Dishwasher Job Description: Duties, Responsibilities, Template & Pay (2026)
A dishwasher keeps the entire restaurant running, and is the first position to become unfillable when the posting is careless. This page has a dishwasher job description template you can copy, the requirements that belong in it, what dishwashers are paid, and the three things a kitchen can offer that the warehouse down the road cannot.
What a dishwasher does
The job is more than the machine, and every kitchen knows it even when the posting does not say it.
The pit. Scraping, racking, running the machine, hand-washing what cannot go through, pot and pan work, checking temperatures and sanitiser concentration, changing the water, and keeping up with a rush that arrives in waves rather than steadily.
The flow. Getting clean plates back to the line and clean glassware back to the bar before either runs out. When a kitchen "goes down", a dish backup is the cause more often than the stove is. A dishwasher who reads the ticket rail and gets ahead of it is worth a great deal more than the rate suggests.
The building. Trash and recycling, grease and cardboard, breaking down boxes, mopping the kitchen, deep cleaning hood filters and floor drains, receiving and putting away deliveries, and hauling everything heavy that arrives.
The kitchen. In most independent restaurants the dishwasher does prep: peeling, portioning, washing produce, sometimes stock and sauces. Say whether yours does, because it changes the job, the pay and the person who should take it.
Dishwasher job description template
Copy this into your ATS or job board, replace the bracketed fields, and delete what does not apply. It is written for a full-service restaurant; the customization section covers high-volume, fine dining, healthcare and institutional kitchens, and combined dish-and-prep roles.
Job title
Dishwasher [/ Kitchen Steward / Dish and Prep] — [Venue name], [City, ST] — [Shift]
Summary
[Venue name] is hiring a dishwasher for our [city] kitchen: [000] covers on a busy night, [machine type: conveyor / door-type / undercounter], [number] dishwashers on a shift. Shifts are [days], [start] to [end — say the real end time], [00] hours a week. Pay is [$00.00–$00.00] an hour, paid [weekly], [plus a share of the tip pool of about [$0] an hour]. [No experience needed. / This role includes [00] hours of prep work a week and pays accordingly.]
Responsibilities
- Scrape, rack and run dishes, glassware, flatware and smallwares through the machine
- Hand-wash pots, pans and anything the machine cannot take
- Keep clean plates flowing to the line and clean glassware to the bar, ahead of the rush
- Check and record machine temperatures and sanitiser levels; change water as required
- Take out trash, recycling, cardboard and grease; keep the dock and bins clean
- Sweep and mop kitchen floors; clean drains, mats and the dish area
- Receive and put away deliveries and rotate stock
- Complete the closing checklist and deep-clean tasks on schedule
- [Basic prep: washing, peeling, portioning as directed by the [chef / kitchen manager]]
Requirements
- Able to work the [shift], including [nights, weekends and holidays]
- Able to stand for a full shift, lift [50] lbs, and work in heat and humidity
- Able to keep pace when the rush arrives and stay steady with a backlog
- [Food handler card, or obtain within [00] days — we pay]
- [Minimum age for [state] rules on kitchen equipment]
Preferred
- Previous kitchen or dish experience of any kind
- Interest in learning prep and moving onto the line — we train
- [Spanish and English]
- [Experience with a conveyor machine or a three-compartment sink setup]
Pay and benefits
- [$00.00–$00.00] an hour, paid [weekly], reviewed at [90] days
- [Share of the tip pool: about [$0.00] an hour]
- [Shift meal on every shift]
- [Set schedule, same days every week; schedule published [14] days ahead]
- [Promotion path to prep cook and line cook — [00] of our cooks started in dish]
- [Health coverage at [00] hours a week], [paid time off], [uniform and slip-resistant shoes provided]
How to apply
[Apply here / text DISH to 00000 / come in between 2 and 4pm any weekday and ask for [name]]. We reply within [24] hours and can start you this week.
