restaurant general manager

assistant restaurant manager

assistant manager

manager in training

kitchen manager

Gen Korean BBQ

I trained at one location. Probably not the best around, but it gave me a big impression. Korean BBQ is nothing like a normal restaurant. That was the first thing that intrigued me.

Most employees didn’t really put much effort into the labor of the job. A lot were too intimidated by the thought of running more than one or two trays at a time. So it gave me a personal challenge to put out as much food, in least time, as possible. It becomes fun, and a great way to show off. 

Then, out past training, we open a new location. Rated the best in the region, actually. From there, I learned to work all around the building. And the pace and demand for every restaurant role is so high with this company, the management wasn’t ever too strict on “don’t do this or that”. For example, I mostly did food running, with occasional bussing or serving shifts. But honestly, the pace and demand can be so much, that a lot of people would chicken themselves out, and not even show up to work. So for the ones that stuck it through everyday, we often practiced operating more than one role at time. So I would jump from running trays, to bussing a table, to helping the dishwashers, to helping the food line catch up on tickets. And the management usually didn’t give me any problems over it, because it was for the benefit of the whole restaurant, especially since I could do it all correctly and accurately.

Overall, the actual work of the job can be excessive and hard, but it will toughen you up and make you a killer service employee. 

As far as culture - this is probably the most favorite job I’ve ever had. Admittedly, working a shift can be dreadful, simply because things can get so exhausting. But everyone’s got a “all hands on deck” way of carrying things out. We all suffer together, which just made everyone that much closer. This includes managers too. Often times, managers can just chill and do not a lot of labor, when it comes to other restaurants. At Gen, the managers get down and dirty with the rest of the employees, and will help you as long as they are free and you ask them. Mostly everyone worked to support one another, and had a lot of fun while doing it. 

Yes, there were lots of times I didn’t want to clock in. There is a lot of running back and forth, squeezing and fitting yourself into tight spaces, and running endless amounts of food, minute for minute for minute. But it was the social side of the job that made it all worth it. Your coworkers become more than your coworkers. They become fellow comrades, ready to take on the days battle with you (certainly feels that way). By the end of the day, you just want to go and grab a beer or food, and certainly, everyone else is thinking the same thing. Gen life had revamped and revitalized the social zombie in my soul, and brought lots of great times to my life.

If you don’t mind a little elbow grease, a challenge to work toward, continuous movement - this place should work for you. And to top it all off, the tips can be phenomenal when compared to other places. You get your tips the day of, and often times, servers pull in great numbers. So that’s a huge benefit. Other than that, as far as benefits go - there isn’t any for anyone that isn’t a manager. No free meals (though sometimes, they may bend the rules and let you get some popcorn chicken and rice or something like that). No discounts or anything like that. That would be awesome. But I guess profit margins are tough with korean BBQ.

Anyway - I recommend this place for anyone to give a shot. But be warned that this job isn’t for most people, and we had more employees leave than any that have ever stayed.

Be prepared to work extremely hard with no time for bathroom breaks, a ridiculously small amount of tips, and terrible management. 

Many shifts are undetermined shifts meaning you could come in at 2 pm and leave any time they want you to leave, that could mean you could work anywhere from 1 hour up to 8 hours (its rare to work this long its usually a very short shift). 
Many times I have driven to work and they made me leave with only an hour of work and a forced lunch break which is a waste of time. 

They are also very unprofessional with your schedule, there have been a few times where I have driven to the restaurant to come to my shift at my set time, and they have told me to go back home and come back in two hours because it isn't busy enough for me to clock in at my designated time. 

The tips are also very low considering the amount of work you do, I make anywhere from around 15 to 40 dollars in a night for an insane amount of work with running back and forth with little to no break. If your a food runner, host, busser, or kitchen staff, be prepared for extremely small tips. The servers make anywhere from around 20 to 80 dollars a night (sometimes more depending on the days) which is better but still very low considering the amount of work you do. 

There is also no automatic gratuity tip for large tables, meaning that a table of 20 could leave a 0 dollar tip and you come home with basically nothing. There are also no discounts for workers to eat there. 

Be prepared to get dirty, this job requires you to clean most of your shift and you get raw meat, sauces, and lots of nasty things on you for the entire shift, also be ready to smell everyday after work, you will smell like meat and sweat after every single shift, this is a disgusting and dirty job with no benefits. 

If you want to be a server be prepared to stay as a food runner and do essentially free work for an undetermined amount of time. They force all food runners to be "server breakers" meaning you cover every servers breaks. This means that I am essentially a server for my entire shift but I do not get server tips or any extra amount of tips. there are nights where I was serving tables for my entire shift and still got food runner tips and only made 18 dollars for 7 hours of work as essentially a server. Also be prepared to not get promoted, there were many food runners that worked there for a while (including myself) that were excellent at their job, only for management to hire a new stranger to be a server, or they called another GEN restaurant to hire one of their servers, instead of promoting one of us to become one.  

