Worst restaurants to work at. (Hint: All of them.)

[UTUSN]

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http://gawker.com/5918072/a-guide-to-americas-worst-restaurants-for-workers

[font size=5]A Guide to America’s Worst Restaurants for Workers[/font]

by Hamilton NOLAN


Since we're on the topic of basic fairness for the working people of America, here is a useful thing: a pro-worker group called Restaurant Opportunities Centers United has produced a handy pocket guide to many of America's most popular restaurants, to let you know exactly how badly their employees are treated. The short version, below.

The guide (referenced in this excellent Mark Bittman column yesterday) ranks restaurants on whether they pay a minimum viable wage to their tipped and non-tipped workers; whether they give paid sick leave; and how much of a chance for advancement their workers have. Here are some of the better-known chain restaurants that received "0" or "unknown" ratings in each of those categories—in other words, that did not achieve a single check mark for minimal standards of worker treatment:

(The list is long, at the link; basically, all the known chains)


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[Liberal Veteran]

1. Olive Garden? Surely not!

[PatSeg]

2. My daughter worked at an Olive Garden

and it was one of the worst restaurants she's ever worked at.

[Chan790]

11. My brother worked at Olive Garden and had to eat off the table-scraps.

That's how little they paid him. They then played games with the tips and made waitstaff come in for extra shifts to roll silverware because it was cheaper than having the bussers do it.

[PatSeg]

15. My daughter didn't last very long

Olive Garden was brutal to its wait staff. There was also a lot of high pressure sales involved. She didn't stay very long.

These big chains are notorious for using the lesser paid wait staff to do the job of bussers. I remember that from Denny's. Why pay someone minimum wage to scrub, clean, and bus, if you can get a $2.50 an hour employee do it?

[KamaAina]

28. Did he get unlimited table scraps?

[sendero]

38. Oh man.

.... LOL! I like to think of the "unlimited" at Olive Garden as "all you can stand".

[blueamy66]

43. My fiance was a kitchen manager at one in Florida

and he loved it.

decent pay, free food, good cooks.....

different experiences, I guess

[RZM]

3. I worked at three of those

At one of them, a manager was hired with a verbal promise that his check would be 'x' amount of money. When he got his first check, it was substantially less than 'x.' So he quit on the spot with the quote:

'I might as well quit because I can make more pounding nails.'

[jpbollma]

4. Really is the worst type of business to work for

I did it for years, the owners or managers are ALWAYS assholes and the benefits ect are atrocious. It paid the bills, but barely. I always leave a generous tip now.

[jpbollma]

5. Also,

not only is the management generally awful (breaking all sorts of labor and discrimination laws) but the customers can be shockingly rude.

[DCKit]

7. But not the customers?

I could write a dictionary on all the different, horrible types of customers, with an addendum on the various types who come in solely for the purpose of getting free food.

Then again, the good ones almost make it worthwhile - even those who didn't tip well, but made it fun.

My all-time favorite - two sisters who hadn't seen each other in years, came in after lunch, and I stayed with them, and gave them everything the wanted for four hours. That they tipped me obscenely at the end isn't the point. Watching the two of them re-bond was magical.

[Scootaloo]

8. Having worked most of my adult life in food service...

I always leave a chunky tip.

What floors me is that more than once I've had a server inform me that I "forgot" money at my table, or asked if I wanted change for the cash I tuck under the bill. I'm starting to wonder if the rest of my community is just REALLY bad at tipping.

[MurrayDelph]

34. We opened a small mom-and-pop restaurant six months ago

and two of our servers have already been promoted to higher positions.

The minimum wage up here in Oregon is higher than the national one.

Servers get (at least) minimum.

Tips are pooled among servers, so that everyone works and gets a share (if they don't work, then adjustments are made, but the pooling is to encourage cooperation).

As far as asking if the customer "wants change": it is our policy to never ask the question that way. Servers are required to use a variation of "I'll be right back with your change" (This dates back to when I used to go to restaurants in LA, where a meal for two was $42, but all I had on me was $20's, and when I put down $60 the server would ask "Do you need change?" Hell yes I did!).

On the plus side, even when I order takeout, I am now a much better tipper than I was before I owned a restaurant.

[Scootaloo]

35. Is server pay mandated at minimum in Oregon?

I know in most places it's substantially lower than minimum wage, supplemented with tips, and if tips fail to take the server up to minimum hourly wage, then the employer makes the difference.

My experience is that "employer makes the difference" often gets omitted on the actual paycheck.

[47of74]

30. The manager at the resturant I worked at...

...would have been fired at the least if not arrested in every single job I have worked since working at that restaurant. He would yell at employees in front of customers, was physically destructive - one night he up ended a mop bucket because he was so mad. Got on a section of fairly new carpet and ruined it - he probably blamed that on employees. Didn't give a shit about his employees.