Requirements: what is required, what is preferred, and what costs you applicants
This role competes for exactly the same worker as warehouse, retail and fast food, usually at a comparable rate, and it is physically harder than two of the three. Every unnecessary requirement is a candidate lost to an easier job.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| Experience | Not needed. Training is one shift. Requiring experience filters the pool for no gain and signals a manager who has not thought about the posting. |
| English fluency | The most damaging line in dishwasher postings and the least necessary. A very large share of this workforce is Spanish-speaking, the job can be learned and done in Spanish in most kitchens, and the ad should run in both languages rather than asking for bilingualism. |
| Food handler card | Often required locally and cheap. Offer to pay for it and give a window rather than gating on it. |
| Minimum age | Check the state rules; some restrict minors around certain kitchen equipment. Do not set the bar higher than the law does. |
| Physical requirements | State them concretely — full shift standing, lifting 50 lbs, heat, wet floors. Candidates prefer an honest description to a surprise on day one, and this is a job where the surprise is expensive. |
| Availability | Be specific. Fixed shifts are one of the few genuine advantages a kitchen has over gig and warehouse work, so if the schedule is stable, that is the headline. |
| Transport | Late finishes and no public transport at 11:30pm are a real constraint. Say the actual end time. A posting that says "out by 11" and means 12:30 is why people stop turning up in week two. |
Dishwasher duties, written for a posting
Describe the pit. Covers on a busy night, machine type, how many dishwashers are on, whether there is a separate pot sink, whether the kitchen is air-conditioned, and what time the dish station actually finishes. Those are the facts an experienced dishwasher uses to decide, and almost no posting supplies them.
Be explicit about what else is attached: trash and grease, cardboard, floors, deliveries, deep cleans, and prep. If prep is part of the job, say how many hours and pay for it; the difference between "dishwasher" and "dish and prep" is a real pay difference and candidates know it.
Keep the list to eight or nine lines, ordered by how much of the shift each one takes, and put the end time in the summary rather than leaving it to be discovered.
How to customize it by kitchen
Independent full-service restaurant
Say the covers, the machine and the crew, and lead with the three advantages: shift meal, fixed schedule, path to the line. If your dishwasher also preps, title the role "Dish and Prep" and pay the difference — you will fill it faster and keep the person longer.
High-volume and chain
Conveyor machines, sustained pace, defined stations and more people on shift. Sell the structure, the hours and the documented promotion path. Be honest about the volume; this segment loses most of its early leavers to a shift that was harder than described.
Fine dining
Often a steward role with real standards: china, glassware, polishing, silver and a slower but more exacting pace. Say that, because it attracts a different and more durable candidate than a generic dish ad.
Healthcare, senior living and institutional
The under-advertised advantage here is enormous: daytime shifts, no midnight finishes, benefits, holidays and a tray-line rhythm instead of a dinner rush. Lead with the schedule and the benefits, because that is what will move somebody out of a restaurant kitchen.
Hotels and banquets
Volume arrives in blocks around events rather than steadily. Say the event calendar, the shift lengths and whether overtime is available — for part of this workforce, guaranteed overtime is the whole reason to take the job.
What it costs to reach dishwashers on social
Entry-level hourly is the cheapest audience in our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark: retail and corporate campaigns — 181 of them, the closest match — ran a median cost per applicant of $8.58, a volume-blended figure of $3.66 and a 26% apply rate, the highest of any sector. Across all 891 managed campaigns the median was $13.88 and the cheapest decile $2.91.
Two things reliably make a dishwasher campaign expensive. The first is the application form: across the benchmark, campaigns converting over 20% of clicks paid $4.41 an applicant and those under 10% paid $53.77. Ask two questions — what shifts can you work, and when can you start — and call the same day. The second is language: running the ad only in English in a market where much of this workforce is Spanish-speaking halves the audience before the auction starts.
Staffing the whole kitchen? See the cook, chef and sous chef job descriptions, plus busser for the front of house, and frontline recruiting for the hiring side.
Writing the ad version
The description is the document. The advertisement is read on a phone by somebody who could equally take a warehouse shift tomorrow. It needs four things in the first three lines: the rate, the exact shift and finish time, that no experience is needed, and one reason to choose a kitchen — the meal, the schedule or the path to the line. Our campaign data puts the best-converting length at 201–400 words, and shorter works here.