Lastly, management is very unprofessional and harsh, I have been yelled at and scolded for not being fast enough even though they understaffed us for many days. Also don't bother putting in a two weeks notice, I put my two weeks notice in and was immediately put off the schedule without notice, even though my manager asked and told me to write down when my last day was (which was two week from then), they screwed me over and immediately took me off the schedule with no confirmation even though I was a good worker and was professional considering what they do to me. 

Some things worth noting if you decide to work here:
-Expect chaos. After two weeks I started developing that familiar ominous feeling you get every time you walk into that door to clock in and deal with constant dysfunction. Run far, far away if you can. If you can’t, accept it cause that’s the only way you’ll handle working at this establishment.
-Be prepared to work at an insanely fast pace with minimal support from mgmt. Being sat 2-3-4 tables simultaneously without warning is a common occurrence here and it is expected you will be able to handle everything in stride (taking orders, running food & drinks, bussing plates & tables, etc). Due to company policy, guests are seated immediately once tables are cleared, giving servers zero time to prepare. This snowballs throughout the shift until the end. Don’t bother asking for time to take a break and regroup, as you will be reprimanded.
-No free employee meals here, you must pay for your own plate. To date the only restaurant I’ve worked at that doesn't supply their own employees with meals after a shift. A serious indicator of how much this corporation values their staff.
-Support staff runs considerably thin here. Especially during lunch shifts, it is common for one or two servers to work the entire restaurant with no runners and only one busser present. Service with guests, as you can imagine, suffers exponentially during these times.
-Servers are not allowed to process checks, only managers can perform this duty. Be prepared to wait 20-30 minutes at times for checks to be ready, especially when the managers are called into the office for meetings with upper mgmt during service.
-There is a significant push toward selling the Premium menu, to the point that managers are called into meetings and pressured by upper mgmt whenever sales do not reach a certain benchmark. Upper mgmt is clueless and does not realize that this location is not a tourist destination compared to Vegas or Hawaii, and thus local residents have no desire to upgrade their menu option. Plus the "Premium" menu they sell is gimmicky and inferior compared to many local KBBQ spots in the area.
-The only restaurant I know that focuses primarily on menu sales compared to alcohol sales, a fundamental flaw in business practice. A shame considering they have huge potential with their pretty soju cocktails and flashy shareable drinks.
-FOH meetings are unproductive, points of concern brought up by servers are constantly shot down by mgmt and met by demands to "do more and do better" and "maybe this place isn't for you if you can't handle the work". High turnover rate between FOH staff due to the unwillingness to change and accommodate servers more efficiently.
-The "GEN way" is singlehandedly the sorriest excuse I've been given for how things are the way they are. An utterly laughable and pathetic explanation for a joke of a restaurant franchise.

This place will wear you down and burn you out. Work-life balance is nonexistent if you're looking for that type of thing. Make friends with your FOH staff cause they'll be the only ones keeping you sane in this chaotic environment. Steer clear of this place if you desire harmony and structure.


Gen KBBQ is a very popular and busy restaurant. It is common to make at least 200-300 dollars in tips on a weekday dinner shift. Working here has really taught me how to be more efficient. My communication, time management and decision making skills have improved significantly. 8-10 hour shifts seem to fly by.

The best aspects about the company is that it mostly employees young 18-25 year old servers, hosts and other front of house staff. It is definitely a fun place to work for students and young adults. I have become very close with the staff at my location, we not just co-workers, we're a family.

Now for the Negatives... Corporate management sometimes sets unfair expectations for all employees; managers included. It sometimes feels like they don't really care about their employees. It seems like they only care about profits. Labor is a major area of concern at Gen. They put pressure on management to cut people from their shifts early which puts more burden on the remaining staff. There are no free meals or discounts. Its common that you don't get your break within the first 6 hours of our shift due to how busy it gets. This is not cool. We work very hard and we don't even get 4 plates of meat or one round for lunch.

The turnover rate for employees is very high at this location. This is mostly due to management not being able to communicate with employees properly. It also has to do with the stressful work environment on the busiest days. 

One of the worst aspects of working at Gen is closing. Servers have to clean everything top to bottom because of all of the smoke and greese the restaurant produces. Vents, grill bowls, tables, benches, chairs, and floors have to be cleaned intensively every night. It's common to spend an extra 2 hours after closing just to clean up. It can definitely drain your body over time. The company is too cheap to hire a cleaning crew to clean the vents, and floors (which takes the most amount of time)

I started working at my location 2 weeks after it opened. I worked 8 days straight, every day was at least 8-10 hours. The training staff were arrogant, condescending and sometimes verbally abusive. When the corporate managers come to overwatch our location they can be very cold, demanding and unsympathetic. They often yell and criticize you unfairly.

