Location: Affinia Hotel

Beware!!! This establishment takes from the staff what they lack in reservations… Think about a tip-pool and if that’s not enough, you get your money weekly… or never for that matter.

So if working fro free is your fortay… C-House has got whatcha need!

The management like to explain that it’s a very "New York" way of paying employees… LOL! What a f*ckin’ joke. If I wasn’t so desperate at that time that’s exactly what I would have done - LAUGHED OUT LOUD! 

I religously did the math to my earnings every week, my check was always off… I wasn’t the only one… no one could seem to explain it? Weird.

Besides the lack in pay… if your hired you may have the once in a lifetime opprotunity to encounter the 21 yr. old manager / Sommelier from Sonoma Valley. You will be able to identify this exotic creature by 3 difinitive physical at all times…

1. Grossly over-sized suit (check!).

2. Kodiak shredded tobacco in his lapel pocket (for dipping between presenting bottles of fine wine to tables - check!).

3. A 2 liter of Mountain Dew that he keeps in his back pocket (check!).

All class baby!

Location: glendale ca.

 There s a lawsuit against those people for being racist

they really racist against : indian american ,african americans, middle eastern latinos ,filipino , and other mixes

this people do not know anything about management

they have no previous experience in the business

this people hire  a guy who is  a gardener   does not know  anything about management. and he  gets hired as a GM

this is the guy that discriminates the most  and makes racist remarks  to employees

also the owner  does all kinds of construction works around the place without the proper permits form the city  of glendale  BTW he is a cheep mfker

Location: Forest Hills, Queens

For the life of me, I cannot understand why T-Bone Diner which has been on Queens Blvd in Forest Hills forever, has never been closed down by the Board of Health.  Not even temporarily due to violations.  I was in there last week at the counter and I sat for 45 minutes staring at a whole turkey just sitting out on the counter.  My poached eggs were literally raw.  The serving spoons were sitting in the vegetables, everything at room temperature.  The place is disgusting!

Location: Des Plaines

That’s what I said after working there for a day.  Chef asked me why Jews are so cheap.  Since it way my first day, I didn’t ask why Mexicans are so stupid, just sucked it up.  I was there 5 months.  Saw 8 cooks come & go.  "Chef" could never keep enough cooks for a full schedule.  Some workers work about 1/3 of their time before punching in.  Rampant discrimination against any non-Latinos, not just Americans.

Location: All

Where to begin?  How \’bout the title?  If you\’re not a gang member, it will take you a long time (if not forever) to get a locker (which stinks and has roaches).  Or a parking permit.  There\’s a number of Latin ones there.  Do they own it?  Just the employee areas.  Employees don\’t like to flush after using the bathrooms.  They are also on the 2nd floor.  Nice place to be in summer, with no ventilation, except the windows, making said bathrooms stink like strong shit all the time.  Like feces and gang grafitti on the walls?  It\’s your kind of place. Want lunch?  Pay full price (which, because of the areas they are in, is high).  Or, you can make friends with a cashier, who will sometimes give you a \"discount\".  Especially if you come from the same country they do.  I wanted to leave after about the first hour, in which time I was told by the lead cook I stink, while wearing clean clothes, and I was too old to work there.  For a marketing major, the KM/chef\’s pretty good at making the recepies he already has. They DO have a couple guys there that can make tomato roses and fruit plates really well, and think they\’re Paul Bocuse.  They\’ve been there for years.  Like being referred to as white boy?  You\’ll love it.  More than 50% (lot more) are illegal aliens.  I know because they\’ve told me.  ICE - ARE YOU LISTENING?? They are the only people who would work for the low wages they pay.

I\’ve mainly worked in other types of food service establishments.  This was my first (and last) grocery store.  They\’re very into the whole corporate BS.  Must make them feel important.  Which means that, although (or because) they have committees for everything, they can\’t react quickly to anything, so when they do things wrong, and are told, they don\’t correct them in a timely manner.

