cook

caterer

food service worker

grill cook

barista

Bon Appetit

What I appreciated the most was certainly the general "goals" and ethics of the company, as it promoted (as best as it possibly could, given that it is still a Capitalist corporation) environmental friendliness. They sourced all of their food and materials as ethically as they could, given monetary constraints and the general resistance of people to accept radically new structures and modes of consumption. We can work on that in the long-term. I gave my managers a few suggestions. They laughed, of course.

I was working there as a "Barista", which essentially meant that they led me by the nose to fill every single Front-of-House position that they had at one point or another. No complaints - they told me that this would be my role while working for them, and I daresay I did a pretty good job of juggling multiple jobs in one, but it WAS grueling at times and unsustainable for my long-term mental well-being.

Most of my coworkers were pleasant, though there was this constant pressure of feeling like one must keep one's guard up at all times. No single person was to blame, but the general interpersonal environment felt like it could fostered something much more organic and human than it did, even between coworkers of the same rank and position. Everyone seemed stressed by this, whether they were aware of this or not. It's tough and it's taxing, feeling like you're not allowed to bring any kind of genuine personality to the surface.

I learned a lot on the job, as it was my first of this type. And if you get into the flexible position that I did, I'm sure you may find yourself occupying, at one point or another, positions that you're not totally familiar with. It's very easy to pick up the basics of what you need to do, though, as long as you're able to keep up with things when all the students come swarming in for meal times and you find yourself in an avalanche of noise and chaos, and are also able to maintain your sanity during the quiet hours when nothing happens at all.

Bon Appetite as a company is a great place to work. I have a consistent schedule, my managers asks if we can work extra ahead of time, great team work, and a fun place.

As a Barista my typical day is to make sure that my coworker and I have enough supplies to start our day. We get our Barista Cart ready so we can load our truck and open promptly on the sight we are assigned to for the day. As soon as we arrive to our site, we unload the truck. One person sets up our work station and the other unloads the truck and helps set up after. Then we test the espresso shots to make sure the taste is right. We open, inform our customers of our special of the week and serve our beverages. During the shift, we learned to take our breaks in a timely manner so it will not interrupt the day's task. When the day is done, we serve the last customers, clean up and return to our building. When we return to out building, we prep for the next day with each person doing their own tasks. We go through our checklist to make sure everything is done before we leave for the day.

I love interacting with my customers to form a relationship with them and they in-turn become regulars.

As a Caterer, my day starts by getting a Recap, it is a list of events and pickups that are assigned to each Caterer. I look through my recap and prep in a timely matter for each event or pickup. Occasionally, either myself or one of the Caterers need help for prepping so we tend to help each other out. As soon as I have the things I need for a certain event or order, I deliver the products; food, beverages and/or utensils, for the place I need to be. After, my assignments are done, I report back to a lead or supervisor to tell them I have done that particular task. We always check and double check that particular event or pick up to make sure we did not miss anything.

"Fine dining" style for elderly customers. Starting as a server can be tough. You must break through the tenured employees there which will always make more money than you because of the selected seating style that management enforces. Meaning one server will have 6-10 guests per shift while another has 15-25+ with no recognition of a problem from anyone involved. Management does not expect servers to stay for more than a few months therefore even if you show promising work ethic, your efforts will be ignored. You can make money here but don't expect anything spectacular when you are competing against servers who ignore teamwork and only look out for themselves. There are some very lovely people who do work there as well but, unfortunately they are not going to pay your bills. On a positive note, this place has some really nice meals and the cleanest kitchen I have ever worked in, however this is because the kitchen is ruled with an iron fist and you will be yelled at for making errors resulting in a very hostile and uncomfortable environment. Best advice is to go in with expectations to be treated poorly, if you can brush that off easily then you will do fine. If you need any of the 3 managers assistance at any time during dinner hours, expect to spend 2-5 minutes looking for them and addressing your issue, and then in some cases just shrugging their shoulders and looking at you like you are the one who doesn't know whats going on.

Overall: Average restaurant with high standards because they were lucky enough to claim a piece of the Clearwater coast over 40 years ago and will continue to be successful purely due to location.

A typical day of work at Bon Appetit consisted of me busing tables and delivering orders to people, even though I had originally received training to be a barista. While I still held that title, I was only seldom given the responsibility to prepare drinks for customers. Because of the nature of my work schedule, hours, and daily responsibilities, I under performed when completing barista duties due to lack of practice or opportunities to hone those skills. I worked as little as three hours a week, ten hours a week at most, and sometimes I would not even be scheduled for up to two weeks (I was promised at least 10-15 hours a week). From what I have heard, either from other students who worked here or otherwise, that full-time employees are given preferential treatment and that students are generally not scheduled often. This was all in a supposed effort to compensate for the fact that I was working part time and that the managers I was working for did not want my work to cut into my time as a student. However, they did not always honor our agreement in regard to when I was available and would often schedule me on days in which I told them I would either be in class, or studying. Overall, the work environment was relatively friendly as the managers there were strict about their code of conduct. The rate of pay was fair, although, do to my seldom scheduling and irregular hours, it is difficult to determine whether or not I could have lived off of said wage if I were working there full time, let alone between classes. The most enjoyable part of the job, easily, was the rapport I built with some employees and some customers while either on duty or when closing out for the night.