All in all Gen can be a very fun place to work, the people you meet at Gen can definitely make it all worth it. I've gained many valuable skills that would elevate an average server to an excellent server. Most of the time (if corporate is not around) the daily work environment can be pretty chill. Gen provides employees with a lot of hours and the tips can be very good. Most Gen locations are always hiring.

Manager regularly orders employees to end their shift early when things got "a little empty" in the restaurant. To my dismay 95% of the time, this was immediately followed by a surge in crowds. The reason why you see complaints about customers waiting for absurd periods of time in a restaurant that is not even at 10% capacity is because of this very reason (since seating people down in a large KBBQ restaurant with quite literally ONE server and NO busser was not a smart move). This is coupled with people clocking into work was past their scheduled shift. As the host, pretty much every shift (about four hours) I would have to help bus. To have to bus an entire table alone, carry the array of dirty dishes to the kitchen, unload all of them into various stacks, do constant grill changes, as well as setting up the banchan, plates, AND help serve them drinks takes an absurd amount of time. Often is the case that the server simply can't allot time to bussing tables since their section is jam packed with seated tables with the busser having been let to go home or a busser not having been scheduled at all. I would have to end up doing this because the waiting list constantly grows and the only area I could seat people was in a section of only eight tables. To seat a party in a section unoccupied by a server, I would have to ask permission to. The frustration that customers often unleashed onto me was understandable. It was ridiculous. I think the most frustrating aspect of starting as a Host is the horrendously small percentage of the tip pool we are given. With MULTIPLE servers on a given night, they each could be given a cut of a couple hundred dollars. Working as the only server on a night, I would have been surprised to see $10 waiting for me. I often receive $5-7. The bussers who do one part of the many duties I attend to can easily receive $30 during a regular shift. I'm not surprised the turnover rate is so high. Being a host at GenKBBQ would have been a great learning experience for me to work in a fast-paced environment, except conditions that were unnecessarily made stressful could have always been avoided, and the pay compared to the duties I did was not appropriate.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I gave 3 stars cause the tips were great and a lot of my coworkers are really good people. Sadly tho like most restaurants I’ve experienced, management is horrible and that’s me saying it nicely. As a server, best part was the tips at the end of the night. But the never ending stress of being overworked and doing almost the impossible with no help due to understaffing and people calling out all the time was affecting my mental health and made it not worth it. Prepare to be slammed with multiple tables at the same time, each table demanding 50 different things that you have to go get yourself and bring to them and customers want those things instantly by the time you do all that other tables grills are starting to burn or already are burning and you have to go change those grills and put in new orders for them. Expect food runners to give your meats to the wrong table. Expect complaints galore, expect the so called cooks to not know how to cook white rice, expect to not get any proper training, expect all the hostesses to look miserable and give horrible customers service to guests before they’ve even sat down. Just keep smiling, just keep saying everything’s going to be alright, just 4 more hours of this and I can go home, lol good luck 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Dang I think I already answered this. Understaffed, impossible to do job and give great service due to so much work and no help.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Laid back, playful, general manager was very inappropriate and unprofessional. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Typical day is my boss doing nothing except trying to get guests in and out as quickly as possible while he does nothing else except inappropriate pranks while I’m getting sat 5-6 tables at the same time and trying to do everything as quickly and as efficiently as possible while trying to give great service too and hoping to find time to drink some water.

You get paid minimum wage just to overwork yourself and get your car broken into 2x a month which management won't do anything about. Gen takes out 35% from the tips you made, you have to tip out your runner, and you have to declare your tips which means its taken out of your paycheck due to taxes. Breaks? What are breaks? You rarely get to take a 10 minute break so imagine taking a 30? Managers will roll their eyes at you for requesting a 10. Your 30s will most likely be given to you when you least need it, for example, when you just clocked in. You have ZERO benefits. No discounts on food and the most you're allowed to do is eat a salad during your break, but since there's no break room you have to eat it in the storage room or outside. On your days off, if you want to eat here, you have to first call in and ask a manager for permission. Try not to feel sick and get injured at work because they will MAKE YOU STAY, even if you dislocated your knee. You don't get proper training so it's the type of job you have to learn on your own. If you're in school and have an early morning class, I suggest not working nights. You'll probably stay till 2am bussing tables, cleaning vents, grills, chairs, seats,  windows, mopping, sweeping, and resetting the whole entire table.  Yelp reviews mean everything to them so if there's a bad yelp review about you, you'll probably be "punished" by not being able to serve anymore. The managers do not want to help. If it's a busy night and they see that their employees are under a lot of pressure and are backed up, instead of trying to help out by at least changing grills or running food, they'll instead yell at all the employees and put more pressure on them saying they need to work faster. Take pictures of your request time off, most likely they'll lose it. Good luck getting someone to cover your shift, you'll probably have to pay someone to take it since they're always short staffed.

