line cook

host/hostess

cook/dishwasher

dishwasher

line cook/prep cook

P.F. Changs

- Like any restaurant it is a fast paced environment with high expectations from guests and management. You either do really well and keep advancing up the chain, or you fail and have no way forward. 
- If you make a mistake, it is usually incredibly hard to come back from. 
- The expectation is a professional environment, but there was a lot of drama caused by management, pitting employees against each other or taking a fall from corporate because lack of accepting responsibility.
- Training is on you. They will have a mandatory training period but it is not nearly long enough or cared about by trainers. You have to learn a lot very quickly and adapt to the high bar set by management.
- For future employees that may struggle with handling people no matter the persons attitude, I dis-encourage you from applying. If there is a very unhappy guest, no matter if it is your fault or even the restaurants, they have the ability to go right to corporate and file a ticketed complaint. It could even be made up with no evidence that the situation actually occurred and will be held against you.
-There is a four ticketed system, if you have 4 complaints to corporate about you, you will be terminated. No questions asked.
-You do have right to a closing interview.
- While Tucson is a University city, most staff are young college students.
-Hardest part of the job, will be maintaining a friendly environment with your fellow staff. The job will get very rough, very fast and that will cause tension with everyone. One wrong move can cause a chain reaction and will be held permanently by some individuals.
-The most enjoyable part of the job, is that there is a family meal. However it is only held within a 1-2 hour period, and if you work during that time, you may not have to access to it.
-Each manager handles a different set of staff. If for one position, let's say host/hostess, and you have an issue with a scheduling error, if the manager that handles that position is not there, the problem doesn't get taken care of. 
-There is also an issue where they will schedule you overtime because the managers do not talk to each other. So one manager will schedule you as a dishwasher for 15 hours and the other that handles serving will schedule you 30 hours. That means they scheduled you for 45 hours but you will be unable to work them because they do not want to pay you overtime. You will get in trouble for coming in on over scheduled hours that they scheduled you for.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Definitely the FOH interpersonal culture. Any job comes with stresses, but being she to lean on your coworkers when stressed is not a luxury, it’s a necessity! Good servers are able to put on different masks for different guests to facilitate empathy and maximize tips. In the same way, when of the floor, PF Chang’s servers utilize that mask to interact with one another, often exaggerating their own egos humorously and some of us even used improv acting as a vent.

As such, instead of fading smiles for our guests, we brought genuine positive energy to the tables, if not the content behind it.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Being scheduled for slow shifts, which is inevitable for every restaurant. The shifts need coverage. With overtime being a precious commodity, only to be used for emergency coverage, and the vast majority of your income coming NOT from OT, but from tips; eating up your 40 hours with sure shifts eats your potential income. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Stressful, but fair. Can be like either grade school in its playfulness or high school in how cut throat it can feel. Hard work is rewarded with meals, gift cards and, in some unique cases (meaning me), with being given OT privileges and priority. The bad employees are just annoying, but the good employees are great! The recognize how their coworker’s individual well-being equates to the collective well-being, this social, financial and psychological help are readily available OUTSIDE of company programs. The company itself raises money by selling PF Chang’s pins and the proceeds go to any PF chang’s employee that has experienced crisis, hardship or loss. The employee can apply for this themselves or, as is more often the case, coworkers nominate and apply on their behalf.

There’s no culture like it! 

5 out of 5; would definitely have a psychotic break here again!

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A slow build up to rush capacity, with that time being used to keep stock items, condiments and utensils filled. An hour during rush where the flow of guests slows right before you think you’re going to be overwhelmed. Cuts and section closes begin and closers work a smaller rush with larger sections. Side work, payout and, god willing, a trip to the bar that is staffed by PF Chang’s regulars and provide extra fine service with a discount and you spend half of the days ridiculously high earnings on THEIR tip.

Great day, from start to finish!


If you're looking for something fast paced and active, this might be the job for you. When I say that I mean you literally won't have time to stop and take a breath before you are faced with challenges and roadblocks. 

Expect that the only way your section is going to be sat is fully and all at once, and don't forget that protocal is greeting each table within 30 seconds. Once you've managed to greet all you tables have fun trying to find a place to ring in your orders as most often somone else will be at a computer entering their various orders from getting tripple or quadruple sat.