Company union also a joke.  You\’re guaranteed 2 x $.25/hr raises yearly.  No matter what you do (or don\’t).  If you walk, or run.  Health insurance also funny.  To be fully insured costs about 23% of take home pay.  Most employees make 10/hr or less.  Also watch out for the \"agents\" (or big mouths, I don\’t know which) implanted among workers.  Those guys have been there for many years, and in lots of cases, make top money (at least for there).

Vindictive management adds to the ambiance.  When told what was wrong, GM told me that it seems I didn\’t like my job.  They also own an apartment  building next store where they house a large number of employees.  Kind of like a plantation.  I eventually quit.  They wouldn\’t fire me.  Reason is, they DO NOT pay unemployment.  I figured fine, I\’d get on with my life.  Except they give me poor references.  I think I might get a friend of mine to call, posing as a prospective employer, so I get a bad reference I can sue for.  Then I won\’t have to work again.  If anyone from there reads this, they will probably know who I am, but if they bad references keep me from working, what more can they do?  Sue me?  I ain\’t got shit noway.

Location: Rockefeller Center

After reading so many horror stories I thought that it mite be a good idea to let New Yokers know thats its not all hell in NYC, I worked at Rainbow Room at the top of the GE building. Restaurant it self was on 2 floors and I was working on the top floor. The view is beautiful, facing The Empire State building at nite time its just fu#%ing amazing. Managers were very nice (father and son) and very professional matter of fact the whole management team was very nice. I was surprised that senior managers that i didnt even had a chance to meet with knew me by my name. Big kudos to Paul, He is a great guy and everyone else working there including the chef (i kno how chef sometimes can be dickiesh) but he was cool. It was prolly one of the best places i had worked for and cept for 1 dickhead server(no one use to take him seriously anywayz) and another server who thought he was a rockstar everyone else was nice. so dont lose hope cuz there still are some great places to work.

Location: NW Portland

I see Bruce Cary is hiring a new manager on Craigslist, the ad says you will be position starts with a base hourly wage until you prove yourself to be a good leader, then could quickly evolve into a salaried position. 

Does this mean we will pay you $10 an hour and we know you will take it because the economy sucks and you can’t find a job when in a normal economy we would be paying you twice as much? 

Anyone worked or working for these guys? 

Past experiences??

Location: NYC

I am fat.  Of that, there can be no doubt.  Nevertheless, despite my unsightly appearance, I convinced more than one NYC dining establishment to give me an opportunity as a bartender. One of them I sued, and succesfully at that. Others, not so much. Nevertheless, when my negativity became too much for them and they fired me, I logged into as many webisites such as this and citysearch, yelp, etc. and bashed them and attempted to hurt them. I even named names!  I am incompetent, yes, and I am despicable. I hate me.

