restaurant staff

shift manager

assistant restaurant general manager

assistant general manager

cook

Noodles & Company

Overall depending on the management on the shift can be fun and fast paced, Which makes a day go by quick. They will train you on one thing and once they notice you got the hang of other things on your own , They don’t seem to appreciate it they just seem to demand more once you’ve stepped up you better stay that way. And don’t expect anything good to come out of that except more stress on yourself. People calling out means sometimes one person is just running back in the house which ideally it should be 4 people during rushes for BOH. I didn’t get an interview meal, a few people hired after me also didn’t get interview meals so if this location says that and you actually care about that feel free to mention it since it’s in the job posting. As for a rate of pay $15-$17 an hour potentially that’s completely bogus, the shift leaders might make that much you do keep any credit card tips made on your shift as for cash tips you don’t get to see those they save those for random surprises like donuts before the dinner rush which sucks if you never work that shift  but your tips helped buy those. Prepare for the enthusiasm and welcome to wear off Rather quickly, once you’ve been there about a month and seem to know in and outs, Managements true colors come out. They take their own personal anger and frustration and stresses out on employees during rushes they might as well have a child running the store. Management does not take an unbiased approach if conflict arises Especially when they weren’t even there. The employees that work the hardest definitely are shown the least amount of appreciation at this location. Sometimes life happens and if you’re a few minutes late but still get your job done and even often stay later past your end shift time, (due to people calling out or last minute burst of orders) Don’t stay late it gets you nowhere with them they do not appreciate it. This is the employer if that will continue to point out every little flaw and mistake. Or simply wake up on the wrong side of the bed and decide to take it out on their employees. The turnover rate for the store lately has been ridiculous, upper management an even area management has a total disregard for The employees that actually have integrity for the job, management can do as they please whether it’s socializing during a rush with a customer/ old friend. Or being the only ones that actually get to take a five or 10-15 minute break to go out to their car for “certain recreational activities”, That clearly they need in order to be a nice functioning respectable manager. One day management is a happy go lucky bouncing off the walls the next day they’re walking around looking grumpy snapping at every little thing, you never know what you’re going to get when you walk into the store. In all honesty days were management greeted me with a good attitude often came as a surprise the longer I worked there. Not all the management was so terrible some great in fact. The higher up you get , Management could care less about anything other than meeting their labor goals and they will yell at you for accidents, yet do the same thing purposely to make their times look good which is a total double standard. You could straight up tell them you need to eat some thing, Or you’re feeling dizzy, or you have any kind of issue that should be noted And you still will not get a break, often if you do take a five minute break you will be greeted with absolute negativity due to the rest of the shift workers being under extra stress just from taking a couple minute break because they really never have enough people on any given shift, a lot of it is to save labor costs because a lot of employees have personally complained about that some employees get five days straight sometimes even eight, still making the same amount they were paid when they got there meanwhile other employees that can do the same job will get two days a week. It makes absolutely no sense.

