Pros
- Coworkers are fantastic and fun people for the most part. Very friendly and always looking out for one another. - The food is good and make fresh in house. - There might be healthcare benefits? I have yet to get a definitive answer as to who these are for and what the cost is to the individual employee.
Cons
"No one who works at Cafe Landwer does it because they want to, they do it because they have no other choice." - Training is completely haphazard and there are no real standards for the way Landwer wants things to be done. You will be told to do the same task three different ways by three different people and be chastized by the others for not doing it the specific way they told you. - During training your labor will be stolen. By day 3 you will be doing the same work as the bartender training you, but for minimum wage with no tips. - They don't disclose that bartenders are not just in charge of drinks and pastries for the entire cafe, but also for a variety of breakfast foods and most of the deserts on offer. Additionally, you'll be in charge of all walk in take-out orders. - You will be tasked with making all of the above items for ubereats/grubhub/etc. Landwer marks up their prices on these apps and you will not see a cent of it as these are untipped orders. - The vast majority of the time you will be behind bar solo. You're responsible for all of the above plus all of your restocking, trash, and batch preparation during a shift. - There are no breaks. Outside of the small amount of time you have to eat you will be on your feet for the majority of your shift trying to make a dent in the list of tasks in front of you. - Compensation is terrible. The $18-$33/hr advertised is a lie. In this position you get $8/hr plus pooled tips. You'll be lucky to make $24/hr after tips on your busiest and most stressful days. - Benefits are almost non-existent. You do not receive a meal like the vast majority of other restaurants. You receive a 50% discount on food and drinks when you're working a shift. That's right, Cafe Landwer has you work for 8+ frantic hours every shift and then want to nickle and dime their own employees. - Upper management will regularly do things that leave you in bad situations and then chastise you for your performance in these situations. Their priorities only seem to be on maximizing the number of customers in/out the door at the expense of the staff. On the rare occasion that upper management works alongside their staff, you will find that most are very bad at handling stress. - Less relevant to my position, but indicative of the character of Lanwer. Kitchen staff is primarily made up of people that would have trouble finding opportunities for work. Kitchen staff hours are long and the pay is very low. Instead of paying them a fair wage, Landwer recognizes this and takes advantage of this to pay them poorly. - Turnover rate is high. There's a reason there are no servers on staff over the age of 23. No one who decides to be a server as their career would work here when there are a plethora of other restaurants and cafes (on the same street) that would pay them more for doing less.