WANDERLUST CREAMERY Reviews

Fill ins and picking up others shifts are frequent, rush hour and busy season

1. Management is not great whatsoever, confrontation when it comes to hours being cut or termination is almost nonexistent. I've gotten wrongfully terminated without any word from management, I was let go and I could try to sue but I cannot afford a lawyer. They hire minors because they're easier to manipulate. For example when the old manager was there they hired a 18 year old and a 19-20 year old as store leads for Sawtelle when they first opened. I also got extra pay by mistake on their end and they asked me to return it and I did, not knowing I didn't have to cause it was their responsibility not mine. Because of that incident I had to a suffer $400+ debt that lasted 2 months when I was supposed to be working to earn money, not lose it. 2. They keep opening new locations but do not take care or concern over the locations they already have. The owner JP also treats the company like a law firm. When a guest wanted to know what kind of nuts are in the ice cream he made us hand out flyers that basically making the customer responsible for choosing to purchase ice cream with nut allergens than to disclose the specific nut in the ice cream to accommodate to the guests because allergens are understandable. This makes it not accommodating to guests who suffer from nut allergens and want to enjoy the ice cream. Some guests have actually felt offended by receiving that note from the store that employees felt embarrassed to give them out that we stopped doing it despite his orders. Because us as servers would take all the comments and criticism for obeying the owners orders in handing those flyers. 3. Prioritizes store locations and money over quality. Food handlers card was not a requirement upon my first hiring, I had to bring it up to the manager. Constant hair in ice cream because there was no proper enforcement of food safety. Servers have to WEIGH the ice cream to makesure they won't give more product than they paid for (they have literal scales by the register but it's not like yogurland where you pay how much it weighs. The prices are set they just want to ration the ice cream). All the flavors have changed and may be due to inflation but they lack the same quality they had in previous years. Rotating flavors are mostly repeat flavors from the previous years but in a slightly different format so there's no innovation. Some months we don't even roll out the new flavors as promised. Constant push of merchandise as well as Influencer and celebrity marketing when the company is not the same as it was back in 2016. 4. The turnover rate is pretty high, there are no consistent hours and dead seasons are very dead to where some wouldn't work for the entirety of winter so people have to have 2nd jobs or only work a few days of the week or even month. The job usually consists of people who are barely starting their lives because they're the only people who would tolerate a job with these kinds of business practices. Like high-school students, college freshman and sophomores and or people in their early 20's. 5. Sometimes management itself can't help the store because of owner's demands or methods. Some managers would complain about JP putting a lot of things off or pushing work on managers that could require another person or is a task of someone with more experience. Sometimes the managers would be overworked because of the lack of effort to hire more help or hire people who can perform the job but then when there are managers who do their job they get overworked and unheard from that they just quit and find something better, leaving the store in shambles. Because they're frustrated with JP's ways of running the store. They show that they can't take criticism nor do they strive for improvement. Which is why the company seems to be suffering. 6. The 2 women who run the store Dana and Adrienne would frequent the stores to actually help and work. JP being the person who's supposed to focus on how the store runs hardly ever visits the stores so it shows a lack of attention and care for the shops and there's multiple locations. Some employees have never even met the owners during the time of their employment ,unless their specific stores where Dana and Adrienne frequent, and some will only see then JP handful of times but won't engage with him. Adrianne focuses mostly on the ice cream flavors but she frequent the kitchen at tarzana at least. Anyone working can say that they have never seen JP work a shift in the store as an server and he probably never will because if he did he would see the issues. But there is that lack of attention that also frustrates managers who have come and gone because he's doesn't try to consider how their job is difficult when he's unaware of how the shop even runs on a daily basis. He focuses more on music copyright than the customers allergen safety. 7. Recycles store equipment. When Sawtelle first opened they had to borrow the fridge from the fairfax location for the pints cause they wanted to look more updated. They had enough money to open a new store but you can notice the rush when they have to recycle old equipment from older stores to "upgrade" the newer locations. Leaving the other stores with less equipment making the job more difficult or just not consistent with all the other stores. Shelves in stores are falling apart after just 2 years, equipment is moved and unused. The lights were broken for a good while at some point. It took months to get them replaced. Some of the fridges are broken and hardly fixed. Some of the placements of equipment in the back is dangerous. An employee at fairfax suffered a head injury because they kept the large plastic Cambros above the dish sink and it fell on her head. We don't know if she's recieved any workers compensation for her injury. Side note: JP has commented on one of the employees size once calling him "bigger than he thought" and it offended said employee so the lack of respect is also there. That was completely unprofessional, unnecessary, and uncalled for.