Business Ideas: Uber for restaurant/catering staff

I present you another business idea: The Uber for restaurant staff/catering events. Flexible waiter/server staff for flexible needs.

Update (24.11.2020): Looks like the idea was already implemented: shiftgig.com

The problem statement

Kind of a continuation of my previous business idea of the mobile-first restaurant, I present you the Uber for restaurant/catering staff. Let’s assume you have a restaurant with highly fluctuating traffic of visitors (e.g. lots on the weekend, not so many during work days). Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to get restaurant staff on a short notice if it’s noticeable that there will be a high volume of guests? Or if you have a catering company usually it would be nice if you can show up with 3+ servers to help serving the food or with the setup/cleaning.

The proposed solution / business idea

The idea would be an app like Uber where event organizer/restaurant manager can hire staff for events/time slots. There would be people with flexible time schedules (e.g. students, mothers with kids in school, unemployed people) which get notifications about work in their immediate area and then can immediately go to work on the posted time slots.

The potential upselling / side-effects

I see the following benefits of this ideas:

• Addresses the need for flexible staffing of gastronomy based businesses
• Gives flexible people flexible income streams
• There could be training before being able to apply to a specific gig, for example to learn the menu or the restaurant specific values
• Could work for large events like concerts and other temporary staffing needs businesses
• Using star rating/score for reliability of employee and employer

The risks

There are some fair concerns around the idea:

• Only works with a significant user/staff base
• Gig economy is arguably very bad because it doesn’t create predictable income streams for the employees, plus the social benefits aspects around it (who pays health insurance, retirement payments etc.?)
• Employees might not meet the quality standards or requirements of the employers (hiring w/o interview)

Feedback

If you know a place, an app or company which already provides/implemented this business idea, please let me know in the comments. You like my idea and/or plan to start a company/app based on it and would like to make me participate, refine the idea, consult or own a stake? Please reach out to fondueblogger@gmail.com.