Pros
Lot of great coworkers, 50% employee discount isn't bad, weekly paychecks.
Cons
1. This is one of the most mismanaged companies I have ever worked for. 7 managers and none of them are on the same page. Regularly a manager would tell us to do a task, and some time later another would come up and tell us to do it another way or not at all. When asking managers questions about new policies, most would tell me they didn't know the answer to my question and to ask another manager instead, rinse repeat.
2. Their credit card system regularly double charges customers. This leads to a lot of angry people on the phone I had to deal with on a near daily basis. Completely unacceptable business practice.
3. Employees have to pay for parking. It's not the most expensive parking, but it should be validated.
4. Seem to operate on a churn-and-burn system with lower level employees. Constant training mill.
5. Expects employees to perform duties not in their job description. They do not hire bussers at this restaurant, they expect servers and bartenders to do so while also serving guests. This puts too much on the server/bartenders, and it leads to the hosts to become primary bussers. Hosts are not a tipped-out position and should not be doing that work on a regular basis. Hosts bussing takes us away from our position at the front kiosk and results in guests waiting in the front or coming in without checking reservations, missed phone calls, etc.. More examples of this, but this problem was the most apparent to me in my role and something I communicated with the managers as being a problem multiple times.
6. The hourly rates for bartenders and servers are very low. One of my coworkers worked a 6 hour shift for $16 after tips. As a host, we got a base pay at least.
7. Hotschedules system was confusing, sometimes cancelling days I had marked off. Also I was once scheduled for a 21 hour shift, 7am-2am. No explanation as to why that happened, as hosts are only in the building 11am-10pm at the latest.
8. We had a transfer from Indiana who was coming in expecting a management role in the Activities department, something she was trained to do. They made her a Host for a month until she quit, scheduled her past her last day, and then turned around and begged her to stay for a pay raise. Dreadful treatment of a years-long Punch Bowl employee they knew was coming down months in advance.
9. Two months before I quit, I was told that I was being considered for a Shift Lead position, something I was interested in and qualified to do. Two weeks later, the other person they were considering for the role quit. No follow up on that promotion, instead I was already doing some tasks of the role with no raise, and other tasks were not getting done because they had not filled the shift lead position at all. After 3 other hosts quit within a 2 week period, I set a meeting with Frank (the incoming GM) and Jun (another manager) asking about the Shift Lead position and turning in my two weeks if that position was not on the table. Frank agreed I would be a good fit and that he would speak to Thomas (outgoing GM) about approving that promotion. The next week, I asked Thomas about it. Frank had not spoken to him, so I stuck to my two weeks and left.