 And if you speak up or Voice any of your concerns weather you need a break to breathe or eat or just be for a moment, Or even if you need to do something differently that day Because Certain things wear your body down physically, they will totally disregard it, also if anything happens as far as a manager disrespecting another employee it comes down to “he said she said” and they will believe the manager, even if the manager‘s lying and you decide you will not agree to their description of what actually happened you still don’t even have the freedom to do that because they would simply send you home if you don’t tell them they’re right and apologize , there’s really no option to go personally to HR and discuss it, the area manager will step in with a preconceived notion of how they feel about it based on what they heard before they even spoke to you. Not to mention while trying to get that sorted out If any of your coworkers ask what’s up or what’s going on your manager will probably against normal HR protocol, Tell you all about it or at least their version of it, and then while you’re still employed there and haven’t even quit they might even spread the rumor that you quit, Until they get caught in that lie. I feel really betrayed by the general manager there especially after trying to stand up for them when the area manager belittled them one day To the point where this general manager definitely showed they were visibly feeling a little defeated. The morning and incident like this happened I was also asked how my general manager treats me and told to respond honestly. This was after My manager personally was disrespectful, unfortunately I learned not to bring kindness to the table be straight up professional because in the end telling them they treat me great Got me nowhere, the response from the person who asked me this was more on the side of not believing me and slightly belittling the general manager at the same time, hence why my manager seemed pretty defeated that day. I’ve never worked for a place that had such a total disregard for their employees that actually show up and work hard and stay late just to make sure they’re not leaving anyone else hanging. It could’ve been a really great job but the management can make or break a whole team. The turnover rate is crazy, my last day there I found out someone else was already planning to quit before the month is over this is right after they fired somebody for making a simple mistake and they can’t really afford to be firing people especially with someone else in that position planning on quitting originally halfway through my training my trainer quit. With the right management this place could be a great place to work but currently I do not recommend it to anyone unless you’re a strong general manager trying to take over and turn things around for the better. The mental stress alone  is worse than the physical demands they put on one person daily. Not to mention some people get tons of free food all throughout the shift, then they totally disregard some people that have medical conditions, if you bring up anything you have concerns about you can expect management to make it seem like nothing because they go through the same thing, your managers you signed up for the job if you want the people below you to go through the same extreme stress as you that is clearly responsible for your attitude at work you should probably pay a little bit more or show some sort of appreciation and also not throw people under the bus. Also don’t for a second think that every bit of management doesn’t talk behind the rest of managements back they’re all two faced. If you want a job to just go make money and actually be treated like a human being this isn’t a job for you.

When I started it was a fun, homegrown company to work for. Were there downfalls, sure; but my coworkers were great, staffing was great(had enough people on so that you were busy, but not overly worked), and management was awesome. They clearly outlined career growth within the company could look like. But things started to change a couple years later. They evolved into a company that puts profit above people(even though they advertise they are a people first company). I'm going to break it down to the buzzwords they like to use.

First let's start with the mission: to always nourish and inspire. At first, I felt they were doing this. On some aspects they are doing this, just not with the employees. In the last 2 years I can say I very rarely if ever felt nourished and inspired by the company. In fact my soul slowly started to die. I was not receiving feedback from my supervisor and when I would bring up issues I needed help with they would be brushed off like they were no big deal. Then all of a sudden they became big deals and were being held against me. Great way to make someone feel inspired to work there. I felt like I was receiving no development and left to drown, eventually getting in trouble for drowning. On more than one occasion I got in trouble for reaching out for help, despite being told that's what they wanted from me. I was left very discouraged.

Core Values: mainly the we care and we love life. 
These are an absolute joke. Work/life balance is a joke. Without work/life balance it is hard to love life. It is hard to love life when you are left drowning. Everyone I worked with constantly complained about how much they hated the job and how much the job was effecting their life. When I would bring up my dissatisfaction with my supervisor I would either be told get over it or that everyone has the same issue. My supervisor made me out to be the problem so often that I felt worthless as a person. 

Now onto "we care". Simply put no they don't. In fact, I could bring a lawsuit against them for rights violations if I truly wanted to, but I'm over them and moving on with my life. I believe heavily in karma and I'll let her sort it out. Anyways, several comments made to me were ADA violations. I went on FMLA to deal with some medical issues and everything was fine until literally the day after my FMLA expired. I was demoted the day after my FMLA expired. According to FMLA I was to return to my same position with the same pay as before I left for FMLA. Any caring company would not make comments that violate ADA or violate FMLA. Caring is helping picking someone up when they have fallen down. Caring is being compassionate. Caring is putting people first, not the company and not your own feelings. 

At the end of the day Noodles is a glorified McDonald's, but tries to cover up this fact by using nice sayings to try and cover this up. At least McDonald's knows they are not the best place to work. Not Noodles. They may have been voted one of the best places to work, but a dirty little secret they won't tell you is they only sent the survey from Forbes to GMs and corporate employees. Pretty hard to get a true census when not every employee is invited to take a survey to determine this.