[sakabatou]

6. Baskin-Robbins?

I guess that depends on where it is too. Could be the salary and benefits as well.

[DinahMoeHum]

9. Great website for war stories among restaurant workers. . .

http://stainedapron.com/

[Initech]

10. We need to talk about your flair - I'm only counting 15 pieces...

[Liberal Veteran]

12. Okay. So you...you want me to wear more?

[Selatius]

36. +1 ... red stapler nt

[patrice]

13. K&R

[GoneOffShore]

14. Apart from the factory produced "food" this is the primary reason to avoid chain restaurants.

[RedCappedBandit]

16. Cheesecake Factory? Damnit!

Oh well, I suppose I'll have to find better.

[revolution breeze]

45. My daughter works at Cheesecake Factory

and LOVES it. Of course she does not plan to make it a career.

[slackmaster]

17. I'm not surprised that all of the chains suck, but some restaurants treat employees well

My go-to Mexican restaurant here in San Diego is a family-run operation that's been in business since 1967, and at their present location since 1984.

The original owners immigrated from Mexico in the 1950s. They have employed multiple members of families of immigrants, and have sponsored several people in the naturalization process - This requires putting up a $10,000 bond among other things.

They treat their employees like family, and extend the same warmth to regular customers. I've been invited to and attended some of their family weddings, holiday parties and, sadly, a funeral last year for the founder.

They don't pay fabulous wages but do provide some benefits and flexible work schedule. Employees tend to stay there for a long time.

They don't advertise but the food is good and reasonably priced, so their reputation brings in steady business. Many local political figures, media celebrities, and community groups go there. So do the chief and high officers in the San Diego Police Department.

If the place is still around when I retire, I might just try tending bar there.

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. That is basically a list of every popular corporate restaurant in Amercia. n/t

[unblock]

19. the only gold/silver star winner near here is five guys burgers...

... and i no longer eat meat....

[jpbollma]

20. We have a Five Guys in Detroit that I have never tried but always here great things

I'll have to try it.

[NNN0LHI]

29. If you go there with another person get only one order of french fries for both of you

My brother and I went there and we both ordered fries and they gave us enough to feed an entire army.

Don

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

25. MMmmm - I love Five Guys.

I'm a real burger and hot wing foodie. I can say with confidence that Five Guys is one of the best burgers I've ever eaten. I've been to NYC a few times and every time I go I visit two or three of the "Best Burger Places". Price matters not... I look up the reviews and make it a point to find the best burger.

So far, the best burger I've eaten in NYC rates at #3 on my list is just barely better than Five Guys. It could almost be a toss-up depending on what toppings are chosen. However, the Five Guys Burger is only like $6 and doesn't require an expensive weekend trip to NYC.

If you've never had a 5 guys burger, it's worth falling off the wagon.
Go ahead, get a burger... no one's looking!

[d_r]

21. I went through the whole pdf list

The only thing in my area that was positive was five guys. It has never been my favorite (everybody loves it but I don't get it) but I'm going to try to go there now.

I also noticed on page 28 that red lobster, olive garden, and longhorn steakhouse were noted as particularly bad. That's probably a darden thing.

[trixie]

22. You have me fondly remembering the book

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy.

[RebelOne]

23. After being laid off from my job in Miami, before moving to Atlanta,

I helped out an ex-boyfriend who had a restaurant in Miami. His night waitress quit and he needed help, so dumb little me helped him out. I had never in my life worked as a waitress, and after a few weeks of doing it, I never would want that as a career. I cannot understand how servers put up with that shit. To run your butt off for a few cents in tips is ridiculous.

[trixie]

32. I worked my way through college

waitering, bartending and loved it. It was the perfect job for a young college student. Short hours, good tips etc. I also would never work for anyone but a family run place. When I retire I might go back to it as a union waitress downtown Detroit.

[senseandsensibility]

24. I support this report and the work they're doing, BUT...

they should emphasize that when you hand your hardworking waitperson one of their downloaded "tip" cards, it is no substitute for a real tip. They should tell readers to include it with their twenty percent real cash tip. I can just imagine the reaction of a waitperson if a well meaning customer left them this tip card alone.

[lpbk2713]

26. Ruth's Chris is on the list.

As much as they charge you'd think they would treat their staff right.

[KamaAina]

27. Ruth's Chris originated in New Orleans, and was headquartered in the suburb of Metairie.

Was headquartered there, until the Monday after Katrina, when it announced it was relocating to Orlando.

[Selatius]

37. They don't have to. The money the wait staff make is so good many will put up with the abuse.

There's a Ruth Chris restaurant the town over from where I live. It's in the casino next to the casino I work in actually. The wait staff in there can make up to 50,000 to 60,000/year, and their bussers usually make half that. Of course, it is ranked as a 4 Diamond restaurant, so it's a fine dining joint. I can't speak for other Ruth Chris' around the country.