Location: Beverly Hills

Ok I am a restaurant manager who grew up in this business which I love with a passion. I started out from the bottom, as a dishwasher then busser, etc. Well I have been out of work since February of this year till now. I was hired for this place as the bar/service manager, they asked me to come in for the weekend and try it out, which of course I did, and I need a job! I arrived there at 3 pm on Friday excepting to have a grand tour of the place getting to meet people and so on. They introduced me to the wine director which is a really good manager I might add, so he started to give me the quick tour of the the place. I caught on quick that he was over worked and he looked all stressed out, not a good sign all ready? We chit chatted really quick where I have I worked before and so on, after getting the quick tour of the place one of the owner’s comes in and hands me a contract and explains to me that I will be getting paid per shift a certain amount of money. I read it over and was ok no worries that’s fine I have done it before, she said that my back ground check still has not come in, now mind you people it’s been a week since they started my back ground check, I have done background checks on people and it takes about 2 to 3 days max. So I signed any ways, well I start to meet the staff and you know how it is when you meet new servers and so on, I tell them my back ground and they all look at me with this look of what are you doing here, kind of funny? Well I get introduced to the other two mangers, one who is the host stand manger, never heard that one before and the other guy is the vip manager, whatever that means?? They seem pretty cool I guess, so the night begins I go to look at the book to see how many resos we have for tonight 380, I was like wow we are going to be busy! I ask the lead hostess to explain how there system works, I am use to open table they had some other type of system. So I see what are peak times are going to be, well between 730 and 8 we have about 120 people and between 8 and 830 another 120 people, RED FLAG!!! In my mind I was like are you serious, well it’s my first day and I am just hear to observe the night, I don’t want to say anything at all. So I ask how many servers are on for tonight they tell me that on the bottom floor we have 6 and in the upstairs we have 4 servers, bussers we have 4 down stairs and 2 up stairs, nice. Now mind you we are in Beverly Hills’ and we are supposed to be a fine dining restaurant, so the night begins, I mean the “CHAOS “begins! So everyone gets slammed the host stand looks like the DMV in Hollywood when there system goes down, I mean just a mob of people wanting to get seated, I look to see if the host stand manger is there trying to resolve the issues up there, he is no where to be found, I look for the vip manager and he is on his iphone texting I turn around and look again and the host manger is doing the same thing! I go to try and help a server out and I come back to see if the mangers are helping out at the host stand, they were still texting and this pretty much went on for the whole night! Will now the place is packed the bar is full and the restaurant is full and everyone is running like chickens with their head cut off, I go upstairs to see how things are going, I see a server and I ask him if he is ok, he looks like he is about to drop dead. I ask him what is your station, he tells me, and I see that he has a party of 22 people, the private party room with 16 people plus 4 tables of 4 people??? I asked him who is helping you, he looked at me like I was crazy and he said no one, this is how it is here he said, poor guy I really felt bad for him so I started to help him in whatever I could you know, it’s only my first day? After that I see that everyone has more than 6 table’s parties everywhere, so I jump in the mix and try to help everyone out as much as I can. Well the night comes to a end I am tired the servers look like they went through hell, everyone is thanking me for helping them tonight, I told them I am here to help it’s my job. I go to the front desk and load and behold what do I see, both mangers are still on their phones texting??? One comes up to me and says it was a busy night and that he is tired and all, in my mind I am like, from what texting all night long! Well one of the owners comes to me and says that tomorrow she wants me in at 3 again; she asked me what did I see that needs improvement? Well the next night is the same thing chaos, Sunday same thing chaos. Finally it is Monday and I am in early in the morning, we sit down and I tell her that what I am going to say to you might seem very harsh but I am a very blunt man and I say what I see. She says no problem she wants the truth, so I let her have it, sometimes people ask for the truth but in reality they can’t handle it. She looks at me like I just slapped her face, hey the truth hurts some times. Well after debating the pay issue and everything else, I told her to give me a call and let me know if she wanted to hire me or not, well she did, fuck me. I started out my week on Wednesday and just kept seeing the same stuff happing every night, the whole staff was very thank full of me for helping out where I could. I decided to ask each server what the story was here and they all told me that this place is very missed up and that they go thru managers like water, I asked the oldest server there how many mangers he has seen in his 8 yrs there and he said about 24 of them! There was this one good server very sweet women and she wanted to give me some advice, she said to run from here because this place is evil!!! Well from asking everyone from the servers to the bussers, runners, kitchen staff, they all said the same thing, this place is missed up. This place has no chef no sous chef and no GM, well it has an asst GM but he is on sick leave because supposedly he had an internal nervous breakdown from working here, nice. What amazes me is that this restaurant is in Beverly Hills, one of the richest cities in the world and they have this restaurant that anyone who is a foodie or a restaurateur would know that this place is a mess, from just sitting here and having dinner. Well to make an all ready long story short I walked out yesterday and have no regrets about it, even in these tough times that jobs are scarce, I have high standards for a restaurant and believe me, to all managers and foh staff do not work here unless you are ready to sell your soul to the devil. This place was probably good when it first opened up but know it is a shame, another tourist stop in Los Angeles??