The overall job is easy once you get used to it. It may seem complicated but team members always ensure you’re learning and will never get frustrated with you; always willing to help!
Pros:
Good pay
Stable hours (I had open availability so my hours averaged 25-30; 5-6 days a week)
Day off request are cool as long as you request them off in a timely manner you’ll always get the days off you want.

Cons:
This isn’t a chick fil a or canes so expect some really slow days or days that will be busy one moment then dead the next. You’ll have to be really creative in finding things to do to occupy yourself that are work related specifically if you’re working foh since our responsibilities our limited.
As I mentioned we do experience our fair share of rushes especially on weekends even on a Monday during lunch hour it will get pretty busy. It can get overwhelming and sometimes you’ll be the only one up front once you’ve learned both foh stations, which will make it hard.
Customers can be annoying and rude but that’s to be expected. With that being said sometimes I felt the company valued customers over the employees. They’d always want to satisfy the customer rather than taking our side...
 Environment: again, friendly co workers but one thing I didn’t care for was the constant gossip or talking about one another I would witness. I never engaged in it but sometimes I felt we weren’t on the same page a lot and people would talk about the manager, a co worker or anyone who did something they didn’t like. It was nothing malicious but why not talk to the person directly instead of talking about them to other co workers?
There’s no favoritism here. Closing was a nightmare on busy nights. If you get rides expect them to be waiting for you bc management never seemed to care when my ride was waiting outside for me past my shift. Sometimes I would leave an hour later than I was meant to. There were always register issues too like the register would stop working and they never seemed to get the problem fixed which was frustrating for me and the customers. The place hasn’t been here for that long yet all the equipment is old and would cause problems for us sometimes making us have to close the restaurant and/or go home early. These occurrences were rare but be aware that it could happen.
Finally, as far as team work goes it’s required for everything to run smoothly. The only issue is once you become good at everything they’ll start to leave you alone up front without any help but go assist the back of the house. I’d be taking orders, bagging them, trying to help people who were picking up, etc. It would get overwhelming and I sometimes wouldn’t get help until it was too late. Then they’d get snarky and say “why didn’t you tell me to come help you” like you can clearly see I was struggling up here by myself...but anyways I could handle being up front by myself  but it’s the principle of the situation and I sometimes wasn’t always able to multitask without making a mistake or getting into it with an impatient customer or even food delivery person. In the end I recommend working for this company and location bc despite the negatives I mentioned the positives outweighs them and it’s a great first job or job in general!

A typical day of work includes: putting away orders, setting up the restaurant, making sure the team in in the right place, having a back up plan if things go ary, taking temperatures of all the food and sauces to make sure they're in range, getting people on breaks, delegating cut-work and second responsibilities, being a rock for whoever seems to be struggling at a given time, making sure labor and sales are in line with projections, cutting people if they're not, placing any orders, writing the prep list,  counting drawers, counting the bank over to the PM manager, and making sure the restaurant is set up for success at the end of the second revenue.

The most important thing I learned at Noodles is how to stay calm and think on my toes. It's hard to work through a problem and not let emotions get in the way, but it is possible. I also learned a lot of other things like budgeting, writing projections and using those projections to run the shift, multitasking-probably the second most important, and I learned how to work around people with all sorts of personalities.

The management is very poor at noodles and I have found that they break a lot of HR rules. It wasn't always this way, or it was and I just didn't notice. As of late, I feel more like a tool and that the higher up you go the less responsibility you have. There is also little chance of advancement. They always seem to say they want you to advance, but deny you the opportunities when they come along. I really have little nice things to say about the upper management at this time. I will tell you, that my boss is terrible and her boss allows it to continue.

I love all of my coworkers. There are one or two out of 32 that I could maybe do without, but its completely based on their work ethic and not them as individuals. I could make a list of all of their names and give you things they are good at and things they are bad at, but generally all of them are good workers and great people.

The hardest part of my job is dealing with all of the stress and having nobody to lean on. My boss is decently lazy and unwilling to adapt to anything other than what she knows. It's hard to motivate her to do things. She's more of a "say-er" and not a "do-er" and I am the extreme opposite. I like to get things done. She also likes to point the blame and yell at me like I am her own child. Which is completely unprofessional. Her and the Area Manager are very close and talk on the phone several times a day. If things don't get done and the Area Manager finds out about it, the lashing comes to me. Then I get stressed and there's not much I can do but conceal my emotions until I get to go home and work out. 

