right; make right the easy path.
Drive-thru and curbside (friction factories)
Cars act like armor; impatience grows louder behind glass. Verification keeps you safe and honest: confirm name plus order ID before hand-off, especially on large or high-value orders. During surges, put a line-buster outside with a tablet to pre-stage orders and lower blood pressure. Cones and signage reduce lane-cutting and fender benders. If a driver gets heated, step back, let the vehicle clear, and log plate/time—observe and document; don’t perform for the audience.
Third-party delivery, pickups, and identity
Wrong driver, wrong order, wrong tone—holiday classics. Keep a dedicated, visible pickup shelf and a camera on the zone. Confirm app ID or require a simple QR/PIN scan at hand-off. Late night, tighten it further: no ID, no order, no debate. Crew shouldn’t argue with the internet; managers take the dispute, resolve or escalate, and move the line.
Alcohol service and intoxication
Spirits rise until they don’t. Use dual-verification for ID, keep refusal scripts simple and humane, and make sure a manager is always present for cut-offs. Offer water and food as a soft landing; log the refusal so you’re not re-litigating it next shift. A small laminated refusal card at the host stand saves a lot of improvisation.
Most flashpoints are predictable — and solvable. But only if you plan, prepare, and train.
Download the Holiday Preparedness Checklist for Food Service
Late-night crowds, group dynamics, and “challenges”
Group energy plus viral dares equals trouble. Decide in advance when you flip to drive-thru-only, when you limit group size, and when bathrooms lock near close. Keep PD/property liaison numbers at the register, not in a manager’s email. Occupancy signage and a calm, consistent tone keep you from playing bouncer in a holiday sweater.
Parking lot and perimeter (trouble starts outside)
Incidents often begin in the lot and flow in. Good lighting and camera views are table stakes; habits win: timed exterior sweeps, two-person close, escorts to cars for closers, and a clear walk path for runners. In snowy markets, place piles where they don’t block sight lines or create ambush corners.
Bias-motivated harassment and domestic spillover
Young, front-facing crews get targeted. Zero tolerance isn’t a slogan; it’s a script and a hand-off. Managers step in fast, move the conversation off the line, and shut it down. If an employee has a protective order, adjust schedule and ingress/egress, coordinate escorts, and make it boringly predictable. Post EAP info where it’s actually seen (near the schedule board, not buried in onboarding).
De-escalation is a strength, not a weakness. Teach your crew this invaluable superpower.
Digital threats (swatting, doxing, threat calls)
A ten-second call can clear a dining room. Train to a simple tree: keep the caller talking only if trained, capture caller ID and exact language, escalate to manager, and follow your evacuate vs. hold decision path that you set long before the phone rang. Keep the PD liaison number by the phone and a short template for internal updates so rumor doesn’t set the agenda.
Facilities, weather, and power
Slips and trips are the number-one preventable morale killer. Mats, wet-floor patrols, and quick cleanup beat any legal argument later. Decide who can close, what powers up first on generator (POS, hoods, lights, comms), and your reopening criteria. Treat a “dark store” like a procedure, not a vibe: pull cash, secure product, lock perimeter, log the sequence.
Reporting, evidence, and after-care
If it isn’t logged, it didn’t happen in the ways that matter to insurers and counsel. Use a one-tap incident form or a laminated backup so you never “meant to write it down.” Capture times, names, camera references, and who was notified. After serious events, debrief briefly, offer EAP, and give a clear path back to work. Be human and consistent—that combination keeps people.
Legal, labor, and insurance
Get your use-of-force and non-engagement language final before the rush. Train supervisors on protected concerted activity so a well-meaning crackdown doesn’t become tomorrow’s headache. Align your guest-facing signage with what you’ll actually enforce. If the sign says “refund or remake,” your team should be able to do exactly that, fast.
Technology that actually helps
Pick a few dials and own them. Drive-thru timers and queue length alerts help managers redeploy bodies before tempers flare. POS exception dashboards should flag the handful of anomalies you care about during holidays. Set camera “tours” that hit hot zones at the top of each hour in peak weeks. Tools are useless without clear ownership and a cadence.
Tighten your cash-office controls and make it hard to steal.
Communication that prevents conflict
Set expectations early and you’ll dodge most scenes later. Use friendly, plain signs where friction starts—alcohol ID checks, delivery pickup rules, late-night policy shifts. Keep a “red-banner” SMS channel for urgent internal updates. Send a short daily ops note and a weekend hot sheet: today’s peaks, today’s risks, today’s fixes. Not everything—just what actually matters now.
A Timeline for Preparedness
You don’t need a wall of clipboards. You need a drumbeat.
- About 90 days out, tier your risk by daypart, finalize engagement policy and hours, lock security/vendor posture, and run legal/insurance review.
- About 60 days out, finish training assets (drive-thru, alcohol, delivery), post signs, tune POS and camera coverage, and schedule tabletop drills.
- About 30 days out, walk the store, rehearse roles (line-busting, service refusal, delivery hand-offs), confirm PD/property contacts, and tighten BOH controls.
- Two weeks out, start daily huddles, put hot sheets in motion, stage scripts where people actually use them, and reconfirm closure/lockdown thresholds.
- During peak weeks, keep a manager visible at the friction points, separate “clean” issues from “verification” issues, verify identity before hand-offs, run a two-person close with exterior sweeps, and debrief for ten minutes after the rush. That’s the game.
What “good” looks like
If incident counts are down, late-night is calmer, drive-thru time is stable, remake rates aren’t spiking, ID checks are clean, and staff say they feel prepared, you’re winning. If calls to PD cluster at a few late-night sites, that’s not a failure—it’s a focus list for next week’s attention.
A script your team can actually use
When a guest heats up at the counter, keep it simple:
“Thanks for telling me—here’s what I can do right now. I can refund or remake, your call, and I’ll make it fast. If that doesn’t solve it, I’ll bring my manager in to help.”
It’s not poetry. It’s pressure relief—and it works.
It sounds simple because it is. Simple survives contact with reality.
Download the Holiday Preparedness Checklist for Food Service