As a server at a mid-range all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ restaurant, the experience was both rewarding and challenging. From a customer service standpoint, the atmosphere was lively and fast-paced, with a lot of action at the tables as guests cooked their own food and enjoyed the experience. I loved engaging with the guests, helping them understand how to use the grill, and ensuring their needs were met throughout the meal.

One of the key responsibilities was keeping an eye on the grills, making sure they were at the right temperature and that customers had enough charcoal or gas to keep things going. It was also important to be quick when refilling banchan (side dishes) and making sure the meat orders came out in a timely fashion. The all-you-can-eat concept meant I was constantly running between tables to keep up with refills and helping guests with any special requests or questions about the menu.

While the atmosphere was fun, it could get a little chaotic during peak hours. Sometimes, there was a bit of a wait for refills or for the kitchen to bring out additional orders, which could lead to some frustrated guests. But on the whole, the team worked together well to stay on top of things, and we had a good rhythm when it came to clearing plates and checking in on guests.

The most rewarding part was when guests were happy with their meals and the overall experience. There’s something special about helping people enjoy a meal that involves cooking their food right at the table. Plus, seeing the smiles on customers’ faces as they experienced Korean BBQ for the first time or returned for another visit made it all worth it.

Overall, being a server in a mid-range all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ restaurant can be a bit hectic, but it’s also a lot of fun. It’s a great job for those who enjoy fast-paced environments and have a passion for delivering excellent service while making the dining experience memorable for guests.

Although I enjoyed my time at Gen it is only worth it to work as a server there. You get paid minimum wage for the CRAZY amount of work and standards they want you to do. It is a regular thing to be stressed out through your entire shift. There is hardly down time. Gen made me fear working at restaurants. I've been with them for a long time, I am very loyal to the company but that doesn't mean its the greatest place to work at.

This job leaves me and my coworkers emotionally and physically strained. Theres a saying working for gen. GEN LIFE- if you get hired there, there is no doubt its like you sold your soul to them. Even if most, if not all of us, are part time workers. You hardly get recognized for your good work because you have to make yourself stick out from the many coworkers you're going to have.

Its NOT for everyone. I do not recommend staying if you don't have any of it down by the first week. Pressure at Gen is extremely high. But Gen did teach me a lot of life lessons you won't learn anywhere else. The people you meet there will forever be an amazing experience. Workers there are genuinely great people, and everyone works really hard to get to where they are. So respect people if and when you get hired. They mean well for the restaurant and for you as well to prepare you with your time at Gen. Listen to instructions carefully.

As I said, the pressure of working at Gen is really high, the highest of any company or restaurant I've ever worked at. But they are extremely successful and intelligent. They become better and better. There is no easy way for them to make it an enjoyable experience to be employed there, but it doesn't mean they're not trying. Management is always trying to find ways to make working there better for us, and I greatly appreciate that.

There are many things different between working at a normal sit down restaurant versus an All You Can Eat, the biggest of which is the constant need to put in and deliver food to the tables. Instead of a set course and single delivery, there was an average of 3 or 4 drop offs to every table (add the same amount of dishes to clear every drop off). Secondly a typical server at a normal restaurant works on 4 to 6 tables during their shift. At Gen, I worked 8 to 12 tables daily. These two things have a very large compounding effect, but those who can overcome these challenges have a very good chance to prosper. Because of the rapid environment I was thrown into, I learned and improved upon many skills including prioritization, up-sell, (persuasion in general), quick memorization and recitation, and building customer rapport. 
My managers were competent, most having been servers for Gen before, and understood the servers side of problems while still being able to criticize constructively and give good advice. The culture of the restaurant at this location was very much tied into the work culture. It was something my co-workers, managers, and I all cultivated. It was close, friendly, and competent. 
The hardest part of the job was dealing with completely unreasonable customers. There was a point where I came to check up on another servers table and a man got physical assuming I was his main server. 
Despite this the most enjoyable part of the job were the customers, especially regulars. Regulars came in almost weekly and asked for me by name, some would ask me when my next shift was or if I could work on a specific day to be their server for a birthday party or some other celebration. They made my time working there more enjoyable and definitely more meaningful.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Restaurant general manager 23 salaries reported	$79,457 per year
Assistant restaurant manager 19 salaries reported	$21.24 per hour
Assistant manager 18 salaries reported	$21.69 per hour
Manager in training 13 salaries reported	$21.75 per hour
Kitchen manager 9 salaries reported	$21.33 per hour

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