The challenges don't stop there cause now that the order is rung in you have to wait potentially 15-20 minutes on average for your appitizers (which normally take 5-10 minutes on average), sometimes shorter and sometimes longer, and you have to coordinate that with an ever chaotic kitchen that might push your entrees out faster than the appitizers. When entrees do end up coming out after, expect them to take even longer (I've seen tickets take an hour, when they should only take 15-20 minutes, on days where they weren't busy). 

But while that may seem like a long time to wait, you'll be kept active, spending all of that time finding cups for your drinks, plates for your food, or ramikens for your extras as the management seems to stuggle with keeping a constistant sock on items. Not only that, but they constantly blaim the serving team for not having enough of anything. 

It is such a challenge to work when half of your responsabilites are explaining to people why their food/drinks are taking so long. And as much as you can make up excuses or even tell them the truth, they still see it as your fault. It is embarassing when you have to explain to people that the chefs didn't want to make their food cause it was "too complicated" or "not important". People sitting don't want to hear excuses, they want their food, and it reflects in the tips people leave (on average everyone makes below 20% on checks).

The only upside about working here is that the staff you work along side of will truely make you feel like family. Never in a work place have I felt so welcomed, and never have I truely made friendships like I have here. And this even extends to some of the managers which was suprising considering the dynamic. 

I truely wish this place was more under control  because it would be a lovely place to work, but unfortunately nothing opperates properly.

Just another example of a corporate company that cares way more about the bottom line than they do the employees. 
This is made apparent with the low low wages of 2.13/hr for servers relinquishing all accountability of servers wages and compensation, to the consumers that decide the tip. Can we switch to a service included restaurant industry already? Does Europe have to lead us in everything?
 The management cares more about labor and bonuses than the well being of their employees. Gotta get you off the clock, better not go over 40 hours. God forbid Changs pays time and a half on 2.13/hr. And god forbid you give your employees enough consistent hours to be eligible for insurance. 
This location offers no break room, and regardless of how long you are working, the company is not required to give you a break. Furthermore, this company does not do anything to help mitigate the amount of waste and pollution that it adds to the landfills. They don't recycle nor do they educate or foster an environment in which employees or consumers can waste less. 
And as many employee meetings as we have, the hourly employees are never asked about their opinions on matters that directly effect them. The management seems to think that if they base their rhetoric on up selling and annoying customers, that this will translate into more tips. As apposed to giving a guest a great experience that they will want to come back.
The bartender makes drinks, takes tables and does take out. The take out now consists of orders from a company called GrubHub. Do the take out servers get gratuity for the services of the take out server? You guessed it, nope!
There are way too many tables so there is no sense of intimacy or personal space. Just cattle being herded through the troughs. 
As a server, you can make 8 dollars at lunch or you can make a couple of hundred at dinner. This location doesn't have a steady stream of business. 
And the managers will emphasize servers sharing a party of 9+ and then other times you'll be triple sat with way too many tables to give any kind of decent service. Because that makes sense. 
This is corporate corporate corporate. But it's a restaurant, what do you do. 
Now don't get me wrong, the store managers are just following orders. They shouldn't be held responsible for the greedy and corrupt CEOs and the like that continue to make the rich more rich and the poor more poor.

This was my first job. Great place for learning a good work ethic, teamwork, etc. A few things I really appreciated about Changs:

- Fairness of hiring. They give jobs based on a person's willingness to do the work and learn the job. Experience or lack of a criminal background is always a plus, but everyone that applies usually gets a shot at interviewing (I had no work experience). This doesn't mean they hire ANYONE, but they are fair. 

- They allow you to set your availability, and try to schedule based on that if possible. I was in school, so this definitely helped. 

- If you ever find yourself wanting to try out another position within the restaurant, management will give you the chance to train and work in that area. If you're good, you'll get scheduled wherever you're needed for a shift. They value versatility, so go for it.

- Workplace culture. When you see the same faces for 9+ hours a day, they basically become family. For the most part, everyone helped each other out. 

- Benefits possible if full time. 

- You have a chance to promote within the company. They definitely acknowledge talent and diligence. If you stand out or express interest and work hard enough, they'll definitely give you the opportunity to promote.

A few things you MAY have an issue with:

- Rotating management. This might not be a problem anymore, but while I worked there (little over 2 years), there were 3-4 different managers and OPs hired. Our store's performance was low compared to many of the other stores, so I guess higher ups were trying to change that through leadership. Management was also fairly young for the most part, so many of them were still learning to be leaders themselves. Sometimes, this caused conflict. But the store is performing much better now, so I'd say something stuck. 

