Location: All Over Manhattan

Avoid the Serafina group at all costs.

After THREE Interviews (the first 2 at a Workforce One center !?) the third being with the VERY Arrogant, rude, balding, Curly haired BOZO the Clown looking Italian owner Fabio (who finally saw me after making me wait an hour and called me to his table by snapping his fingers and saying "HELLO… HELLO") I was finally granted the privilege to come in and perform a tasting. 

The day of the tasting, The Chef was 1/2 hour late and I was told I had TWO HOURS. Now, anyone knows that any worthwhile tasting takes 4 hours to prepare at the very least. I was told NOT to purchase anything because "between here and our restaurant across the street, we have everything you need… just ask and someone will get it" So I walk into an unfamailiar kitchen and I am expected to produce 4-5 plates in 2 hours. Everytime I ask for an ingredient from across the street the Chef makes a face and it takes 20 minutes to get. There is NO Kosher salt in the restaurant and I am seasoning with table salt. I am rushing like a madman to get the prep for my plates finished.

So… the Italian BOZO shows up a bit late and I start what was a very rushed and (I felt) mediocre tasting which was not at all indicitave of my skills. The Chef comes in and tells me that my first 2 plates needed "More Salt". I know right there that I’m done.

So after the tasting FABOZO, the owner calls me over to the table and tells me that he "liked what I did but some of my dishes were underseasoned" Asks me (for the third time) what my salary requirements are and tells me he would get back to me by Monday (It’s Wednesday).

Monday comes… no call. So I contact the human resources Woman who says she has been "Told Nothing" but would get  back to me. When she finally did (through E Mail two days later) I was told that they have decided "not to pursue your candidacy at this time"

Last Word: The salary was $80,000 and I have since learned that their Chefs work 13-14 hour days and have NO menu input.

The SERAFINA Group Restaurants are a waste of any self respecting Chefs time and effort… AVOID

Location: Hell’s Kitchen

Location: Pittsburgh

Bottom Line:  Management keeps the 18% gratuity on everything from table service (off the menu) all the way up to the banquet functions.  Granted, I agreed to work the banquets for a flat rate of ten bucks an hour.  But when I saw a banquet barmaid hand her tip jar over to the owner because " we’re not allowed to keep ANY tips in ANY form…"  I almost fell over from disbelief.    It’s one thing to pull a fast one in regards to the guests. (They probably assume that the service staff will be getting that gratuity…. as MOST of us would assume.)  But it’s another thing all together to MAKE your employees turn over any cash tips to the management.  What kind of Karma have I generated that would cause me to find myself employed by people LIKE THIS????

Location: nyc

Me being an ex S&W Steakhouse waiter as well as being with that company for a better part of 6 years I had an opportunity to work for the hurricane club thinking that it was going to be like smith and wollensky was I wrong first off the agm’s jonathan who is a clueless spineless schmuck and jolie a power triping who does not not know shit about wine and professionalism as well chef lawerence who is a cross between chewbaca and jethro from the beverlyhillbillies all summarize why they are not qualified to be anywhere else. and it is a women dominated staff as well as young men who barley have experence in the resturaunt industry and the apperence of the uniforms as well as not being clean shaven is a shocker to any resturaunt standards. The trainig is bs and if you are over qualified you get axed out of training with the excuse of i dont think you will be a good fit. There is a reason for constant open calls for this place and it starts with the useless mgmt with the chef and the agms in particular. So if you got the patience to wait three weeks for a call back and get axed out of training with swiftness be my guest and deal with this child oriented shit show. And remember lesibians and tools are like water and electricty they dont mix.

Something we all need to freakin share and push into ppl’s brains.  cuz i can’t take this shit anymore!!!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhJ2cnmwwuY

Location: Los Angeles CA

Management is the worst. treat you like children. have no trust in you. write you up for anything. they have alianated all the regulars, the employees, even the car valets. the owners have no clue as to what they are doing. they change the recipes on the most popular items so no one wants to even come in anymore. They have systematically gotten rid of all the long time loyal employees. they load the floor with too much staff and still the service sucks but no one can make any money. its a cesspool of misery.

