Pros
I met the love of my life working here, but upper management/cafe ops did almost break us up by forcing him to lie to me, so I don't know if that counts as a pro. Also, upper management has been basically asking me to quit since the moment we met so I appreciate the encouragement to leave because this is the worst job ever.
Cons
When I started it seemed like the direction of the brand was promising, but in the pursuit of being purchased by Chobani, the new vision for their products was to simply say yes to everything and broaden their demographic to literally everyone in the world. You don't have to have a marketing degree to see why that isn't a wise strategy. It started when they raised the prices of everything in an attempt to appear profitable to their potential buyers. Obviously your sales are up if you just keep raising the prices, I don't consider this an accomplishment, but I guess it worked so what do I know. Now every month we add new items to the menu and endless ways to customize your order making the coffee itself the least important aspect of the product and the brand identity super ambiguous in the process. But don't let anyone know if you don't like the product, you will be reprimanded for that. As far as what it's like to work there, both management and baristas receive zero support and have no control over their working conditions or their schedules. It's 95 degrees outside? The AC is broken and you have to work anyway. It's 20 degrees outside? There's no heat, sorry! You want HEALTH CARE? Well, even though you work enough hours to qualify for it, we're just going to act like you don't! Everything is blamed on someone else and no one can take accountability for anything. The baristas are expected to do their manager's job for them but aren't given any real responsibility over the quality of the product (or more money). They like to push the illusion of growth potential (because that's what ACTUALLY successful businesses do) while they have an explicit commitment to only hiring external candidates. They put baristas through the entire interview process for a management position then pass on them with no feedback. They then go and hire some rando who probably lied on their resume because they would prefer literally anyone over someone who already works here and then end up terminating them anyway because they weren't actually qualified to do the job. Don't even get me started on the union busting! Okay, you twisted my arm, PEOPLE DON'T GET FIRED AT NON-UNION CAFES FOR WEARING SHORTS. It doesn't matter if it's legal, or if it's right, if they think it will make them more money, they will do whatever it takes at the expense of everyone at the bottom. I've never felt so disrespected at a job before and I've never felt so invested in the downfall of a corporation. To upper management, you're a loser, and we all know that you scream at your wife. A special shout out to the training department, I don't know how you manage to make every single coffee taste like cigarette juice but I guess the coffee doesn't matter to you either and also I think you're a bad person.