The typical work day involved me serving food to customers and cleaning up the mess from the meals sometimes all three meal times other times it was only two but it's a lot of work because I was by myself and I was relied upon to make it look great for the person that opened before me and they left a lot of stuff for me to do and they often didn't do much work themselves and the management didn't really care because they were good friends with them from a previous job location. I wasn't in their "click" So I didn't get special treatment and I had lists written by the person on the shift before me of stuff that I needed to do to make sure that she was all set up for the day I was constantly the person that was restocking everything for that person and restocking for myself also because there was no one else but me to restock and to deep clean. In reality I would have liked to have been the only person working in that area because in a way it was me only working in that area doing all the work While the other person reaped the benefits of my work. 

The office managers are horrible people. They will lie and do whatever it takes to make there selfs look good and I mean what ever it takes . They treat there employees like garbage. They over work and under pay . They are horrible at communicating and they pass there job off to the next person in line . They expect you to work a 12 hour shift in 8 hours then have the nerve to complain and refuse overtime. The whole upper management needs to be fired and replaced. This place could be a wonderful place to work if it wasn’t for the horrible upper management. That seems to think they are better than everyone. They have no idea how to run a kitchen. If you can’t work every station in the kitchen you are not qualified to be in upper management and not a single person in upper management at this place could work a single station . They are very wasteful with there food . When I was hired they said they donate any leftovers that they can . Not a single time did they ever do this they would just throw it all away . They are not resourceful at all . I literally watched them throw away a catering room full of dishes into the dumpster. What a huge wast !!!  You would think after losing so many chefs in such a short period of time HR or someone higher up would get a clue and investigate. 

Overall the values of Bon Appetit are what attracted me to the company in the first place. This, however, is rarely translated on an operational level. There isn't such a thing as a "typical day" at work. There are so many moving parts, that it is a constant marathon in conjunction with daily sprints, and putting out fires! I usually try to start with a loose plan, with scheduled meetings being the only constant, and knowing that my plan will most likely change. I check in with all team members in the morning, and see where and how they may need assistance with product, production, logistics, etc. My day is then built from there. I continue to learn daily, on a professional and personal level, mostly from the employees I manage. Workplace culture in the kitchen is excellent, fun, family-like, and very team-orientated.  There isn't one "hardest" part of this job, it is difficult across the board. The opportunities lie within unattainable demands being handed down, without knowledge of the needs of the business, or regard for employees professionally, nor personally. The most enjoyable part of my job is the staff and the creative freedom. I respect the people I manage, and they do the same for me because we have earned it together. Creatively, I thoroughly enjoy the ability to work with all different products, and develop new platforms or programs.

A typical day at work can be relatively easy or near impossible, the work load is never consistent. I learned you need to figure out how everything works by yourself with very little hands on training. Management is a mixed bag, some genuinely seem to care and offer help while others only provide negative feedback and can be downright rude and condescending. The culture is varied, it is like grade school, there are little groups of people that stick together. If you don't find/get accepted by a group, no one will have your back. The hardest part is having to deal with other coworkers that push extra work onto you without consequence. Some of the people here can get away with anything and are praised, while others work very hard and are encouraged to stay quiet or be seen as a complainer. The seniority system is by hours worked, it isn't the best or worst system but it has major flaws by losing good people in favor of sub par workers that have been here longer. It is nice to serve the clients but at the cost of ones sanity and overall well-being, I recommend finding someplace else.

I did the same thing every day, there was not much creativity,  things that I learn, was from the mistakes that others made. There were a few cooks that would come to me for advice on how to make sauces and Asian dishes. 

There were a few co-workers and chefs I respected but for the most part the others were lazy and just did enough to get by.

General manager and Chef managers looked out for themselves, didn't help other chef or cook when help was needed.

Regional and District Managers hardly came around.

Hardest part about working at Bon Appetit was keep control of my emotions, I had to deal with bad food handling practices, immature adults, supervisors that did not know how to supervise, lazy and slow workers, and not having enough work space, equipment, and staffing.

I asked for a promotion for 4 years, was told when a position opens up. During that time they hired at least 20 new chef managers.

The most enjoyable time I had was when I first started at Bon Appetit, the Chefs then would let me be creative with recipes, when they left it all stopped. The next best thing was the day I left.

Real Chefs need not apply.  They will bait you in with promises of a lofty title and job description, and after dragging their feet for 2 months during the hiring process, you will end up as a "Chef Manager" is a dining hall serving gruel and trying to wrangle an unmanageable staff.  Upper management is a joke.  You will never have a solid job description, and you will constantly be yelled at for not doing your job, with regards to things that were never part of your job description.  They insist that they do not use recipes because they are unnecessary.  No consistency.  Its all really very sad.

Only perk is somewhat normal hours.  Unfortunately this seems to attract laziness in mgmt.  I actually worked with another "Chef Manager" who would arrive at work, announce that they didn't feel like working today and park their butt at a desk, only to spring up when his superiors walked in, and would immediately start pointing fingers.  Seriously, unless you are desperate, do not work for this company.

If you do interview, just ask about GE-3.  If they explain it thoroughly, that should be enough to let you know that you can do better elsewhere.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Cook 3 salaries reported	$16.33 per hour
Caterer 1 salary reported	$21.50 per hour
Food service worker 29 salaries reported	$30.54 per hour
Grill cook 1 salary reported	$18.50 per hour
Barista 1 salary reported	$33.00 per hour

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