[pstokely]

40. They advertise on OxyRush, but how many of his listeners can afford that place

It's not like they're all "job creators"

[pstokely]

39. What would you expect from a proud OxyRush advertiser

nt

[ThomThom]

31. I never go to any of those

they are all very loud also

[Manifestor_of_Light]

33. I don't see a single good restaurant in Texas.

Figures.

[pstokely]

41. It's an industry built on low wages

Any unionized chain restaurants?

[Chan790]

44. There are a handful of unionized Starbucks partners in NYC.

They were confined to one store, then they transferred some of them to another store so that there were no majority unionized stores.

Or there were...the company was basically putting out "get these people fired!" bounties, last time I heard. I'd presume they all got fired or left by-now...Starbucks pays approximately one-third-to-half what a skilled barista can make in an indie coffeehouse with a kitchen and liquor license for the same work-shift. Most of those indies offer F/T schedules if you want one and decent but not great benefits...benefits are the only thing Starbucks has gotten right.

Starbucks used to be a good training ground for baristi to learn the skills of the trade and move on to a higher-paying indie job...but they stopped being even good for that when they got rid of the La Marzocco Linea espresso machines about 8 years ago in favor of inferior Verismo 301/501 automatics which were subsequently replaced with an even more-inferior more-automated machine. They've taken an art-form and reduced to it mechanized efficiency to dumb down the skill-level and training of the people they employ...this has allowed them to hold wages fairly steady or reduce them somewhat. Start out competing for talented baristi with the indies and having to pay like one, end up using automated equipment so you can hire low-skill low-training applicants from the same pool as McDonald's and pay like it. If the current crop of Starbucks partners tried to unionize, they'd be laughed at...the replacement can be trained in about 4 days to push the button on the machine...and I'm not entirely certain that the human there isn't superfluous, the machine now does all the work to make the inferior-to-what-they-used-to-be beverage...I get better coffee out of the vending machine.

[quaker bill]

42. I worked in roughly a dozen restaurants

putting myself through college. I had no good experiences, though some were less bad than others.

[davsand]

46. That was pretty much my experience as well.

Food service is really hard work that usually offers all the abuse you can stand and pays poorly. I've worked for chains and I have worked for locally owned restaurants and the only real difference I can see is that the corporate folks are just a bit more organized while they screw you. I worked fast food and I worked full service restaurants both. and neither setting was a good one. About the best thing I can offer about restaurant work was that usually you'd be able to grab something to eat while you were working.

Over the years I saw kitchen conditions that were beyond disgusting, and needed repairs that were ignored up to the time the health department got involved. I'm talking fundamental stuff like dishwashers that they KNEW were not cleaning dishes properly or infestations of bugs and rodents. I saw unsafe working conditions in just about every place I worked, and the idea of paid sick leave or health insurance was completely off the table.

My personal favorite local employer was the place that failed to actually turn over my SS and Medicare withholdings to the feds. I have a gap in my SS reports for the time I worked for them. I talked to the folks at SS about it and they were pretty much of the opinion that as long as I worked for reputable employers my SS should not be endangered by the one employer's failures. Had I spent an extended time working there, however, I might well have not been able to collect any SS benefits when I retired. Most of the employees there were young and probably never realized there was an issue. I only found out by reading those SS statements you get annually. I noticed a year was missing and actually followed up on it. They used to bounce paychecks, as well. After the first time that happened I'd make them cash my check for me out of the cash register at the end of a shift. That particular restaurant has long since shut down, however that owner is still around. I refuse to patronize his restaurant.

I know some folks read this kind of stuff and think that food service workers should just quit whining and get a job they like better. I'd agree that nobody should ever HAVE to stay in a job they hate or that treats them badly. However, the reality is that in this current economy the SERVICE industry has been one of the few areas of the job market that actually is hiring.

YMMV.



Laura



Laura

[quaker bill]

48. I had one of them too

A restaurant employer who embezzled my witholding taxes. Better yet, he laid me off. I applied for unemployment, he challenged my application by saying I never worked there. Unfortunately for him I had kept the check stubs and W-2. I turned them into the state as evidence.

I met this former employer standing in line at the employment service two weeks later. There were arrests.

I worked for one where most of the paychecks bounced. Since we worked 90% for tips, it was not a huge problem. We started endorsing the checks back to the boss and cashing them out of the till at closing. This really irritated the owner. A few weeks later I arrived at work to find that the FBI had padlocked the doors...

Great stuff.

[just1voice]

47. ----NO SICK LEAVE = PEOPLE EATING CONTAMINATED FOOD----

I put that in all caps to drive home the most important point made in the article. I've seen the Diner's guide and have since stopped eating at Subway, I don't want a sick person handling my food.