The most enjoyable part of my job is my job. I really LOVE my job completely and I am good at it. I like having an endless list of tasks and trying to find the time to do them while running a restaurant. I love a good challenge and I feel that every day is a challenge for me at work. The people at work are fun to work with and the restaurant is always busy so there's always something to do.

The noodles I work at has been pretty good up until about the summer.

They were very flexible with my busy schedule and the pay is rather decent (9.00/hr with a .50 raise every 6 months) for a High School student. The work you do is also pretty Simple in my opinon. However I had coworkers who struggled with basic cleaning or sanitation. I think I was sometimes the only person who would remember to change out Sani-buckets and wash hands after bussing tables. But I guess that's just what happens when you have people with their first job ever at 16.

The workflow for Front of House is weird and I'm honestly not a fan of it although I can manage to do it very well. They have 3 stations based on what register you're assigned to. There's also a chart for procedures. Although the managers tried to enforce it as much as possible and I did my best to follow it rarely was it followed and I'd find myself forced out of my task to Serve and pack orders to be on the secondary register taking orders while the primary register forces me out of what I'm doing because I had to focus on my secondary duty of bussing tables for 5 minutes and they didn't have a customer and didn't want to do their secondary duty of cleaning a window or welcoming customers or whatever excuse they wanted. 

But sometimes I'd be scheduled with people who would follow procedures and things would run rather smoothly. Although I don't think it's best to assign the person serving trays and packaging to-go orders to also be bussing the dining room handling people's dirty dishes. It means that this person has to wash their hands between switching back to their main task and involves either a lot of hand washing or a lot of customers staring at dirty tables. 

The main thing that's getting me looking for another job: 

Management was pretty good. Had great GM and Assistant GM who were understanding and Shift Managers were great minus some employee and coworker drama here and there that I honestly could just ignore fine. But things kinda took a change once summer started. They overhired on employees DESPITE a lot of us who had been there for a while were already planning on having more hours once summer started. Instead of being able to work 20-25 hours a week we all are only at the same (if not less) 12 hours a week. Some even working only 8 I believe. As much as I would've liked to stick around I can't afford it needing to pay college Tuition and save up rent to move out of my situation and parent's house. The second thing, the management keeps on talking about making me a manager and promising 14/hr. I talk with the shift manager who's leaving and find it's really starting at 10.75 for a while and they're considering a few others as well so it's totally a tactic to keep me there because I know for a fact I'm a higher-valued employee being one of their older staff and doing a good job at what I do.

Otherwise experience working there is great. Just not getting paid enough nor getting enough hours for my life's goals and they're trying to keep me because I do my job right.

I worked at the Noodles and Company in the UTC mall in San Diego, CA for only about a month, and it was a huge mistake

So the job is basically a quick paced, busy kitchen, cook job. With how chaotic the work environment was along with the the demand for total attention to detail made me quickly feel underpaid with their salary being only 50 cents higher than the San Diego minimum wage. On at least 4 occasions they gave me consecutive closing and opening shifts, which means I would close the Saute Line by as late as 11:15 pm sometimes, and was expected to show up to the place the next morning by 7:00 am. The manager would also consistently micromanage, and went out of his way to talk down to his employees. Right when I was hired I was basically warned about him in one way or another by all the employees, and two employees that were on their two week notice when I joined the team had told me that the reason they quit was because of the manager. 

So I recognized quickly that this was not a sustainable job position, with it being extremely energy consuming while still essentially paying minimum wage, not to mention that it was a toxic work environment. I also happened to be going through some family and home stability issue that more or less forced me to quit without notice. 

