Staffing a Second Restaurant Location: A Practical Plan

Opening a second Japanese restaurant is not the same job as opening the first. You have a brand, suppliers and a team that works. You also have something to lose: the first restaurant, which pays the bills while the second one finds its feet. This guide is about staffing the second site without draining the first. If you are opening your very first restaurant abroad, start with our pre-opening staffing timeline instead.

1. Why the second site is harder to staff than the first

When you opened the first restaurant, the owner or head chef was there every service. Standards were held by one person's eyes. At two sites, that person can only be in one place. Three things usually go wrong:

• The best people all move to the new site. The opening is exciting, the owner is there, and the strongest cooks want to be part of it. The original restaurant is left with the weakest team it has had in years.
• Nobody was ready to run a kitchen alone. The sous chef who was excellent as a number two is suddenly the head chef, with no one above them to call.
• Hiring started too late. Local hiring for a Japanese kitchen takes weeks. Hiring from Japan takes months once visas are involved.

Each of these is a planning problem, and each can be solved on paper before you sign the lease.

2. Split the team or build a new one

There are two basic models. Most groups end up somewhere between them.

A useful rule: never move more than one of the top three people from any one kitchen. If the head chef moves, the sous chef stays. If the sous chef moves to lead site 2, the head chef stays and promotes from within.

The decision often comes down to one question: is there a number two at site 1 who could run that kitchen tomorrow? If the answer is no, fix that first. Our guide to building a number two covers how.

3. A staffing matrix for two sites

Write the plan as a grid, one row per role, one column per site, with a named person or "to hire" in each cell. Here is an example for a sushi counter group opening a second, similar restaurant:

Two things the grid makes visible. First, every promotion creates a vacancy lower down, and those vacancies are what you actually need to recruit for. Second, a new hire who trains at site 1 before opening is worth two who arrive on opening day.

Count the "to hire" cells. That is your recruiting load, and it is usually larger than owners expect because promotions cascade.

4. A 20 week timeline

This assumes local hires with existing work rights. If any role will be filled from Japan with a visa, that role's clock starts much earlier; see our staffing plan for new overseas openings for lead times.

The week 4 test is the most important line in the plan. If site 1 cannot run a full week of normal service without the movers, you will find out while you can still fix it, not on opening night.

5. Protect the first restaurant

• Keep a named leader at site 1 who is not going anywhere. Tell the team who is in charge, and make sure the owner backs that person's decisions.
• Pay the promotion. A sous chef who becomes head chef at site 1 while the "real" head chef opens site 2 is doing a bigger job. If the pay and title do not change, you risk losing them at the worst moment.
• Hold the menu steady. Do not launch a new menu at site 1 in the same quarter. A new team should cook dishes it already knows.
• Watch the numbers weekly. Food cost, guest complaints and ticket times at site 1 will tell you if the backfilled team is struggling before reviews do.
• Plan for someone to quit. Turnover in restaurants is high: in the US, the monthly quits rate in accommodation and food services averaged 4.2% in 2025, against 2.0% across all industries (BLS JOLTS). In a group of 20 people, expect departures during the project. Keep one or two strong candidates from each hiring round warm.

6. Sponsored staff and moving between sites

If any of your team hold a work visa or permit that you sponsor, check its terms before you include them in the plan. Depending on the country and the route, a permit can be tied to a specific employer, job title, pay level or work location, and changing any of these can require a new application or a report to the authorities. Some groups run each restaurant through a separate company, which matters if the permit names the employer.

We have not listed country rules here because they differ widely and change often. Our country guides, such as Australia and Canada, point to the official sources. Where in doubt, ask the immigration authority or an adviser before you announce the move to the employee.

7. The first three months after opening

• Weeks 1 to 4: the experienced leader runs site 2. Daily check-ins with site 1's acting head chef, by phone if necessary.
• Weeks 5 to 8: the site 2 number two starts running some services alone. The leader moves to one or two services a week at site 1.
• Weeks 9 to 12: formal review of both teams. Confirm or adjust promotions, pay and titles. Decide whether the leader returns to site 1 or moves into a group role. Our guide to probation reviews has a format you can reuse.

At the end of the three months, redraw the staffing matrix as it now stands. If you plan a third site, the gaps in that grid are your next hiring list. When you are ready to advertise, you can post jobs on WashokuJob for both sites.

General information, not legal or immigration advice. Work permit conditions differ by country and route; check the official rules before moving sponsored staff between roles, companies or locations.