I want to begin by addressing that I feel there is a large amount of people who suggest that getting screwed by your work is more likely in a corporation and fewer and far between with small owned business. I’m here to say that I have been burned by small businesses 99% more than by any chain.
Here are my horror stories over the last three years working for a small owned restaurant.
Red flag number one I should have realized on my own was that they had never owned a restaurant before, nor had they worked in food service.. if you find yourself applying to a place like this, RUN.
I was sought out by these owners years before the business opened to fill their executive chef position. At first it seemed like a dream, call it blind or call it stupid, I just wasn’t thinking. I took the job at a salary of $50,000/year with a $5,000 health care stipend, and 2 weeks paid vacation per year.
I helped set this place up operationally, all the hiring, equipment and POS purchasing and set up, menu creation, setting up vendors. I taught myself photography to do all of our social media photos and our social media marketing. Covid hit as we were about to open and I helped us sling Togo products curbside until we could safely open, all while the owners had complete lack of regard for state mandates and had friends and family regularly maskless and drinking at tables. This was like the first 2 months of the pandemic.
Fast forward to finally opening. Oh where to even begin.
The obvious labor shortage made good help hard to come by, but instead of ever trying to pitch in to wash dishes on a busy service, the owners would sit and drink at the bar, often even pouring their own beers or opening cans of beer from other places, all the while continuing to order food and take up seats while we had a 2 hour wait for a table. They would get irritated that we’d ask them to hurry it up to make space for paying customers.. all the while why many of us were on our 12-14th hour of work for the day.
We’d come in to equipment rearranged in the kitchen the way the absent owner perfected, who btw never had to use the equipment
When it came to the short staff, we could never offer the going rate of pay. When other places would offer $20/hr, we’d be able to offer $15.50/hr for the exact same role. I never knew why we were so financially fucked, until one day it came out that one of the owners appointed “general manager” took a salary of $45-55k per year. This same owner who generally managed what? Generally managing to lift a beer to his face all day long? Whatever, so be it. But not being able to afford good workers meant a 14-16 hour day was standard for me 6 days a week for almost two years.
Let me just give a few bullet points of horror that happened there
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young female staff member called a c*nt by intoxicated guests who were asked to leave. They wrote a bad review and I responded explaining why they were actually told to leave. Owners didn’t like that, reached out and personally invited these guests back
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known sexual abuser applies, and a different department manager/head brewer wants to hire them. I make it known that this person is an abuser to the owners and to the other manager. The other manager did not care and still chose to interview this guy and honestly probably only didn’t hire him due to me losing my shit about it.
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I was sexually assaulted by one of their family members at a UFC function at one of the owners homes. After seeing their response to women in the past, and how confrontational they would be over being called out on their bullshit, I never felt comfortable saying anything about it even though I have the entire thing in video.
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the head brewer refused to wear a mask for the entire mask mandate during covid (yes he’s an anti mask/anti-vaxx person). It could have got us shut down. I also suffer from an autoimmune disease and at the time was very ill and high risk. The owners did not care what he did and did not want to make confrontation regardless as to if it was illegal at the time or not. Not to mention my personal safety and others.
-head brewer regularly lied to customers and other businesses saying he was vaccinated when they’d ask why he wasn’t masked. He is vehemently anti vaccine and is a huge Dotera Oil believer instead.
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major snow storm, no one could get to work. Owners didn’t want to close, “volunteered” to pick us all up and bring us to work.. I guess that’s pretty nice of them other than the fact they at one point suggested we walk in, yes, servers walking to work in a snow storm for $13/hour.
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major heat wave 110F outside, 125F in the kitchen with a broken AC in the restaurant. 900F wood fired oven.. not even a single ounce of compassion for the safety of everyone without the owners having to be convinced to let us close early. They actually just let the kitchen go to a “limited” menu and stay open with limited staff.
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head brewer openly talked against BLM frequently. He recently called Ukraine the most corrupt country in the world.. just thought that was funny.
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I broke my arm while working. I worked for 6 more hours after until I went to the hospital due to being short staffed. The owners were at the bar drinking through all of this and the next day their first question was how this was going to affect service.
I could go on, and on, and on.
In almost three years I received one raise about a month before I left.
They leveraged my health situation to say essentially “we could could give you a raise or health insurance”. I desperately needed healthcare due to kidney issues from Lupus… not to mention health care was guaranteed to me under my contract and never should have been used as my raise.
They regularly let me know that their houses were on the line with loans for the business and that money was tight.. where was my sympathy? MY house was on the line by needed a fucking job to pay rent and my bills. Act like a fucking owner then..
I know this isn’t my personal diary and maybe this isn’t the place for this. But now that I’m out I can’t even being to see why I didn’t leave sooner.
Please excuse spelling errors and poor grammar. I was angry typing hahah