Pros
There are some great people that work here.... But every place has those, is this enough to make it worth it?
Cons
The company itself is in a rebuilding phase after years of no clear path being laid out and focus being taken off the guest and instead put solely on numbers. Unfortunately the new CEO although he preaches about AGS (Absolute Customer Satisfaction), he handcuffs management with lower budgets across the board that hampers us from achieving this. Work harder with less is a common situation during rebuilding, but what suffers is the service. Management across the board spends more time on the line cooking than they do managing which leaves many things chaotic and unorganized. Good restaurants with great customer service and managers on the floor at all times might run a 25% labor. We as a company are budgeted for 17%-19% which means management picks up the slack for the lack of hourly labor. Corporate is more concerned with validating their jobs than making things easier for us in the trenches. I understand that they are afraid for their jobs, and have conformed to doing everything the CEO wants. They have seen that you need to conform to him or else go. This would be ok if he was here to stay, but we all know he as a CEO gets companies showing a profit and ready for sale and then leaves. I could be wrong but this is what he did at Mccormick and Schmick's with a multi-million dollar payout. Every day new procedures and changes are emailed out from corporate to the point where most of us get lost in their wake and are weeks behind. It isn't until that new memo that came out, that then becomes the "flavor of the week" and is pushed by ADs (Area Directors), that everyone is made to focus on this immediately. Everything else (labor, cleanliness, sales, etc) get forgotten as they drive home this new idea and that is all you hear from everyone. Then eventually two weeks later, it gets forgotten about when everything else suffers and numbers start to turn sour. This doesn't help management as we all work 60-70 hours each week (mostly cooking) and only have short amounts of time in between to focus on the overall picture. Moral amongst management level is at an all time low as the bonus program has been such an impossible goal to reach as more and more "clauses" get tacked on. This raises the bar on what you must pass and achieve to actually qualify. This unfortunately has everyone on the same "bus" believing that their sacrifices, especially quality of life, is no longer worth it. Lower management (AM's) have high turnover and low productivity as they get overworked, overwhelmed and underpaid. The few solid ones we have soon learn that there is almost no way to get fired (besides stealing) and fall into the rut with the rest of the under-aspired AMs that are shuffled around to "bandaid" manager shortages. Concepts: Corporate has launched two new concepts in the past few years. Two Ovens and Bertucci's Concept Kitchen. Both different from the original concept, it seems that these are lifeboats they are testing to try to save the company. Two ovens, unfortunately didn't work and after building one, they've halted all and gone another direction. This unfortunately diversifies the attention of corporate as they are many times so busy with the new concepts that the foundation of what Bertucci's really needs (updated computer systems, updated facilities, etc). Pay is 40k-60k for assistants, 55k-65k for GMs on average. The bad point of coming up in the company from an hourly is that they will low ball you to death. Come in at a good rate as an AM or else you'll never reach anything without having to switch companies. The only way to get any significant pay increase is to get a huge promotion (like from AM to GM) or else threaten to quit and "be convinced to stay" with a pay bump. I've seen this happen quite a bit and too many times it was for someone they should have let go for the better of the company and "replaced" with someone new. The problem is we hang on to those that should be turned as far as AMs. In the end, it's the guests that suffer and their experience... AGS is a great ideal, but give us the tools to achieve this! Labor is the most expensive line in any restaurant, but people and service is what sets the experience.