Now if this was a normal horrible boss story this is where it would end, but it was not over. I got lucky, nailed an interview, and got told I was hired at the place next door in the mall, Kazanori. I had been given hours and put into the system. Three days before I started my hours at Kazanori I was sent a text by the hiring manager that their was a complaint from a recent employer that allegedly came up in a background check. They left me unanswered for about 5 days, asked if I worked at Noodles and Company, then told me I was terminated before I even started. I did not include any of my cook experience on my application or resume since it was short lived and insignificant to a customer service position, so on its face, this made no sense to me, so I looked into the background check claims, and I asked around, and discovered that my manager had literally walked next door and told the owner of Kazanori that he shouldn't hire me and that I'm an unreliable employee.

This happened off the books, and my former manager actually went out of his way to ruin a low paying job opportunity that I was desperate for, while gaining nothing in return from it. I genuinely believe that the manage of this particular Noodles and Company has some serious mental problems that deem him more than unfit for his position. I only believe this due to the obsessive actions he had taken toward my future job opportunity. When it comes to the management, frankly, unprofessional and unethical is putting it extremely mildly.

When i first started at Noodles & Company in 2016, I thought working in the food industry was gonna be stressful and overbearing but i was heavily proven wrong. Both the team members and managers i was introduced to at the time were super welcoming, funny, friendly, and a blast to work with. It even came to the point were i felt super comfortable working with them within a month and found them to be my good friends outside of the workplace. 

All was well until new management had rolled in during the beginning of 2017 and it felt as if the Noodles staff went from a family to a group of "replaceable" workers whom are required to clock on, do work, and clock out. Nothing else in between. Management began to intertwine personal relationships within team members into the workplace, strong workers are often taken advantage of (negatively), enacting acts of favoritism, contradictions concerning company policies (criticizing team members for broken rules while breaking the same rules themselves), and other things in that relative nature. The evolution of the workplace was night and day and not only is this apparent to myself and other workers, but guests have also commented on such change through word-of-mouth and through company-distributed customer surveys. Workers began to feel very "on edge" and nervous around management, thus making the atmosphere of both the workplace AND restaurant in general, very cut throat in a sense. For example, making one mistake as a well-established worker entitles you to a "dumbed down" explanation as to why you're wrong in a very condescending and disrespectful light/tone. Basically an insult to your intelligence. With the average age demographic being about 18 years old, this is totally unnecessary. I could go on further but i'd honestly be dishing out a 5 page essay on the matter.

 Aside from poor management, this was a great first job where you get a taste of almost every important aspect of the workplace environment. Customer service experience, the importance of teamwork, mild accounting experience (mostly for managers), etc. Although i've had my fair share of negative experiences with management at Noodles, i would still recommend this as a first or next job for any young teen/adult whom wants a stepping stone into a fast paced work environment that is enjoyable and very knowledgable.

Noodles and Company started out rough, got better, then got rough again. Where I work, we are one of the top 10 busiest locations. You need to be fast and restock whenever you are able to. Don't be lazy and show up on time and you have job security. 90% of customers are pretty chill, 5% are extraordinary, 5% are terrible or want free food or meat.

PROS:
- You will not lose the job
- Some benefits are offered
- Plenty of hours you can work.
- Start at $10/hr
- Scholarships are offered. I won the national $3000 one and it was great!
- You can play your music from time to time, provided it is appropriate and not too loud
- 70% discount on food if you are working that day up to $7, 30% if you are not working that day.
- 100% discount on food up to $12 if you work there for 3+ years - even off duty.
- Free soda from fountain drink station
- Twice in the five years I've worked there my drawer has been off $100+ (someone stole it). The company took the hit for me; saving me $300.

CONS:
- Raises are 3-20 cents. I'm not kidding. On that note, if the menu price goes up, your employee discount does not.
- Our area manager should be fired; we have gone through 4 general managers in 5 years because they don't meet her expectations which are unrealistic.
- Shelving has been taken away and not replaced, making it harder for us to store spare products and supplies.
- It is difficult to leave on time due to lack of staff
- No benefits for winning employee of the month, and you don't get recognized for doing a good job. 