Location: Portland

Well kudos to Grand Heritage for giving Rich his walking papers! Seems they have eliminated his position a kind way of firing someone. It is so much more than he deserves after running off so many qualified people in that kitchen. Chef Andy is really good at what he does and maybe with a little tweaking things will turn around for them. They have some great people working in that kitchen and with a few pats on the back, instead of the constant put downs it might just be the great place it could be. Time will tell and good luck to all!

Location: Park Slope Brooklyn

I went to an open call at Ellis Bar. They said I was hired and that I could come in and train. They told me that in order to train I had to bring a crowd of people with me to my training shift. They had me come in on a Monday, and I brought out as many people as I could for a rainy Monday night (about 25 people, which as I found out, is more people than that place has at any time) I "trained" for 4 hours with another bartender, made the place and the bartender money (my friends were the only people in the place) and then was told I could go. I never received traing pay and they never called me with a schedule. Then I found out from another person who used to work there that the owner and his wife only PRETEND they are hiring people so they can bring people in to train and make them bring their friends for a night and make money off of the person. Apparently the place is so dead and doesn’t make any money that they exploit people who are in search of work and lead them to belive they have a job just to get them to bring people into the bar and spend money! That is the most pathetic disgusting way to get customers that i have ever heard of! If you see them "hiring" on craigslist (they post like once a month apparently) don’t bother going, they are dead and don’t need staff, they just want you to bring your friends in so they spend money for a night!!!

Location: Manhattan.

I recently "not too long ago" had the misfortune of dealing with Walter and Laurice Frasier to provide services for my company. It was a very big mistake on my part as they do not provide professional services and they are truly unethical. If you plain on using their services I strongly advise you not too. For various reasons that would be too long to list. 

Location: Seattle marriott

They fired best batenders who worked there since the place opened, 5 years, servers,  for whatever reason,all because marriott is incapable of running a fine dining establishment.

Horrible Hotel GM and AGM who is in charge of food and beverage but never really worked in a restaurant, ex accounting guy…. They messed up a great concept.

Bunch of incompetent losers, legends in their own minds. Feel sorry for all those guys who lost their jobs due to these pricks…

neighbor next door 

Location: UPTOWN

Man do I have a story to share, About 8 months ago I was desperately looking for work until I came across a ad on CL about this place. My expreience with CL havent been that great either but I was still hoping to get a callback from this place because of DAVID BURKE. Well I did get the call back and was really excited. Then came the interveiw day, I put on my EXPENSIVE suit made sure I had atleast 2 copies of my resume and left 20 mins early just so I could be there 15 mins earlier. I walk in the place exactly 15 mins earlier and first thing I notcied was this dose not seem like a restuarant DAVID BURKE would own but there it was, his name all over the store so I thought maybe this is something different and boy was I wrong. I asked the hostess that I have a interveiw here today and waited in the small "lobby". Manager came out (nothing against her she was very nice, a little unprofessional but I dont blame it on her) I gave her a firm handshake and she walked me in and without asking a question introduced me to the head cashier A.K.A phycho bitch and left. I was standing there thinking if i got this job? what it the pay rate? is it fulltime or parttime? what shifts I would be working? nonetheless I got my head back in the game and started working. Worked for 8 hours straight and only took me 2 mins to realize the head cashier is a old phychotic bitch. She would actually yell at customers for no apparent reason and blame me for everything when I wasnt even WORKING on the cash register. I have dealt with these types of people before in my life and was able to put up with her bullshit cuz I really needed this job. Her shifts end and I walk in the managers office still a little bit confused and was told to come in next morning at 9 am so I could learn how to open. It was all fine but she still didnt directly answer any of my questions neither did I sign any paper work. Next morning I come at 8:45 am sharp waited a couple of mins for the phycho bitch to show up and was ready to begin my day. The only problem was that bitch didnt wanna show me anything instead she told me to just chill and that I would never be asked to open cuz thats her job. I insisted that she show me but she rudely refuesd and left to make a deleviry that had to be done every morning. I asked if I can go with her just incase if I am ever asked to open I would know where to go but she told me to sit and do nothing. After she did all the opening chores I was ready to continue my training then came the real manager ( I think the lady was assistant manager or something) I asked him the same questions and he didnt answer and closed his office door. I worked 8 more hours without knowing for sure if I had the job or not, If this was ft or pt, what is the pay rate, and what shift I would be asked to work neither did I sign any paperwork. I should have left at that point but was pretty desprate for a job. After her shift ended I went again to the office and finally got all my answers. He gave me all the paperwork and I sat there and filled it all out, turned it in and was to say my byes until the manager asked me to stay here until the closing. I was kinda pissed but thats life rite? I cancelled all my plans with my friends and was working with the other cashier ( the one I would be replacing she was 9 months pregnent and was due the next day nothing against her either, a strong women she was) plus she was a lot better then the phycho bitch i had to deal with in the morning who would litterly yell customers and not even the rude ones but the nice ones. I was talking with her and she told me she is just taking maternity leave and will be comming back in 3 weeks. At that time I was super pissed. No one told me that this was a Temp job even when I specifically asked the manager about it. I went to confront him one more time and he told me that when she comes back he would give me a different job like in the kitchen or something (steward) I wanted to leave rite that moment but didnt since the cashier was due tommarow it didnt feel rite to leave her all alone working like that. I stayed till the end and left without saying a word. Next day I slept like a baby, watched some Conan on hulu, ate gyro and had fun clicking on the manager everytime he would call.

