End-of-shift handover · cafés, bars, small restaurants
Tonight’s scribbles become tomorrow’s clean handover.
Paste the lines you already write at close and read them back in the five blocks the opening manager looks for, in the order they look.
The worked sample
Friday close at Café Lumière
Out & low
- Oat milk down to half a carton; sourdough down to 6 loaves. Order both before 7am.
Equipment
- Cold room sitting at 6°C and creeping up; engineer booked for 9am. - Left bar grinder burr replaced mid-shift.
Guests & bookings
- Hayes party of 6 moved to 8:30pm on Saturday. - Nut allergy flagged for Sunday’s private hire.
Cash
- Drawer counted £1,842.50, float of £150 left in the safe. - £96 of card tips to split with Sunday’s team.
Open actions
- Oat milk and sourdough order — Rosa, 7am. - Meet the refrigeration engineer — Tom, 9am. - Confirm Sunday’s allergy list with the kitchen — Priya, 6pm.
The plain text that gets copied
SHIFT NOTES · HANDOVER Friday close · Café Lumière OUT & LOW - Oat milk down to half a carton; sourdough down to 6 loaves. Order both before 7am. EQUIPMENT - Cold room sitting at 6°C and creeping up; engineer booked for 9am. - Left bar grinder burr replaced mid-shift. GUESTS & BOOKINGS - Hayes party of 6 moved to 8:30pm on Saturday. - Nut allergy flagged for Sunday’s private hire. CASH - Drawer counted £1,842.50, float of £150 left in the safe. - £96 of card tips to split with Sunday’s team. OPEN ACTIONS - Oat milk and sourdough order — Rosa, 7am. - Meet the refrigeration engineer — Tom, 9am. - Confirm Sunday’s allergy list with the kitchen — Priya, 6pm.
Shift Notes · tonight’s handover
Paste the close. Read the five blocks.
Type or paste the lines you would otherwise send the opener at one in the morning — the low stock, the fridge that keeps tripping, the table that moved to eight. They come back sorted into the same five blocks every night, in the order the opener reads them.
The handover
Five blocks, in this order
Out & low
Whatever ran out or is running out, and what has to be ordered before the next service.
Equipment
Anything broken, noisy, leaking or patched up mid-shift, and who has been called about it.
Guests & bookings
Regulars, complaints, allergies, tables that moved, and bookings the next shift has to honour.
Cash
Till count, float, tips, and anything that did not balance.
Open actions
What is still open, who owns it, and by when.
Every handover keeps this order, so the opener knows where to look before they have read a word.
Free to start
3 handovers a month, free, no account — counted per network and per browser.
One close usually needs one handover. Paste the notes, read the five blocks, put the phone away — nothing to sign in to and nothing to install.
Free handovers
October
3free handovers left
0 of 3 used this month
Counted on this browser and this network, so the phone behind the bar and the laptop in the office each keep their own count.
What the next shift gets
- The five blocks, in the order the opener reads them.
- A block you noted nothing for marked “not noted”, so the quiet is visible too.
- Plain text for the group chat, or a printed sheet for the pass.
Questions
What a closing manager asks first.
Does it add anything I did not write?
No. It only reorganises the notes you paste: low stock lands under out & low, the cold room under equipment, and a block you noted nothing for says “not noted”.
What do I actually paste?
The lines you already tapped into your phone between tables. Rough is fine; that is the material it works from.
How is the free count worked out?
Per network and per browser, never per account: the phone behind the bar and the laptop in the office each keep their own three a month, and the count starts again on the 1st.