Location: 2905 N Clark

Worked here for four months.  Finally had to quit after the owner started giving my number to customers in order to get business.  The same man once told me I \"swept the wrong way\"  as in… with a broom.  Furthermore, he charges anywhere from $6-$20 for a single waffle deffending in authentic, European style.  It is frozen dough that, once cooked, sits out for the rest of the day.  The man\’s name is Terrence.  He hates people but loves money and will do anything to take yours.  BEWARE

Location: Manhattan

Jason Hennings is Miserable, lying, low-life scum. Is this partly due to the fact that he is obviously closeted ? …Perhaps. Just Google his name and you will find 20 reasons not to work for him or patronize his establishments.

He also totes around an annoying passive-aggressive little bitch of an assistant named "Andrew" who claims to be straight and makes all of his calls for him (or refuses to answer all calls and texts, depending upon the circumstances) IMNSHO, he needs a good stiff dick up his ass.

I will not go into the details but just lets say I should have listened to the advice of others when I sought employment with this human excrement and was put through the mill and humiliated.

AVOID, AVOID, AVOID !! 

Location: PDX

Why is this site so biased?  BOH has it way worse than you do so stop bitching.  FOH makes twice as much money in most places and pretty much the only thing I’ve seen on this site is servers whining about not wanting to share their tips.  Give me a break.

Location: all

Holy shit i’v worked at some bad places but this joint takes the cake. Where to start. The owner Dean Karageorgous. Not only does he not pay the vendors he dont even pay the employees. Every pay period for the year i worked there checks were at least four days late if not a week. Finally after you beg for your check for a week (every week) you get a personal check with no pay stub or idea how many hours your getting paid for just some random amount. Or heres a check for 25 and i’ll give you the rest in cash next week. And when you answer the phone dean alaways say im not here and sure enough its someone he owes money to. He dosent even have the courage to face the people he owes money to he has his employees take messages. The cable turned off every couple months because he wouldent pay the bill until he was forced to. that is how he treated everything. One time our sausage vendor came and said if he dont have a check for us this time we are not leaving the delivery and we had to run the restaurant for one night without sausage cause he wouldent pay anicci. This guy just flat out refuzes to pay his bills or do anything for his business but run it into the ground wich he did caus glenview location is closed and howard will be soon. Then he dosent tell the staff he is going to close the place he let us all come to work a week after xmas to find out we didnt have jobs. Now he refuzes to give us our w2 formes iv had to file a formal complant with the irs and i still dont have my w2. typical dean behavior. Then there is the manager shawn. alaways drunk by 630 like clockwork. this guy sits and plays games on his phone and drinks beer insted or running the restaurant. oh ya and goes out for a smoke evry 5 min. Its a shame caus we had an awsome kitchen staff and so much potential to be successful but the owner and manager just didnt care enough to put any effort into the place it was quite a sad situation. The only person there worth anything was brian. awsome employee the one person who actually cared and tried to do a good job. unfortuniatly he couldent do it alone. brian you are to good for gullivers.

Location: 49 ST 3RD AVE.

More than two dozen current and former waiters and their associates from some of the city\\\\\\\’s top steakhouses have been arrested in an alleged identity theft ring, accused of stealing credit card numbers from wealthy customers, authorities said Friday.

