Hospitality Staffing for Newcastle & Hunter Venues

Every venue knows the feeling: a full booking sheet, a wedding on Saturday, a cook off sick and the dishes already piling up by seven o'clock. Our hospitality staffing service in Newcastle and the Hunter supplies chefs, cooks, kitchen hands and cleaners for regular shifts, events, peak seasons and wine-region weekends. You tell us the roles, dates and times, and we send people who turn up ready to work, so your own team can focus on guests.

Hospitality staffing in Newcastle and the Hunter: who we supply

• Chefs and cooks – for à la carte, bistro, banquet and function service, including prep, line and grill shifts, and cover when your head chef is on leave.
• Kitchen hands – dishwashing and pot washing through service, basic prep under your chef's direction, and keeping the kitchen, cool rooms and dock clean and organised.
• Cleaners – opening and closing cleans, amenities kept clean during trade, back-of-house cleaning between services, and room turnovers for venues with accommodation.

Tell us what each shift needs, such as food handling, a Food Safety Supervisor certificate, Cert III in Commercial Cookery or RSA, and we'll match staff who hold those qualifications. Front-of-house and bar roles are case by case, so ask and we'll be upfront about what we can cover.

When venues use us

• Regular shifts – an ongoing roster of kitchen or cleaning shifts, so you're not recruiting for every gap.
• Peak seasons – summer at the beaches, the December party season, Easter and school holidays, when the same venue can need far more hands.
• Events – weddings, functions, conferences and big game days, including preparation beforehand and clean-up afterwards.
• Wine-region weekends – cellar door restaurants and accommodation in Pokolbin and across the Hunter Valley that run lean during the week and flat out from Friday to Sunday.
• Cover – leave, illness and staff turnover.

How it works

1. Tell us what you need – roles, number of staff, dates, shift times, qualifications, the venue address and who they'll report to.
2. We confirm – staff and shift details are confirmed before the booking, so you're not left guessing.
3. Induction on site – your supervisor shows our staff the kitchen or venue layout, procedures and site rules. For regular shifts, this only needs to happen once.
4. On shift – our staff work to your standards and recipes, with a contact at our end if anything needs changing.
5. Review – after events and busy periods, we check in on how it went and what to adjust next time.

Getting the most from our staff

• Share a run sheet or shift plan, including start and finish times and breaks.
• For kitchen shifts, tell us the menu style, the section you need covered and any equipment staff should know.
• Let us know uniform, knife and footwear requirements.
• Tell us about sign-in, parking and staff entrance arrangements.
• Name a supervisor or point of contact for the day.

What affects the cost

Staffing quotes depend on:

• Role and experience – a qualified chef costs more than a kitchen hand.
• Number of staff and shift length.
• When shifts fall – weekend, late-night and public holiday shifts generally cost more, reflecting penalty rates.
• Notice – the earlier you book, the easier it is to secure the staff you need, especially for December and wedding season.
• Location and travel – venues in the Hunter Valley, Port Stephens and Singleton may involve travel time.

Local venues, local staff

Our people live and work across Newcastle and the Hunter, which matters when shifts start early or finish late:

• City venues around Darby Street, Beaumont Street in Hamilton, the Honeysuckle waterfront and The Junction need staff who can get in and out of town at odd hours.
• Wine country venues around Cessnock, Pokolbin and Branxton are a drive from Newcastle, so we plan travel into the roster.
• Port Stephens venues around Nelson Bay swing between quiet winters and busy summers, so flexible numbers help.
• Clubs and pubs across Lake Macquarie and Maitland often need consistent regular shifts more than one-off help.

Combine staffing with venue cleaning

Venues can use both services together: our hospitality venue cleaning team handles the scheduled overnight or early-morning clean, while staffing covers busy shifts and events. Opening a new venue after a fit-out? Our post-construction cleaning gets the space ready first.

Looking for hospitality work?

Chefs, cooks, kitchen hands and cleaners can apply to join our team — tell us your experience, qualifications, preferred areas and availability.

Talk to us about your roster

Tell us your dates, roles and numbers. Request a free quote or call 0411 463 552 and we'll talk through how we can help.