dishwasher

steward

restaurant manager

customer service representative

bartender

Rocket Farm Restaurants

A shift at Marcel typically starts with family meal and restaurant set up. Preshift uniform check. Team wait system with front wait and back wait. Most new hires begin as back wait and earn the opportunity to advance although the tips are divided 50/50. Learning fine dining culture and techniques keep the job interesting but not all are as invested as others. Being paired with a partner of differing skill or style can create challenges and unwelcome stress. Learning to assess others strengths and weaknesses was a plus. Fine tune multitasking and flow of service and communication. Management is one of the more problematic parts of the establishment. Being dependable, supportive, knowledgeable, proactive and motivational are things one expects from managers but unfortunately those traits are rare commodities in leadership at Marcel. Erratic emotional states, condescension, double standards, politics and gossip, gaslighting and passive aggressive bullying are in abundance. The culture is general civil and team oriented. The staff rely on each other to compensate for lack of leadership. The hardest part of the job is learning and mastering product and techniques, polishing your table presence and cultivating memorable guest experiences being professional impressive and being talked down to by managers that can't do your job or know the job or product. The money can distract you from the disappointment.

I worked at Superica Cary and was one of the longest standing employees. Overall, the corporate structure of the restaurant is suffocating and manipulative, and the money is not worth your time. Corporate managers pride themselves on creating an environment that is based on teamwork and family-style support and inclusivity. However, whenever they would come to our store, their teamwork was minimal and their “guidance” focused on nitpicking and micromanaging. On the other hand, the store managers and team members were great leaders, coworkers, and friends, but were unable to properly support each other based on the unrealistic expectations and demands of upper management. On top of that, and almost most importantly, the pay is completely unreliable and the job postings here on indeed are being used to lure in perspective employees under false pretenses. You will not be making $8/hour unless you become a “captain” which is nearly impossible to achieve. Otherwise, the bartenders make significantly less than the servers (not even averaging $100 per person on the weekend shifts) and the servers only make enough money to pay their bills if they put in insane hours. They used to pay minimum wage for doing sidework, which takes hours, but they recently took that benefit away in order to cut costs. I was taken for granted after putting blood, sweat, and tears into my two and a half years of working at Superica Cary, and don’t want that to happen to any others that genuinely enjoy working in this industry. 

There are many aspects of this company that I wish I would've known about before accepting a job. They have a completely subjective "point system" that allows them to drag out a raise as long as possible. If they want you to progress they'll give you 3 "points" for something that someone else would only get one. There is no standardization and everyone has their own way of doing things which is terrible for consistency. On-the-job training is not a priority so you better be able to figure it out on your own. Their "classes" are completely geared towards front-of-house, to the point where the "culinary class" consisted of watching someone cook one steak for 40 minutes when we are expected to cook steaks in less than 20 minutes for hundreds of people for months before taking the class. They also give you a quiz at the end of the class along with the answers if you want them. This saturates the company with people who don't really know what their doing. Restaurant level  management blame things on corporate as an excuse for not making changes or doing things the right way. They completely botched helping their employees with unemployment during the pandemic, leaving us thousands of dollars in debt to the state. They hire temp cooks and do little to nothing to make sure they know what they're doing. If you have passion for cooking or have any experience at all, this is not the company for you. 

Typical day is admin in the morning, making sure the staff shows up, more admin, making sure the staff is dressed appropriately, and a large part of my day is documenting staff for infarctions. 

Have been learning more about operations outside of the restaurant, which is super helpful. 

It can be a bit disorganized at times. Things seem to change rapidly and the changes are to be implemented flawlessly when they do occur. Sometimes expectations are a bit unreasonable from the executive level. 

As a manager, expect to work around 65 hours a week. This is usually because you will be filling voids of the staff. It's been tough in restaurants and often people will no-show or call out last minute. 

I do feel that often I am more of a babysitter than actually running the restaurant. I feel helpless at times because there is not a lot of support because there are fires elsewhere in the restaurant group as a whole. Employees feel entitled to complain about issues and will not take accountability for their own actions. Seen a few managers be let go because staff did not like them. 

Other than that, I do like my job, though it is tough but the pay is very good. 

I recently worked at this company for a little over 2 years. What started off as a decent job quickly went downhill. This job is all the worst parts of a corporate job, with none of the benefits. Be expected to run all your (and others!) food and drinks, bussing all your own tables, and insane amounts of opening and closing sidework. This would not be an issue if the money was good, but it is not. Serving can make you a decent-ish amount, however you end up tipping out a lot of it. Bartending here is not worth it at all, splitting $300 average in bar tips between 4 people is not a sustainable income. There are plenty of other jobs out there where you won’t be taken advantage of and micromanaged by higher management that likes to ‘stop by’ just to tell you every little thing you’re doing wrong while sitting on their laptops all day. The only plus I can give this job is the in store management was very supportive, and I have great relationships with the other staff members, other than that don’t waste your time doing the amount of work of 3 people with 1/2 the amount of pay you can make at only other restaurant. 

If a company promotes that they are a “family” and “take care of their employees” literally run. If you are a server used to making a certain amount of money I wouldn’t recommend working here. Tip out is outrageous, money is super inconsistent. Super slow on weekends especially you’ll get a little 30 min pop and spend the rest of the shift walking around looking for something to do. Some management is decent, overall bully energy. Never worked at a place where the same people were getting so many HR complaints and still nothing would be done. More drama than high school and mind you everyone is well over the age of 20. Oh and if a customer uses inappropriate language to a women, management will continue to serve them, you are not safe.  

What is the best part of working at the company?
Compensation  is competitive in the field 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Long hours,  high volume without appropriate structure. Lackluster management 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
High stress . Culture was hit necessarily driven at that location. Every man for themselves

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Walk in to a lacking setup from the brunch/lunch rush. Get slammed without staffing through the dinner rush. Close the restaurant with temp dishwashers or no dishwashers.

The food itself is wonderful and people enjoy the restaurant. There's lots of large groups that come through town so it is busy even on week days. 

The culture however could be better. By no means is it a bad company to work for but theres problems. When looking at a company the biggest red flag I look for is turnover. Unfortunately, it seems that is a huge problem at the Optimist. From managers, chefs and servers it seems we can't keep anyone longer than a few months! 
Another big concern to me is safety. Our valet has been robbed recently, along with lots of break ins in the near by lots. Theres no security or sense of care. 
   

I always loved all of my coworkers but the company seems to have an overwhelming written attitude about how to treat people or handle situations that was never handled that way. One of their motos is “We serve the person who serves the guest” and I don’t really think that’s true at all. I worked there for a few years and I rarely saw that put into play. It’s just another crumby restaurant cosplaying as something else tbh, if you drink the cool aid you can ignore it or dodge it for a while but it catches up to everyone it seems. 

I though I knew a lot about food and beverage before I started at RFR. They taught me so much about new cuisine and wines. It was great to have the knowledge I needed to help create great guest experiences. If there was something that you personally needed education on, there are internal classes designed to grow your skill set or one one with mentors and managers. It is amazing when you feel confident with your guest and it shows. Thank you RFR for a wonderful experience.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Dishwasher 174 salaries reported	$13.02 per hour
Steward 102 salaries reported	$13.00 per hour
Restaurant manager 31 salaries reported	$54,758 per year
Customer service representative 6 salaries reported	$10.63 per hour
Bartender 1 salary reported	$23.94 per hour

Working at Rocket Farm Restaurants: Company Overview and Reviews

Rocket Farm Restaurants

Rocket Farm Restaurants Ratings

Popular jobs at Rocket Farm Restaurants

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected