I’ve done both, and while I did not like retail (only worked one job in retail), my experience working in food was worse. Would never do either again unless I absolutely had to.
With food, only at one of the 4 food places that I worked at was the training actually good, and it was a yogurt/boba place. Most food places just seem to forgo training altogether, and tell you stuff as you go along. Can’t tell you how many times people would ask me to do or make things that I was never taught. It made for a lot of issues that were not my fault.
Another issue I had at every food place was scheduling. I’d usually have my availability with 5-6 days almost completely open, and would only get scheduled for like 1-3 days a week (the boba job was the only place that scheduled me more). This happened at every place, it was so ridiculous. I remember lots of other people having this issues too. This often made training hard, for since the work days were inconsistent, it was harder for me to pick up on things.
Also, who wants to go through the application/job searching process, finally get a position, only to eventually find out you’re only working a couple of days a week!
With poor training,shitty schedules, and no benefits at most of these places,it’s no wonder why so many people don’t want to stay in or even work food.
Edit: there’s lots of other things I could have said about food, but I wanted to emphasize the fact that scheduling at a lot of these places SUCK.