Raises and pay bands for a small restaurant team

In a lot of small restaurants, pay is set one conversation at a time. The first barista was hired at one rate, the second at a bit more because the market moved, and the one who asked twice got a raise while the quiet one who trains everyone didn't. A year in, nobody can explain why anyone earns what they earn, including the owner.

That's a fairness problem, a retention problem and, at the edges, a legal one. The fix doesn't need an HR department. It needs a one-page table and a calendar reminder.

This is the third post in our series on leading your first team. It builds on monthly check-ins, which give you the record raises should be based on.

This is general information, not legal advice. Updated October 5, 2026: the EEOC and National Labor Relations Board pages cited below were re-checked.

What a pay band is

A pay band is the range you pay for one role, from a starting rate to a top rate, with a few steps in between. Each step has a clear rule for getting there. That's all.

Bands help you in three ways:

• Hiring is faster. You know what to offer before the interview, and you can say it in the job post.
• Raises have a reason. Someone moves up a step because they can now do something they couldn't, not because they asked at a good moment.
• You can explain any rate. "You're on step 2 because you're signed off on bar but not on opening" is an answer people can accept, and act on.

Build a band for each role

Start with the roles you actually have (our hiring guide lists the usual ones for a small team). For each, set four steps:

Then put a rate on each step. A made-up example for a barista, to show the shape:

The figures aren't advice. Your numbers depend on your local market, your prices and your labor budget. What matters is the shape: a few steps, each a meaningful amount apart, each tied to something you can see.

Check the bottom against the law first. The starting rate has to be at or above the minimum wage wherever the person works, and minimums change, often on January 1 or July 1. Florida's, for example, rose to $15.00 an hour on September 30, 2026. Our state pay pages list the current and scheduled rates with sources: Florida, California, Texas, New York, Georgia and Illinois, among others. Some cities set their own minimums too, such as Chicago and Denver. When the minimum rises, every band whose bottom step is near it moves too, or step 1 and the minimum become the same thing.

For tipped roles, the band is the cash wage, and your state page says whether a tip credit is allowed and how much. Tips themselves aren't part of the band; our tip pooling guide covers who can share them.

Equal pay: job content, not job titles

Federal law sets the floor for fairness in pay, and it applies to nearly every restaurant, however small. According to the EEOC, "Virtually all employers are covered by the Equal Pay Act (EPA), which makes it illegal to pay different wages to men and women if they perform substantially equal work in the same workplace" (EEOC, coverage).

Two parts of the EEOC's summary matter most for setting bands (EEOC, equal pay):

• The job, not the label. "The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. Job content (not job titles) determines whether jobs are substantially equal." Calling one person a "barista" and another a "coffee specialist" doesn't justify different pay for the same work.
• All pay counts. "All forms of pay are covered by this law, including salary, overtime pay, bonuses," and benefits. A bonus you give one closer and not another is pay too.

The law allows differences that come from "(i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex" (Equal Pay Act of 1963). A written band with steps tied to sign-offs is exactly that kind of system, as long as you apply it the same way to everyone.

And the fix for a gap is never to cut the higher rate. The EEOC is direct: "If there is an inequality in wages between men and women, employers may not reduce the wages of either sex to equalize their pay."

Once you have 15 or more employees, more laws apply to pay. The EEOC lists "15 or more employees under Title VII and ADA" (EEOC, equal pay), and those laws "prohibit compensation discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability." Many states have their own equal pay laws as well, sometimes covering smaller employers.

People are allowed to talk about pay

Some owners would rather nobody compared rates. Don't make that a rule. The National Labor Relations Board says that under the National Labor Relations Act, "Policies that specifically prohibit the discussion of wages are unlawful as are policies that chill employees from discussing their wages," and that this applies "whether or not you are represented by a union" (NLRB, your right to discuss wages).

The EEOC adds that punishing someone for "asking managers or co-workers about salary information to uncover potentially discriminatory wages" can be illegal retaliation (EEOC, retaliation).

This is the best argument for bands: if people are going to compare rates anyway, and they're allowed to, it's much easier when every rate has a reason you can explain.

When raises happen

Mix two kinds of raise, and put both on the calendar:

• Step raises, when they're earned. The day someone is signed off on their last station, they move from Start to Trained, on the next pay period. Don't wait for a review date. Waiting teaches people that the sign-off didn't matter.
• A yearly band review, on a fixed date. Once a year (a slow month works well), look at every band against the minimum wage, what other places nearby are offering in job posts, and your labor cost. Move the bands, and everyone moves with them.

What not to do:

• Don't raise only the people who ask. Asking is a personality trait, not a skill. If someone asks, tell them where they are on the band and what the next step takes.
• Don't make one-off exceptions you can't explain. If you have to pay a new hire above the band to fill a role, raise the band for everyone in that role, or you've just created the gap the Equal Pay Act is about.
• Don't promise a raise you haven't budgeted. Check what it does to your labor cost first. Our guide to labor cost percentage shows how to work out the weekly effect.

What a raise costs you

A raise costs more than the new rate times the hours. Employer payroll taxes are a share of wages, so they rise with it. Overtime is paid at time and a half of the higher rate. And bonuses decided in advance (for attendance, say) can change the overtime math too; our post on time clock and overtime mistakes explains the regular rate.

Work it out once for a typical week before you announce anything. A step raise for one person is usually small. A band review that moves everyone is the one to plan for.

Telling people

• Share the bands with the team. At least each person's own band and what each step takes. Most owners find this calms things down rather than stirring them up.
• Tell each person their rate and step in a one-to-one, not in the group chat, and put it in writing.
• Explain a "no" with a "what next". "You're at Trained. Experienced needs opening sign-off and three months. Let's schedule your first supervised open."
• Write the date and the new rate in your check-in notes, so you have a record of when and why.

Where Mays fits

• Each person's wage, in one place. Under Locations & Users → Users → the person → Locations & pay, set the Pay type (Hourly or Weekly salary) and their Hourly wage. Managers can change it in the app too, under Profile → Team → the person → Wage. Each position also has a Default wage ($/hr) for anyone without their own rate.
• A raise doesn't rewrite the past. Mays saves the wage on each punch when someone clocks in, so changing a wage applies from the next punch, and the payroll export for earlier days keeps the old rate.
• The cost before you announce it. The schedule shows each person's hours and pay and the week's Scheduled labor, with overtime priced in, and Scheduling → Reports → Scheduled Hours & Wages breaks it down per person. Change a wage and the cost of next week's schedule changes with it.
• The minimum wage check. Where Labor law compliance's Minimum wage is on, Mays reads the legal minimum from the location's address and lists any wage below it, or below the next scheduled increase, in Wages below minimum on the Scheduling → Positions page, with a link to the official source.
• Who sees pay. Admins and managers who can build the schedule see wages; employees never see other people's wages on the schedule. Managers set pay for employees at their locations; pay for managers and admins is changed by an admin.

Mays doesn't have pay bands or steps, and there's no screen for a wage history with effective dates. Keep the band table and the date of each raise in your own records.

Your pay band checklist

• A band for each role, with four steps and a rule for each
• The bottom step checked against your state and city minimum, and moved when it rises
• The same rule for everyone in the role, whatever their title
• Step raises on sign-off, and one band review a year on a fixed date
• No rule against discussing pay, and no penalty for asking
• The cost of every raise worked out before it's announced
• Each person's rate, step and next step written down and explained

Keep pay clear with Mays

Set each person's wage once, see what the schedule costs, and keep payroll matching the rate you agreed.

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