The Manhattan district attorney, police and the U.S. Secret Service announced the arrests Friday involving a 28-person ring that operated at top metro-area restaurants like Smith & Wollensky

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/fbh/2866694122.html

Location: Oak Park

Last week-end I decided to come to this establishment with a friend of mine while visiting Oak Park. It was a Friday night and when we approached the hostess stand, we were greeted with her index finger in a "wait a minute" motion. So my friend and I waited patiently for about 10-15 minutes (after her conversation of whom I would assume is another server), were seated near the window. After being seated, we were greeted in a friendly manner and we ordered two Earl Grey Martinis. Well the drinks sucked because it contained very little vodka or none at all and it was very overpriced even for an Oak Park establishment. When we voiced our dissatisfaction, we were given the brush-off by our server, okay so decided to stick with water, now no one can screw that one up (unless the server never comes backs and re-fill our water glasses). Whatever, we decided to order the roasted beets and the lake street salad. Now, how in the hell are roasted beets COLD? Please keep in mind I grew up on the west side of Chicago and we had ROASTED BEETS THAT WERE SERVED HOT OR AT LEAST ROOM TEMPERATURE NOT COLD YOU MORON OF A COOK. As for the salad, it was wilted unappealing due to fact it looked old. So we just sent it back and definitely did not want a replacement. Now for the main plates, I ordered the whitefish with red beans and rice and my friend ordered the prosciutto flat bread. Well the red and beans and rice had absolutely no flavor, it was watery, no ham hocks was in it and neither sofrito. The whitefish was unappealing. Come on Chef were did you go to culinary school, but I don’t think you ever went. Oh the flat bread was hard and tough. So our server took our food back to the kitchen to correct the problem. But we heard the Chef berate the server in a disparaging loud tone. I thought that was bad enough until I heard other workers making remarks about an African American couple sitting just a few tables away, Wow, Rev. Jesse Jackson anyone. After our "pleasant" dining experience in beautiful Oak Park, we decided we had enough. We were told that the manager and the owner was at the bar if we wanted our complaints to be met. But when we got up to the bar, the owner and the manager (both larger heavy set women) seemed to be having a drunken time while suppose to be running the restaurant. I mean what scum would just sit at their beautiful establishment and not give a damn about paying customers, while drinking the profits. Now I know where my vodka went. I guess I will not be returning and just go to Marion Street Cheese Market, at least the food is good and they are professional. Dear Chef I heard what you said to that poor server who was just doing his/her job, learn how to @#$% cook and prepare a decent menu that is not an eclectic mess and by no means are you rustic.

Steve, a person who knows what good food is

Location: ALL

City bakery and it’s sister bakeries, are a complete waste of time. Even if your in desperate need of a job. Better to work at Starbucks. City Bakery is a disorganized and mismanaged. It’s not a nice environment to have to work in everyday.

The money sucks. The owner, Maury Rubin, sucks. He’s a useless moron. He’s arrogant, condescending and hostile. He thinks he’s some sort of celebrity because his bakery is popular and he makes tons of money. So what. That doesn’t give you the right to be a total douche!! His product isn’t even that great and it’s way overpriced. He doesn’t deserve success and wealth. He’s that typical kind off a**hole restaurant/business owner. All of you industry people know what kind I mean. 

horrible money+horrible environment+horrible boss=waste of time

Location: Northfield, OH

I worked here as a server and was recently fired for defending a fellow employee who had done nothing wrong.  I was polite in my defense and fired in a fit of anger.  The owner is Greek, and has a thick accent, making it difficult to understand him.  He asked one of the servers to get something for him and she did not understand.  He started yelling at her and asking her if "she f—ing spoke english" and saying he would fire her.  I asked him to stop and was told to "get the f—" out of his restaurant.  During my time there servers were continually screamed at, sworn at, and verbally abused for things beyond their control, many to the point of tears.  To make matters worse, no manager or the operator would even attempt to stop this abuse.  It clearly affected employees ability to work.  Even if this is normal in a restaurant it definitely isn’t right.  Employees should not have to go to work and be told they are "stupid americans" and "f—ing idiots" for no reason.

