Pros
You sometimes come across pretty cool customers, and the employees there are often times really great!
Cons
Where do I start?.. - the owners are often “two-faced”: Mary and Danny (the owners/employers) will often times seem so kind and sweet, then later end up doing things that contradict what they say. For example: one time I was very sick and having to run to the toilet every 40 minutes or so to attempt not to vomit in front of customers. Mary was there asking if I felt okay, and I kept sticking it out for the first two hours of my shift. After I realized that I really should go home, I asked Mary is she would be able to cover my last two and a half hours left - seeing how there were only ever about two employees hired at once (me being one of the two), I didn’t think I should make my coworker work the entire open-close shift even though she offered. Well, Mary said, “you know, we’re always here for you and have your back whenever you need, but you really don’t want the team to think you’re taking advantage of that.” Once again the “team” consisted of me and the one other barista and I was asking Mary to cover seeing how she knew everything to do for closing and has worked close before. - Employee concerns cannot be brought up, tips were disappearing with no explanation, and working there for over a year I had never received a break or lunch: my coworker and I brought up to Mary that we noticed our tips on our paystubs has plummeted down from, on average, $250-$300 to about $50-$90, so they went down over a hundred dollars and being low paid baristas, we kind of relied partially on tips and the drop had been going on for months with no decrease in customers. After we addressed the tips, we also implied that we would like breaks at least on our 9+ hr days. Mary seemed okay with us bringing up our concerns. The upcoming day, I was pulled aside right after I had clocked off and lectured and yelled at for the next 2hrs about how it was wrong of us to say/ask about tips and breaks then Danny and Mary threatened to fire me. As for my coworker, they attempted to fire her right-off-the-bat, but she made the point that she had felt we brought it up in a very appropriate and gentle way seeing how we were already nervous about stepping on anyone’s toes. - It’s difficult to get days off, even for family emergencies: when my grandpa had passed away I had been working there for around two months. Of course, shortly after he died, there was a funeral. After I had gotten approval from Mary and Danny to have a day off to attend the funeral, I was approached by Mary and asked if I could skip the funeral and actually work the next day (the day of the memorial). I thankfully was able to go and say goodbye to my grandpa. Another time, a close friend of mine had passed away. I messaged Mary and Danny and told them the bad news, since I did keep them updated with my friends prior condition. In short, I was told, “ooh, that’s so awful. I’m sorry. You can still make it in tomorrow, right?” The next day I showed up for my shift and broke down several times in front of the owners, my coworker, and customers and when I asked to please go home, I was asked to “see if I could hang in there for the rest of the day.” - Do NOT let them have you work “unpaid training”: for the first two weeks of me working at the Happy Sparrow I was told that I was going to be doing “unpaid training”. I worked for two weeks, being trained as a barista, unpaid. - Employers do not seem to understand health issues: after working a long rush and not having the time (or a break) to eat anything so far that day, my blood sugar dropped (I’m hypoglycemic) and I became very lethargic. I got food into my belly ASAP. I sat down to give my body a moment to relax and process the food and get my levels back to normal. With nobody in the cafe other than me and Danny - all the customers had left - I thought I’d pull up a stool upfront and sit for a little bit so I could be ready for someone to walked in. I told Danny that I needed a moment to sit because of my hypoglycemia and he said it was fine. After less than a minute of relaxing, Danny called to me to come sit in the back where customers couldn’t see me so I didn’t “bring anyone down”. Then he came up to me and lectured me that how I was acting was not okay. I apologized and explained again that I get very drowsy and out-of-it when my blood sugar drops. Then he proceeded to tell me, “I get you have this whole health issue, but you really need to take care of it on your own time.” I didn’t say anything and dragged myself to keep working until my body processed some of the food and my blood sugar leveled out. There are so many other things that they do that are not okay, but I have made this review long enough and have pointed out all of the main things. I hope anyone who comes across this understands where I’m coming from. Good luck with your job search!