team member

shift manager

shift leader

general manager

assistant manager

Daves Hot Chicken

I joined this location shortly before it opened and was initially excited about the opportunity. As someone early in my work experience, I appreciated the convenient location and competitive starting pay, and I was eager to grow with the team.

However, over time, my experience became increasingly frustrating. My shifts were already limited to 3–4 hours, and I was frequently asked to leave early. While I initially understood that scheduling can fluctuate, this became a consistent pattern that made it difficult to rely on my hours or income.

I raised these concerns with the general manager and asked for feedback on how I could improve and contribute more. Although the conversation seemed positive, there was little follow-through. I was rarely given opportunities to train in other positions or expand my responsibilities, despite repeatedly expressing interest in doing so and offering flexibility in my schedule. This lack of development made me feel overlooked and undervalued.

Another challenge was the scheduling system used by the company. The TeamLive app was often unreliable and created a highly competitive environment where employees had to compete for limited shifts. The process lacked transparency, and it was unclear how decisions were made when assigning shifts. At different times, I received conflicting explanations from management about whether shifts were assigned on a first-come, first-served basis or based on staffing needs and employee roles.

Ultimately, the inconsistency in scheduling, limited growth opportunities, and lack of clear communication led me to leave. While I appreciated the initial opportunity, I would encourage management to improve transparency, consistency, and employee development to create a more supportive work environment.

A typical day at work was pure yelling my management. Employees still not understanding how to work even after 2 days of 8 hour training. What I learned from working there was thee regret of working there. The management was okay. the head manager pointed me out many times over small things like making fries. ion know bout the workplace culture. The hardest part of the job was literally nothing but the managers voices, mad annoying fr. The most enjoyable part of the job was the 30 minute breaks and the free employee meals. Overall dont bother working at Dave's hot chicken because they will fire you after 1-2 months of working. how u gon hire 60 people then fire them with 2 managers in 1-2 months. they only kept the employees who didn't know much and the ones with full time hours because they ain't have enough hours for everyone to have. They wont give you the position you asked for regardless if you told them during the interview. there pay system went down right after the grand opening and it was down for 3 months and they said u can keep tips but thats a lie. the tips never got into anyones paycheck until the system was fixed. They dont give you a lot of hours or a lot of days to work. they didn't give me a shift for 1-2 weeks then after my last shift I was fired without notice.  I did get my 30 dollar tip that was owed but after like 2 months. Overall dont work there.

Pretty ridiculous the level of disrespect I received as an employee not through words, but through actions. The management and schedulers in particular was so disrespectful of my time and money. At first they scheduled me so little hours, I’m talking 8-12 hours a week. After about 5 weeks of that, they just simply decided to just never put me on the schedule. For about 8 weeks I had to text the scheduler when I can come in and they’d all just randomly slide me in to work a 4 hour shift like once a week. They hired too many employees to give people real hours, which in my opinion is pure disrespect. 
The reason why I’m writing is a review, is because I’ve talked to people who worked at separate locations 
and they all said the exact same thing.
 I worked in the Long Beach location. I’m not gonna mention the fact when I was hired, they promised the restaurant would be open in the next couple weeks for months and kept repeating that for 4 months wasting our time, because I’m assuming you guys most likely won’t have to deal with that problem of the restaurant opening up.
The work environment in the restaurant was decent, and the employees were all pretty cool. That’s the only positive. On to the next. Peace Dave’s.

It was a new restaurant, so we all got the onboard training from the corporate team and it was well organized and well run with the corporate management, so they started to slowly transition to the actual management team. I was a little confused on who actually the manager was for a while because there was the franchisee or someone important and then like 3 other guys who were all in higher up positions but I never understood what their job title was and they were always around.

I had told them my schedule from the beginning and that stuck, but only for 2 weeks. The rest of the time was given to other employees who had not been there since the beginning and the original employees who were there from the start just began to not show up or quit. 

Breaks were almost nonexistent, the restaurant breaking laws. For the entire 8 hour shift, we only got a 20 minute break and that was our lunch also. Yes, we got a whole free meal, but we had to scarf it down and have time to decompress all within the same short amount of time. If you work for more than 4 hours, you are required to get a 15 minute break, which was not a thing for the entire 8 hours. 

I recently had an unfortunate experience with this company that I feel compelled to share. My hiring process was quite unconventional as I was hired without an interview. While I initially thought this was a streamlined approach, it quickly became apparent that it was a red flag for deeper issues within the organization.