Run it in Spanish as well as English unless you have a specific reason not to. It is the highest-return change available to most restaurant hiring.
What dishwashers earn
The median was $16.73 an hour, $34,810 a year in 2025, across about 477,700 dishwashers. Employment is projected to show little or no change through 2034, and yet the occupation still generates roughly 76,800 openings a year — essentially all replacement, and one of the highest churn rates relative to headcount in food service.
That churn is the entire economics of this role. If a restaurant replaces its dishwasher four times a year, it pays for four recruitments, four sets of training hours, and four periods of a kitchen running short — which usually means a cook doing dishes at $22 an hour instead. Against that, a dollar an hour, a shift meal and a fixed schedule are inexpensive.
For comparison, the wider food and beverage serving group employed 5,143,000 people in 2025 at a $15.24 median with about 1,078,500 annual openings, so dishwashers sit slightly above the group median — a fact worth quoting in a posting when you are competing against counter jobs at $15.00.
Frequently asked questions
What does a dishwasher do in a restaurant?
A dishwasher scrapes, racks and runs dishes, glassware and smallwares through the machine, hand-washes pots and pans, keeps clean plates flowing to the line and glassware to the bar, checks machine temperatures and sanitiser levels, takes out trash, recycling, cardboard and grease, mops kitchen floors and cleans drains, receives deliveries, and completes closing and deep-clean tasks. In many kitchens the role also includes basic prep.
What qualifications does a dishwasher need?
None formally — no educational credential and short-term on-the-job training. Employers need somebody who can work the shift, stand for it, lift around 50 lbs, and keep pace in heat and humidity. A food handler card is often required locally and is cheap and quick to obtain.
How much do dishwashers make?
The median was $16.73 an hour, or $34,810 a year, in 2025. That sits above the $15.24 median for food and beverage serving workers as a group and above the $15.00 median for fast food and counter workers, which is worth stating in a posting when you are competing with counter jobs.
What should a dishwasher job description include?
Covers on a busy night, the machine type, how many dishwashers are on a shift, whether there is a separate pot sink, the exact shift including the real finish time, the hourly rate and any tip-pool share, eight or nine responsibilities including trash, floors, deliveries and any prep, the physical requirements stated concretely, and a way to apply in one step.
Do dishwashers do prep work?
In many independent kitchens, yes — washing, peeling, portioning and sometimes more. It is a legitimate part of the job and it should be stated in the posting, titled accurately ("Dish and Prep") and paid accordingly, because the difference between the two roles is a real pay difference that candidates are aware of.
Is dishwasher a good entry-level restaurant job?
It is the most common route into a kitchen. A large share of line cooks started in dish, and a restaurant that says so in the posting — with a number, such as how many of its current cooks came up that way — gives a candidate a reason to choose a hot, demanding job over an easier one at the same rate.
Why is it so hard to hire dishwashers?
Because the work is physically harder than the retail, warehouse and counter jobs paying about the same, so the posting has to offer something those cannot. The three things that work are a shift meal, a schedule that is the same every week, and a stated path to the line. Running the advertisement in Spanish as well as English is the other large and usually unexercised lever.
How many dishwashers does a restaurant need?
It depends on covers, machine type and whether the role includes prep, but the test is whether clean plates and glassware ever run short during service. A dish backup stops a kitchen faster than almost anything else, and when it happens the work falls to a cook earning far more, which is why understaffing the pit is usually more expensive than staffing it properly.
Other job description templates
Hiring dishwashers?
The description is the document. Filling the hardest hourly job in the building, repeatedly, is the job. That is what we run.
Wage, employment and projection figures for dishwashers (SOC 35-9021): O*NET OnLine, republishing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2025 OEWS wage data and BLS employment projections. Group figures: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Food and Beverage Serving and Related Workers. Cost-per-applicant and apply-rate figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, 891 campaigns and 1,334 campaign-months.