P.S I know this is really long but its pretty late at nite and im bored so thought mite as well do something constructive.

Location: Boston

So, in any professional setting someone would be reprimanded and possibly fired for striking a co-worker. It would be even worse if someone assualted their subordinate. With this logic, wouldn’t you think that a restaurant manager, Justin, would have thought twice before sucker punching one of his staff RS? Unfortuantely, this is not the case since the manager in question is an immature, borderline alcoholic who demonstrates poor decision making skills - in professional and social settings. Is it really ever a good idea to go out drinking with your staff, get blitzed, self described by him as "blacking out" and expect to come into work the next with no problems? Would you believe that is Exactly what happened? Nothing. This jerk still works at Grill 23 and there was ZERO disclipinary action taken by the GM. I guess something will only happen if Tracy Griffin (BTW see other posts for Tracy LOL) and if Paul Dias found out…

Location: They don’t say!

Could someone tell me why, when an establishment advertises for servers on Craigslist, half the time they don’t give the NAME of the establishment? That’s kind of important to know.  Yes, an address is given, but it’s much easier finding the ABC Cafe then finding 45612 NE Stark #20B. If they don’t want calls all they have to do is post "No Calls." If a name is given, you can decide right then and there if it’s a place you want to apply to or avoid. Yes I know you can Google it, Mapquest, yadda yadda…but why don’t they just say the name in the first place? What is the reasoning behind this? 

Location: Midtown

Any experiences with this place.  I’ve been called in to interview for a foh manager position.  I interviewed there about six months ago and never heard from them again.  I don’t know if they’ve gone through old resumes or if one of the many anonymous postings on CL’s to which I’ve responded is there’s.  When I called the number they left me, the lady answered, "Real Estate office," until I asked for Ken and then it became "Tea Room"  Does anyone know anything about working at this place? Thanks

Location: Woodland Hills

I worked for Paolis for 3 years and was the best server out of 7 people.  I really cared for the restaurant and I worked hard.  The manager was embezzeling from the place and tried to blame anyone he could.  Needless to say, the owner relies on him for alot and is blind to the whole drama mess.  They pay under the table, but , it is not worth it.  He will find a way to blame a $ loss on you too!!!

Location: 2161 Broadway

These people do not pay for 30 hours of training.  I got hired and they flat out told me this.  I checked with the NY labor department and confirmed my suspician that it is indeed not legal to not pay for training.  This place seemed shadey from the beginging, being hired with out a formal interveiw, not getting an answer as to how much money I would make, etc.  I knew I wasn’t going to take the job so when I told them that not paying was against the law I was called back five minutes later saying that there was a miscommunication and they had hired someone else.  I then told them I would be reporting them to the NY department of labor.