- Workplace culture. Although it could be family-like, that would also lead to drama sometimes (favoritism, conflict in server sections, unfairness in scheduling, etc). Also, some people just don't like being a part of a team environment (why they chose to work at a restaurant, I haven't the slightest clue), but with that being said, sometimes you might work with people that are only there for themselves. As long as you're willing to be a team player, stay out of unnecessary drama and work hard, you'll have no problems. 

Although it wasn't perfect, I enjoyed my time here. Leaving was bittersweet.

This place WAS a good place to work. Until management had a shift and the stress of three managers having to do what five managers should be doing got to them. They would meet in the middle on time off but they have their favorites. They’ll tell you that you can’t block off availability on some days but then let others have it off. Some people walk out of there after 4 hours of work. Others will have to be there for 6 plus hours for no reason. The Coworkers are awesome and the environment was good. I enjoyed most the people I was around.  Management takes many big tops with no gratuity in hopes you get a good tip. A percentage of the time you will not. There were times they helped but not often and not for everyone. Gratuity is now something they encourage tables to do because it was something I helped fight for. Just be ready to not have holidays off even if it’s extremely slow. Also, be prepared to work till 10 pm on weekdays and 11 pm on weekends for that extra little bit in sales. From condescending comments, being blamed for a mistake they would make and contradicting/ unprofessional criticism, management had their vices.

One situation that happened was a machinery in the back was not properly working. When brought to the general managers attention that I was hit in the head by it, his negligent response to me in front of our host…

“I know it’s broke. I’m sorry, do you want me to rub it for you.” 

Mind this that another coworker had explained to me she had been hit as well in the head and management watched it.

I won’t go without saying management had times where they were good. I have to admit that over the last 8 weeks many people have been unhappy with the unprofessionalism and treatment but for a long time it was good. They were nice, not stressed, helpful, and diligent at their jobs.

All in all, some of the management needs some support from higher ups and need to work on their professionalism.  And that means all the time… not just when the regional manager comes around. Time off is a perk, but be ready to grind out long hours and to be unhappy generally all the time like everyone else there, until things get back to the way it was.

Sure this is just my experience, but in the time that I worked for P.F. Chang's I have worked for 20+ managers, 7 general managers, 3 regional managers, 2 CEO's, and at 3 different store locations, so my opinion should be just as valid as any other on this one. Alpha-centric, male dominated hierarchy fueled by drugs, booze, and sexual innuendos, where rewards are given to those most close or aligned with the one above, and job performance is only acknowledged when the numbers are lower than expected. The message from the top down was consistently: "We do not care about you, Bro. And if that bothers you, leave. We'll have your position filled before you even make it out the door.". Obviously, this is my experience, but it was consistent. The exception was working for someone who had been promoted because of their competence, or their passion, be it food, or drink, or meeting people. The exception was promoting people that challenged decisions, or the status quo. It came as no surprise for me to see P.F. Chang's being offered in the frozen food section of the local Wal-mart. That guy, who made that decision, he's one of the ones i'm talking about. His concern was not with the quality of the food, the ingredients, the hospitality, or the cleanliness of the product he was offering people, even though this was the ideal or the standard by which P.F. Chang's was able to build it's empire, his concern was about capturing the most marginal of a marginal cost (a fraction of a fraction of a cent) and aggregating the recovered costs to represent growth actual revenue, which for anyone still interested translates into using mechanically separated chicken parts in place of the chicken breast, or something as silly as using English leeks in place of Chinese leeks. It's silly, I know, but that notion is pervasive and travels down the chain, into every store, and into more and more of a manager's decisions, to the point that cutting cost, or cutting corners, is evident by the decision to use .75oz of dish detergent rather than the standard 1oz. So go work there if you really don't have a choice, but I would look elsewhere if you do.