Location: Lacey

I have been a professional waiter for over 25 years, I must be good at it because I am debt free and own two homes. I have never had the desire to be a restaurant manager though. I was semi retired when a new restaurant (Native New Yorker) was opening by me. I decided to get a job there. In 25 years I have never seen the things I saw in three months at this place. Where to start. I will list what I have seen.1, A guy slips in water in the back (they won\’t pay for mats) as he is on the ground the owners daughter runs to him, instead of seeing if he is ok she grabs his foot and says you are lucky these are slip resistant shoes. He has a sprained ankle and is sent home, he calls in sick the next day and they ask for a doctors note because they don\’t believe him. 2, The owner makes a guy lift something way too heavy and he hurts his back, he misses three weeks. During this time the owners go to all the people that saw him injure himself and tell them that he was hurt before he lifted the object if anybody asks. 3. On Thnaksgiving they fed the homeless, they milked the publicity for all they could and made sure all knew how caring they were. The next day a confused homeless vet walks in and asks if this is where he could get a free meal, the lady owner tells him to get the fuck out and has two kitchen workers physically throw him out. 4. The owner checks the dumpster trash for utensils, she walks back in with old food that has been in the trash for days, she rinses it off and makes a soup out of it. 5. The owners hire two managers with a ton of evperience, these guys kept morale up and everyone happy. They were both let go. The owners and their really dumb daughters are going to run the place. 6. Decided they wanted to let people go. They made a hit list of people they didn\’t like, it was not based on performance. One daughter fired four girls who were attractive (great employees) they would not fire the worst waiter in the place because his wife worked for the alcohol control board. They then started letting people go who were getting close to enough hours for unemployment. 7. They walked in and caught a friend of theirs (manager from Arizona) drinking and doing drugs, nothing happened to him. 8. The kitchen continues to make a lot of mistakes yet they will not take an item off the bill no matter if it was wrong, appitizers often come after the dinner is served. They tell us to bring them a scoop of ice cream. I had a table that spent over 300 dollars and nothing went right, I got eight scoops of ice cream and was going to take it to them when the owner stopped me and said one scoop, eight spoons. 9. They should not have passed one health inspection yet they do because Olympia only has two inspectors and they split the town. The one that see\’s them is a friend of theirs, I have waited on her four times and everytime they comp her meal. 10. They worked the fired managers to death, they worked 70 hours a week and were expected to stay late if it was busy but if it was dead they could not leave early even though there were three managers on. yet the daughter managers come and go as they please and spend 90% of their time sitting in a booth. I can go on for hours but maybe I\’ll save that for a book. I was sticking around to see what is going to happen next but I don\’t want to be associated with that place when an employee really hurts themself or a customer get really sick. If there is a light at the end of the tunnel this place probably will not survive and if it does it is going to be a major drain on their personal wealth or woman owners family (who owns the parent company)

Location: atlanta

I think it sucks that servers have to pay EVERYONE, tip the busser, tip the food runner, tip the bartender(bartenders make tips and usually the servers run their food to the bar) and sometimes the hostess. Usually the tip-out is a percentage of the server’s sales. Again this is unfair. What if a server has a crappy night, he/she still has to tip out that percentage and still claim 10% to pay taxes. Serving is not what it used to be now that employers want the server to pay all the other empoyees. I have become sick to death of this business, not the job itself, but the fact that everyone has their hand in your pocket. When customers don’t tip accordingly, we as servers, still have to tip out the same percentage and sometimes I feel as though I have worked for nothing as if this is a hobby.

Location: atlanta

I worked for the same employer for 19 years and sadly he closed his business for personal reasons. Let me just say, he was the BEST employer ever and we all made money. My former boss did not have to replace one person in 20 years…unlike a lot of restaurants today that can not hang on to good people for so many reasons. So after years of NOT looking for a job, here I was in search of employment once again.