Overall thoughts: I have worked in the business for 5 years. It is good if you need gas money and I unexpectedly won a scholarship which funded a semester and I'm grateful for those blessings. We have excellent General Managers who care about the employees and are extremely flexible with your schedule. However, our area managers (not in store) have gotten to be mean and don't recognize that our store is suffering from lack of staff due to their rules like not having a trash can by the register, hiding our bus bins behind shelving, having shelving be eliminated for being dirty and not replaced, moving our products every month, keeping some dishes away from the dish room, and not allowing raises to happen even though the company is profitable. The fact of the matter is nowadays you can get a $15/hr job at Target to do half the work and stress that Noodles and Company provides. I used to recommend here, but I will be leaving soon.

Typical work day at noodles begins with you clocking in usually about 10 or 11 am. your working from 11 am till 6 pm the work flow is steady for about an hour and a half your bouncing between serving, cashier, greeting, busing and washing dishes. then the lunch rush comes in you still have to do all the previous tasks with not much help because you may have a max of 3 people in the kitchen one being a supervisor and you a manger and one other front house worker who is supposed to just be a greeter and cashier however after about 15 mins the manager disappears into the back while the rush is still going on so now it's you and your coworker upfront and you have do the job of 3 people in short amount of time. The kitchen supervisor trys to help up front a bit which 2 people in the kitchen, doing saute, silver bowl, stove, appetizers and expediting and the supervisor helping you leaves for the day in 30 mins. so time passes 30 mins pass the kitchen supervisors leaves guests are still coming in not as much as before so that steady flow is coming back however  the dining room is a mess and dish is backed up so you focus on cleaning. it's about 2:15 now you go on back to work on dish and you see the manager siting down checking her E-mail and on the phone with another noodles in the area. after 15 mins of dish washing cleaning and the occasional meal order. now you know your co worker leaves at 5 and you leave at 6 the manager gets off the phone and the computer finally and tells you to clock out early. so after all  you only work half your hours. If this only happened once it would understandable but this happens every time you work, It gets annoying. To make it worst you check your schedule this week and see this the only day your working this week and next your not even on the schedule. and that's how it is for several of your co workers as well. to qualify for the benefits you have to work a set number of hours or be a supervisor and unfortunately when your only getting 4 hours or less every other week your not getting anything. the only few good things are you occasionally get free lunch, the managers and supervisors are nice for most part and your co workers are decent.

Pros:

Friendly Work Environment: Noodles & Company prides itself on fostering a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere. The team is generally supportive, and there's a strong sense of camaraderie among the staff. This makes shifts more enjoyable and less stressful.

Flexible Scheduling: For students and part-time workers, the flexible scheduling is a significant advantage. Management is usually accommodating when it comes to balancing work with school or other commitments.

Employee Discounts: One of the perks of working at Noodles & Company is the generous employee discount on meals. It's a nice benefit, especially if you enjoy the menu offerings.

Training and Development: The company provides comprehensive training for new hires, which includes food preparation, customer service, and safety protocols. There are also opportunities for cross-training in different areas of the restaurant, which can be a great way to develop new skills.

Opportunities for Advancement: For those looking to build a career in the food service industry, Noodles & Company offers clear pathways for advancement. Hardworking and dedicated employees can move up to supervisory or managerial roles.

Cons:

Fast-Paced Environment: Like many restaurant jobs, working at Noodles & Company can be hectic, especially during peak hours. This can be stressful and physically demanding, requiring a high level of energy and stamina.

Inconsistent Hours: While flexible scheduling is a plus, it can also mean inconsistent hours. Some weeks may have more shifts than others, and there can be last-minute changes that disrupt personal plans.

Pay and Benefits: The pay is competitive for the fast-casual dining industry but may not be sufficient for those looking for higher compensation. Additionally, benefits for part-time workers are limited, which can be a downside for those not in full-time positions.

Customer Interactions: Dealing with difficult customers is part of the job, and it can be challenging. Patience and excellent communication skills are essential to manage these interactions effectively.

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Assistant restaurant general manager 222 salaries reported	$51,230 per year
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Cook 60 salaries reported	$16.90 per hour

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