Grill'd Pay Rates 2026: Crew, Kitchen & Junior Pay

Grill'd is the burger restaurant chain with company-owned and franchised sites in every state, employing front-of-house, kitchen and shift-leader crew plus restaurant managers. Its workforce is young and largely casual, and its pay arrangements — including a past enterprise agreement and traineeship model — have drawn public scrutiny, so knowing the award floor matters.

Grill'd restaurants are table-service venues, which puts crew on the Restaurant Industry Award 2020 (quick-service outlets sit on the Fast Food Award instead). The award ladder and junior percentages below are the minimum, and any Grill'd agreement or traineeship arrangement must leave you better off overall.

The federal awards relevant to Grill'd roles:

• Restaurant Industry Award 2020 (MA000119)

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Grill'D Pty Ltd declared 3,645 employees — 0% casual and 54% women, with 561 in management roles. Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

From 1 July 2026 the Restaurant Industry Award 2020 (MA000119) adult minimums are:

Weekend, late-night and public holiday penalties apply on top of these — check a specific shift with the penalty rates calculator.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

The Restaurant Industry Award pays juniors a percentage of the Level 1 adult rate. From 1 July 2026 the junior minimums are:

• Under 17: $13.22/hr
• 17 years: $15.87/hr
• 18 years: $18.51/hr
• 19 years: $22.48/hr
• 20 years: $26.44/hr

Your rate must step up from the first full pay period after each birthday. Casual juniors add the 25% loading on top of these figures. An enterprise agreement's junior scale must leave you better off than this ladder overall.

As at 6 September 2026, our corpus of 14,141 federally registered enterprise agreements holds no current agreement for Grill'd. That usually means one of three things: the employer pays on the award (or on individual contracts above it), the agreement covering you is registered under a different entity name (check the employer name on your payslip and search our agreements database), or — for state public-sector employers — pay is set by a state award or agreement outside the federal register. If you have a copy of an agreement that names Grill'd, it beats the award figures above.

General award-compliance issues that come up across the restaurant sector. This is a checklist for your own payslip, not a finding about Grill'd:

• Flat rates that don't beat the penalties — an 'all-in' hourly rate must leave you better off than the award's weekend, late-night and public holiday loadings for your actual roster.
• Unpaid set-up and pack-down before opening and after close.
• Introductory level for too long — it is a three-month, no-experience rate, not a permanent grade.
• Split and broken shifts without the award's allowances, and casual shifts under the minimum engagement.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.