Pros
I can't speak on behalf of any positions here besides the server position. I met some cool people and the trainers I had were all cool and nice to me. The cinnamon butter was the highlight forsure.
Cons
I’ve worked in a variety of restaurants since 2010 (during my undergrad in Pennsylvania, in fine dining in downtown Savannah, and during the past couple years while going back to school). Working at this Texas Roadhouse truly felt like I was being hazed trying to join a sorority again. The FOH managers are the meanest 19-20 year old blonde girls. In the first couple weeks, they were nothing but rude and unprofessional and all the servers there knew it and talked about how nasty their attitudes were. The servers who’d been there a while would say, “Theres nothing you can do about it, Steve (the owner) will back them up”. Apparently enough new servers complained about these two little girls, because Steve addressed it to a group of new servers by saying, “my managers are passionate. They’re emotional.” There were so many new servers because they can't keep servers. He then compared himself to Tom Brady… stating that Tom Brady will walk over a man with a broken leg during the game, but outside of work, he is probably a nice guy. In other words, Steve tried to justify the toxic culture of his management being super hostile and condescending for truly no reason other than them projecting their misery and naivety. As someone who made 6 figures in sales for five years; I know that you do not need to treat people like dogs in order to have a “winning” culture or be a “winner”, like Steve said. The training here was five days of eight hour shifts at minimum wage, where you’re infantilized while they teach you very important concepts such as “GROW” - Give Right Of Way (to guests)... these concepts are obvious to any adult who’s ever worked in any type of customer service job but their training process acted as if serving was not a transferable skill whatsoever? Very strange. I dealt with the excessive training and “validation” test (what does the H in heart stand for? Howdy… what are the adjectives in the red heart?) which was demoralizing and felt like being hazed. These girls will keep asking irrelevant, common sense questions so they can force you to train another 8hr shift, which they did to all the new servers. After I was finally cleared and done with this insanity, I found out that for AT LEAST a month you are on a two table section. The night I quit, a server who had been there for three months told me she was put on a 2 table section the night before because they "had enough staff" and that’s when I knew this was going to be a constant battle and not worth my time. I’m used to (like most experienced servers) being busy during a night shift. Two tables means you are spending your 8hr shift running other peoples food for them, filling up ice, etc at $2/hr. My month was almost up and so finally the managers would give me a 3 table section when it was convenient for them (ie. when they were short staffed because too many people called out) but when they had enough staff, I was stuck with two tables. I’ve never worked somewhere where there were an insane amount of “call outs” consistently (like 5 people a night) but after working with these mean little girls, it makes a lot of sense. As far as the actual job, this was the least stressful, easiest serving job I’ve ever had (salad apps are made for you, bread's taken to tables for you, drinks are made quickly, limit of 3 tables max for everyone) but what caused me to quit was the hostile attitudes from teenage managers who have yet to develop their prefrontal cortex and therefore cannot effectively communicate. I quit a lucrative sales job in 2022 to have a better work/life balance and sometimes the money just isn’t worth it. It definitely was not at this restaurant. Lastly, when I was hired, it was not disclosed to me that I would be expected to line dance. I would not have accepted this job if either the FOH manager Kim or Steve the owner who I interviewed with would have told me that dancing on command was part of the job description. I had to go to line dancing classes at the restaurant on Saturday mornings to learn five different line dances for minimum wage. You could not pay me enough to dance on command in front of tables of gawking customers. Some girls there said that it was fun but they all looked like they were held at gunpoint when those songs came on so I don't know. All in all, I’m glad I called it when I did and just wish I would’ve quit sooner. I’m honestly still wondering if that whole experience was real or just a fever dream. Everyone deserves to work somewhere they will be respected and treated with dignity and this place is not it.