Co-workers incredible, management some of the worst I've encountered
Pros
Genuinely good coffee (the beans) Food is tasty Colleagues supportive and kind
Cons
Management is absolutely vile and retaliatory West Village cafe so poorly maintained, dishwasher was filled with mold, espresso machine was so old it affected quality, ice machine full of mold, untreated windows overheated machinery daily, and despite employees complaining / drawing attention to issues, they were almost always ignored Would rather have dozens of Doordash orders than ensure in-person quality Consistently understaffed and overworked, terrible, inconsistent scheduling Not as queer friendly as they want you to believe... owner literally made WV cafe take down decor for Pride Only cares about aesthetic, not actual functionality Fires employees on a whim from so little as one slightly negative google or Yelp review, ignoring the root cause of pretty much every unhappy customer: overworked employees, not enough staff, ridiculous policies that are frustrating to enforce and challenging to present as rational Only provides 5 sick days to employees, despite working in a customer facing environment - I personally have never gotten as sick as often as I did while working here Terrible inventory management, ran out of milk and other essentials on a weekly basis Cash tips handed out inconsistently despite it being a part of barista wages Required to pay for all food items, kitchen made, pastries, etc - contradicts with what employees were told on hiring, and also is inconsistent from location to location Employees are required to also clean the bathroom, even in the middle of a work day when handling food and beverage items Ownership was upset at the high cost of labor for running a cafe, so intentionally understaffed several locations Re-did the entire West Village cafe and removed anywhere for staff to take their breaks; who doesn't want to sit on a stairwell for their 30 minute unpaid break!! Embarrassing career growth opportunities; "barista" to "shift lead" gives you an entire page of additional duties, but a raise of $1.50 an hour Working at a cafe shouldn't be stressful, and it absolutely should not entail scheduling phone calls with your manager outside of scheduled hours