First if your willing to do the work your hire for as best as you can and ask to be crosstrained in another area then they will. Second I know it's a up scale restaurant so of course tips are a part of it. But in my personal opinion the servers where I use to work were just greedy. Most of the time I heard them constantly say they only report credit card tips no cash tips which is messed up because the bussers get a percentage of the tip for cleaning up the dinning room while the servers only take orders and hand out food but talk bad about customers and stand around half the time but take home the same amount or more in tips then regular pay. I started as a dishwasher the hardest spot during the busiest season fatherday I closed on my own because people tend to just leave when doing dishes. They should always have two dish washers no matter how good or bad they are cause trash getting the drahma plates cleaning all the dishes and sometimes cooking the rice and chopping the lettuce falls on dish washers. I just think the store I worked at needed a little bit better organization and and a way to collect tips to record properly. Like all tips to be sealed in an envelope. And given to a manager as customers leave instead of employees cause a lot of servers were cheated big time out of the fair share servers were a little conceded with the amount they took home and every one else was just hourly pay no tips but they always was assigned the heavy work load. And they do have food peps in the back for meats and stuff but usually had the drahma people do all other veggie noodle batter prep. So one new position drahma line prep  and runner to restock drahma table take dirty drahma plates to dishes and any back up work better watch on tips and that's it oh the family meal was always the best but sometimes cooks didn't want to make it cause the servers always wanted no matter how busy they were and they do the less work but get the most pay no matter what people's pay rate is.

dynamic atmosphere and always busy kitchen. works long hours. At a restaurant that serves only lunch and dinner, often is the first to arrive. will first take the time to be sure that the kitchen is spotless, as hygiene usually falls to their care. Although usually the first in to the kitchen in the morning, they are not the last to leave, so it’s important that they inspect every work station and make sure that food service can begin. 
when the kitchen is ready to go, they first review the menu. As soon as we knows what is on top for the day, will begin examining inventory to make sure that everything they need for the day’s dishes is in stock. If not, i will advise the Executive Chef on making changes to the menu or they may make substitutions themselves. we can also often place orders for food to come the same day if needed. I'm responsible for both ordering and inventory. Once inventory has been taken, it’s time to begin prep work. Some food preparation may have already been done the day before, but most is done on the spot. two meals need to be prepared at once—both lunch and dinner.
As lunchtime nears, i check the number of reservations the restaurant has, and estimate how much food will be needed for those tables. At this point the Executive Chef may come on duty and the two chefs will confer and discuss any issues or changes to the menu that may be needed. i will then carry out any additional orders that the Executive Chef has decried. 

Once the final lunch meal is served, i immediately begins final preparations for dinner. The Executive Chef is usually very much in charge of the kitchen at this time of day, and as i the dinner prep, his duties begin wrapping up for the day. As dinner begins being served, the Line Cooks take over and the i wrap up the day by again reviewing inventory and placing orders. They may have yet another meeting with the Executive Chef to go over the menus for the coming days, and the Sous Chef will do any advanced preparation that needs to be done for the upcoming day.

I worked here as a bartender. While the experience had its moments, I can't help but feel that the amount of work I put in wasn't adequately compensated, and guests' tipping behavior left much to be desired.

On the positive side, I enjoyed the dynamic atmosphere and the opportunity to showcase my mixology skills. Interacting with diverse clientele and crafting creative cocktails was undoubtedly a highlight of the job. The team was generally supportive, and I appreciated the camaraderie among my colleagues.

However, the challenges outweighed the positives. One major concern was the disparity between the workload and the pay. The bartending shifts were often intense, with long hours and a high volume of customers to attend to. While I understand that bartending can be demanding, the remuneration didn't match the effort and time invested. It felt disheartening to put in so much energy without seeing the appropriate reward.

Moreover, the issue of guest tipping was a constant source of disappointment. Despite providing exceptional service and going the extra mile to ensure a memorable experience for patrons, tips were often below what is customary in the industry. This made it challenging to sustain motivation and enthusiasm, particularly during those slower shifts where tips made a considerable difference.

While I appreciated the chance to work in a vibrant environment and build my bartending skills, the imbalance between the demanding nature of the job and the compensation, coupled with subpar tipping, led to a sense of frustration.

Overall, my time as a bartender was a mixed experience. If you are considering a bartending role here, be prepared for a demanding workload and potentially disappointing tips. If the company addresses these issues, it could create a more rewarding and motivating environment for its bartending staff.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Line cook 35 salaries reported	$20.06 per hour
Host/hostess 12 salaries reported	$17.42 per hour
Cook/dishwasher 5 salaries reported	$17.15 per hour
Dishwasher 4 salaries reported	$19.96 per hour
Line cook/prep cook 1 salary reported	$14.50 per hour

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