After being hired, I was given a mere two days to prove myself. Despite my best efforts, I was let go after this brief period without any formal communication from my boss. The lack of transparency and communication was highly unprofessional. My boss never explicitly told me I was fired, leaving me in an awkward and confusing situation.

To make matters worse, during those two days, while it was clear in hindsight that they had already decided to let me go, I was instructed to purchase a uniform. This was not only misleading but also a waste of my time and money.

In summary, this company's hiring practices are highly unprofessional, and their communication is severely lacking. I would not recommend this employer to anyone seeking stable and respectful employment.

Management played favorites and was generally incompetent.

For example, the soda machine wasn't operational for about a month and any customer who wanted a soda had to buy a bottled soda. Management couldn't be bothered to figure out how to fix or operate the fountain and left team members to suffer from having to deal with dissatisfied customers. Other supply chain issues included not having distilled water on hand, and resorting to regular bottled water, which can cause unsafe and unsanitary build up in machines that specifically call for distilled water.

Management acted like the mean girl clique at a high school and often acted out of spite, often letting personal biases influence their decision-making. Scheduling was also poorly planned out; some weeks people would work 6 days out of 7 in the week, and the next 1 or 2.

Other team members were fine, like any other job, but you could tell work was taking a toll on them due to the conditions at the store.

All in all, I would not recommend working here.

You punch in on an ipad, you go to your stations, and youre either put to work immediately from taking orders, packaging food or "doing bags". The people there are pretty friendly, most of the employees in front are teenagers, the kitchen are the most friendly staff there. We've created a good community there and though this is all true, the management could not nearly reflect the hard work and kindness of the staff. The managers there are passive aggressive, loud, shady. There isnt a day that passes by that sounds like there isnt drama being spoke about, try to avoid it as much as possible. The work there is not hard whatsoever, sometimes we're so busy that it'll be stressful. Try to maintain a steady head and dont take it out on others. A lot of our employees have left recently, most being high school students that've received way less hours than average or arent being treated correctly by the supervisors. 

Working at Dave’s Hot Chicken was a frustrating experience mainly because of poor upper management and ineffective corporate trainers. While the job itself was fast-paced and manageable, the lack of strong leadership made it difficult to stay motivated and perform at a high level. Upper management often failed to communicate clearly, leaving shift leaders and team members confused about expectations and changes in procedures. This created unnecessary stress during already busy shifts.

Additionally, the corporate trainers did not provide helpful or consistent guidance. Training sessions felt rushed and unorganized, which made it harder to properly learn systems and standards. Instead of building confidence, the training process often led to more mistakes and misunderstandings.

Because of these issues, teamwork and efficiency suffered. Employees were left to figure things out on their own, which slowed down operations and affected overall morale. A stronger management structure and better training would have made a significant difference.

I had worked at daves for a little over a year and there was many issues with my personal experience, little to no ability to move up in the company, and all positions seemed to be picked by who could butter up the management the best or make everyones lives harder by trying  to show "leadership" skills by micromanaging the entire crew on the floor instead of doing their jobs.

 job culture was fun but was constantly fraught with drama and an influx of people who would be taught one station I.E. flouring, spicing, line or register and then would never leave said station as shift leads are expected to uphold very lofty standards and are never given time to actually lead the shift, but rather, sticking to one formula and constantly putting people in the same position every single time instead of doing things like training the staff, every time that help would be needed instead of taking it as a growth opportunity they would take it as a sign that this person doesn't know what they are doing and for them to move back to the position they always have done.

I worked at Dave’s Hot Chicken for about 4 months, and it was one of the most chaotic jobs I’ve had. The management was completely disorganized, and scheduling was a nightmare—shifts would be changed last-minute, and it was nearly impossible to get time off, even with advance notice.

Training was minimal at best. They throw you onto the floor with little preparation, and you're expected to learn everything on the fly. The kitchen was constantly understaffed, leading to stressful shifts and long hours without breaks.

There was also a serious lack of communication between team members and management. Feedback was either ignored or met with attitude. On top of that, favoritism was obvious—some employees got away with doing very little while others had to pick up the slack.

The pay was barely above minimum wage, and definitely not worth the mental and physical exhaustion. Turnover was extremely high, which says a lot.

If you're looking for stability, respect, or any sort of work-life balance, I’d recommend looking elsewhere.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Team member 370 salaries reported	$19.02 per hour
Shift manager 186 salaries reported	$22.88 per hour
Shift leader 254 salaries reported	$18.62 per hour
General manager 147 salaries reported	$82,235 per year
Assistant manager 102 salaries reported	$23.36 per hour

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