I am shocked by the ads on Craigslist. Employers ask for a resume, which is pointless because getting a response is not likely. They also request a photo. What??? I am applying to be a server, not a stripper. If asking for an applicants age and ethnicity is considered discrimination, wouldn\’t requiring a photo from an applicant be discrimination as well? Do they want to know if you\’re pretty enough? young enough? What is the reasoning behind this request? Some employers ask for a link to your facebook…do they want to read my emails and perhaps my diary too? This should be off limits to employers as one\’s personal life should be off limits! Another requirement is to facebook or twitter about the restaurant/bar. Since when are servers/bartenders required to advertise the business?Some ads are even more rediculous wanting the applicant to write an essay on what hospitality means or explain what organic means etc…Employers should really get over themselves; it\’s not an entrance essay for Harvard.

The interview can be just as stupid in my opinion. Managers will ask why you want to work for this company. In reality I don\’t want to work as a server at all. I opt for lottery winner but that has not panned out so far. How can I possibly know if I want to work for this restauranrt? Perhaps this robotic moron manager is a prick, in which I would not want to work under him/her anyway. Maybe I am obligated as a server to tip out 1/3 of my earnings every night to my coworkers and I am not thrilled about paying their salaries. Maybe there is low moral in this workplace, for which the $2.16 an hour the employer is required  to pay hardly makes up for my dread of having to go in there to work. Maybe the employer gives servers a tiny 3 table station, which is not only boring but difficult to make any decent money. The truth is I want to work here because I don\’t want to lose my house, therefore earning the funds to make my mortgage payment would help prevent that from happening. I also want to pay my car note so I can get to work. I also like to eat, not just because I enjoy the taste of food but because I want to stay alive. That\’s why I want to work here. What a stupid question!

Some managers ask where you will be in five years. I could understand this question if this were the kind of job that had a future and a ladder to climb but who cares where i will be in five years, I am a waitress…just a waitress. I would love to say I only hope to still be alive in five years considering I have a major drug habit. I don\’t but would be curious of the reaction.

I was in an interview at Tommy Bahamas in Destin Florida. The hiring manager and I discussed what tips in an average day were. They were low, and even more insulting after tipping out the entire crew. Servers only got 3 table sections. I asked why they didn\’t give the server a bigger station, cut down on the waitstaff and I was told told by this manager that it\’s not about the money but the service. I actually laughed out loud by this stupid theory and said that\’s funny since they charge $60 for a t-shirt with their name on it and I\’m sure Mr Tommy Bahama did not invest all this money in this business so he could give good service….Bullshit, business is business and we are all here to make money…even Tommy Bahama. I know my attitude was not condusive for an interview but they demand a lot from their people and don\’t allow them to make a living. The manager did not know what to say and seemed uncomfortable as I\’m sure no applicant has ever challenged him in an interview before. Needless to say, I did not get the job and I could have cared less…why even waste my time. I was already annoyed as their ad read to come down to the restauranrt between 2-5pm to speak with a manager. So after getting all dolled up and taking the time to go there, all the managers were in a meeting. On my third try, I asked if the host could please ask one of the managers in the meeting when I could come by when they are not in a meeting…seems all they do is have meetings between the hours of 2-5. Seems management cannot follow their own instructions. Disrespectful!

Serving-bring food from the kitchen to the table right? Why do they want to make it more complicated than it is?

i think i bumped into him the other day… he was running away… so that i dont recognize him.   i believe he lives at elan’s building, 525 e 72nd st, apt 6f… sarid is now…  "aka" vincent vinny venchenzo…. his "italian name"….

Location: Rancho cucamonga ca

The male GM slaps the asses of female waitresses hostesses and servers. His name is fumi. Probably has it caught on their cameras along with the managers always getting drunk during things like \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"deep cleaning\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\". Not to mention they readjust hours on pay checks so they dont have to pay employees all of their hours. Oh and once a server and cook there were talking about how there were larva crawling on the kitchen counter when they walked in, and how the towels in the kitchen for cleaning the counters for cooling hadnt been cleaned and was used to regular spills and slop staons. Disgusting. This place serves raw meat— i woulnt be surprised if someone got food poisening